Victor Simonyi is president and founder of Berkeley BioWorks, an engineering consultancy known for designing and developing innovative, patentable products and custom automated equipment and instruments.

Simonyi, who has more than 15 years of engineering experience in the life-science industry, launched the company in 1997.

His goals: to serve diverse clients of all sizes with top-notch engineering talent and an outstanding commitment to quality and reliability.

Today, clients of Berkeley BioWorks range in size from early start-ups to growing companies to large corporations.

"We take pride in helping start-ups realize their dreams," Simonyi said. "And," he added, "we enjoy freeing up larger clients so that they can focus on science and research while we're glad to do what we do best - engineering."

He views clients as partners, and he is proud that many clients that started as very small start-ups have continued to work with Berkeley BioWorks as they've raised capital and grown substantially.

Prior to founding Berkeley BioWorks, Simonyi worked at a variety of life-science companies as a hands-on engineer and manager. He was the new product development engineer at Sepragen Corp., an equipment company, where he designed automated fluid-handling systems for Chiron, Alpha Therapeutics and other key life-science companies.

Previously, Simonyi was manufacturing engineer at two start-up companies; EP Technologies Inc. and Menlo Care Inc, which both specialized in medical device products and were later sold to Boston Scientific and Johnson & Johnson, respectively.

Simonyi has enjoyed tackling challenges throughout his career. In the mid-1980s, he served as an agricultural consultant for the U.S. Peace Corps in Sierra Leone, West Africa.

Simonyi holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University and a Master of Business Administration from Thunderbird, The Garvin School of International Management.

Simonyi is an inventor on two U.S. patents - one for a DNA synthesizer, the other for a cell separator. Under his leadership, Berkeley BioWorks also has three patents pending.