Charles Daitch

Dr. Daitch is the Founder of Akonni and has served as the CEO and Board member since its inception in 2003. He has 26 years of product development experience in integrated biosensors encompassing a broad range of disciplines including chemistry, biology, biomaterials, engineering, and chemical/biological defense. He manages and leads multidisciplinary teams of scientists and engineers focused on the development of next-generation in-vitro diagnostic devices. Dr. Daitch has experience in developing a wide variety of sensor system products for remote autonomous or point-of-use detection of complex samples employing miniaturized analyte purification, and specialty biomaterials interfaced with microfabricated detection components coupled to a variety signal transduction modalities. He brings strong product development and R&D experience from the NIH/FDA, USDA, Sandia National Labs and the Intelligence Community. In addition, he has commercial senior management experience (P&L responsibility) from PSR/Veridian, CUBRC, HandyLab, and Akonni. Dr. Daitch was recruited by HandyLab Inc., a microfluidics diagnostic company, to serve on the executive management team as Vice President of R&D. Prior, Dr. Daitch launched a biodefense product development facility and business unit for PSR/Veridian Corp., a premier DOD/IC contractor, and led the growth of the operation to 24 employees and >$5M in annual revenue. As the CEO of Akonni he is responsible for 1) setting and executing strategic direction, 2) product management, 3) leading equity financing rounds (>$30M to date), managing capital, financial audits, 4) corporate governance, shareholder relations, 5) leading business development, strategic partnerships, 6) recruiting, mentoring, listening and learning from our exceptional staff, and 7) setting the company’s culture. He has 5 U.S. patents, 24 publications and served as principle investigator on over $20 million in government grants and contracts.