SUNNYVALE, Calif.–- Ernst & Young LLP announced that Mark Fischer-Colbrie, CEO and President, and Rich Ellson, Co-Founder of Labcyte Inc., received the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2013 Award in the Life Sciences category in Northern California. The award recognizes outstanding entrepreneurs who demonstrate excellence and extraordinary success in such areas as innovation, financial performance and personal commitment to their businesses and communities. Mark and Rich were selected by an independent panel of judges, and the award was presented at a special gala on June 22nd at The Fairmont San Francisco.

“We are very honored by this award. It reflects the fundamental impact that the Labcyte technology is having in all areas of life science,” said Mark Fischer-Colbrie. “Using sound waves to move liquids is vastly superior to traditional techniques. As a result, our systems have helped discover new compounds for cancer treatments and improved diagnostics while lowering costs. In the area of personalized medicine, the use of Labcyte systems is leading to the possibility of rescuing leukemia patients whose chemotherapy is not working.”

“From the start of the company in a garage in Silicon Valley, we have made tremendous advancements, with our systems being used by the world’s top pharmaceutical firms,” said Rich Ellson. “In addition to having incomparable precision and accuracy from using focused sound waves to transfer liquids in volumes as low as a billionth of a liter, we have learned how to use sound to analyze the characteristics of the fluid to automatically determine the proper amount of power to apply. This invention makes it possible for acoustic dispensing to become an essential part of all of life science research and discovery.”

Now in its 27th year, the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year Program has honored the inspirational leadership of such entrepreneurs as Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com, Michael Dell of Dell Inc., Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines, Fred Smith of FedEx, Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google, Richard Schulze of Best Buy, Andrew Mason of Groupon, Mindy Grossman of HSN, Inc., Reid Hoffman and Jeff Weiner of LinkedIn, and many more.

As a Northern California award winner, Mark and Rich are now eligible for consideration for the National Entrepreneur Of The Year 2013 Award. Award winners in several national categories, as well as the National Entrepreneur Of The Year Overall Award winner, will be announced at the annual awards gala in Palm Springs, California, on November 16, 2013. The awards are the culminating event of the Ernst & Young Strategic Growth Forum®, the nation’s most prestigious gathering of high-growth, market-leading companies.