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FloDesign Sonics Adds Michael Harsh to Board of Directors

WILBRAHAM — FloDesign Sonics Inc. announced it has added Mike Harsh to its board of directors. Harsh served as vice president and chief technology officer for GE Healthcare until December 2014 and led its Global Science and Technology Organization.

“The addition of Mike to our board will have a profound impact on our company,” said founder and CEO Stanley Kowalski III. “Mike has personally been involved with the research and development of acoustic-based products in life sciences. He has the ability to get into the details while envisioning our global strategy. We are delighted to have him join our team.”

Added Harsh, “I am really excited to be part of FloDesign Sonics. Their entrepreneurial sprit is contagious, and the convergence of this unique and innovative application of acoustics to filtration will unleash a new tool in healthcare that can also be leveraged into other industries.”

FloDesign Sonics is currently commercializing its first products — a system to separate and clarify cell culture used in the manufacturing of protein-therapeutic drugs. FloDesign Sonics closed a $10 million Series A round in March 2014. It has also been awarded multiple grants from both the National Science Foundation and National Institute of Health totaling more than $2 million. It has used the proceeds to perform more than 100 trials with leading biopharmaceutical companies while building six prototypes.

Harsh led the global Science and Technology Organization for GE Healthcare, a $18 billion business unit of General Electric focusing its research on the development of innovative diagnostics, healthcare IT, medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient-monitoring systems, biopharmaceutical-manufacturing technologies, and technologies that facilitate new drug discovery.

Harsh began his career at GE in 1979 as an electrical design engineer in nuclear imaging, and subsequently held numerous design and engineering management positions with X-ray, ultrasound, MRI, patient monitoring, and information technologies. He was also the global technology leader of the Imaging Technologies Lab at the GE Global Research Center, where he led the research for imaging technologies across the company, as well as the research associated with computer visualization/image analysis and superconducting systems. He was named an officer of General Electric Co. in November 2006.

Harsh earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Marquette University, and he holds numerous U.S. patents in the field of medical imaging and instrumentation.