TORONTO–Axela Inc., a recognized innovator in protein interaction technology, announced today that Michael J. Treble has been elected Chairman of the company’s Board of Directors.

A Director and member of Axela’s Audit Committee since 2004, Mr. Treble has extensive management and board experience in the diagnostic, pharmaceutical and research arenas, and a successful track record of taking venture funded companies from concept to commercialization.

“We are extremely proud to welcome Mike as Chairman of Axela’s Board of Directors,” says Rocky Ganske Axela’s President and CEO. “He brings wide-reaching experience in marketing, finance and business development, with a track record of value capture from venture based companies. His leadership will be invaluable as Axela executes its mission to become a fully integrated personalized medicine company.”

As COO and Director of Third Wave Technologies, Inc. (NASDQ:TWTI), Mr. Treble was instrumental in repositioning a private R&D focused enterprise to a public commercial diagnostics company. While President and CEO of NimbleGen Systems, Inc., Mr. Treble navigated the genomics based company from start up to commercial phase. NimbleGen was acquired by Roche in July 2007 for US $272.5 million.

Mr. Treble co-founded Genetic Models, Inc. (sold to Charles River Laboratories, Inc.), served as a Director of LUNA Analytics (proteomics technology licensed to Bio-Rad Laboratories), and on the Board of venture backed Gentra Systems, Inc. (acquired by Qiagen NV). Currently President of Ibis BioSciences, Inc., a subsidiary of Isis Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Mr. Treble recently completed an equity investment and purchase option with Abbott with an initial value of up to US $230 million, plus a future sales based earn out.

About Axela Inc.

Axela has commercialized a proprietary technology for real-time protein detection. The company’s products provide life science and clinical researchers with simple tools and reagents to study interactions, expand the utility of traditional immunoassays and access unique categories of diagnostic markers. Participating in the research market provides a pipeline of novel discoveries that form the basis for future multiplex diagnostic offerings. Axela is a privately-held company with operations in Toronto and California whose major investor is VenGrowth Private Equity Partners Inc. For more information, please visit http://www.axela.com/.