Maxygen was founded in 1997 by Dr. Alejandro Zaffaroni, a San Francisco Bay Area scientist and entrepreneur, and three co-founders: Dr. Willem P.C. Stemmer, Dr. Russell Howard and Isaac Stein.
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To accelerate its development of improved biopharmaceuticals, Maxygen acquired the Danish company Profound Pharma A/S in 2000, created by Christian Karsten Hansen and Jan Møller Mikkelsen in 1999.