Dr. Afeyan is a recognized technologist and entrepreneur, having founded and helped build several successful life science and technology startups during the past 18 years. A Senior Lecturer at MIT in the Sloan School of Management, as well as the Biological Engineering Division, Dr. Afeyan has authored numerous scientific publications and patents. He earned his PhD in Biochemical Engineering from MIT in 1987.
In 1999, Dr. Afeyan co-founded Flagship Ventures, an early stage venture capital and entrepreneurship firm. Prior to that, he participated in creating and launching six highly successful new ventures. He was the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of PerSeptive Biosystems (NASDAQ: PBIO), a leader in the bio-instrumentation field. He also served as Chairman of the Board of ChemGenics Pharmaceuticals, a pioneer in genomics-based drug discovery that was a spin-off company of PerSeptive.
After PerSeptive's acquisition by Applera Corporation (NYSE: ABI), he was Senior Vice President and Chief Business Officer of Applera, where he initiated and oversaw the creation of their tracking stock subsidiary, Celera Genomics (NYSE: CRA). He has also been a founding team member, investor and active board member/advisor of Antigenics (NASDAQ: AGEN), Color Kinetics (NASDAQ: CLRK) and EXACT Sciences (NASDAQ: EXAS).
Dr. Afeyan currently serves as a Director for Flagship portfolio companies Adnexus Therapeutics, Affinnova, BG Medicine, Bioplex, Codon Devices, Ensemble Discovery, Genstruct, and LS9. He is also engaged as an advisor/board observer with Flagship portfolio companies Epitome Biosystems, Mascoma and Resolvyx. In addition, he is a member of the Boston University Board of Overseers and a member of several advisory boards including the Whitehead Institute at MIT, the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST) and the Board of Governors of Boston University Medical School. He is also a founder/board member of Armenia 2020, an international economic development project focusing on the former Soviet Republic of Armenia.
Dr. Allison is a Principal at ANZI Partners, a transactional firm specializing in acquisitions, strategic partnerships, joint ventures and licensing agreements for the publishing and software industry. She serves as a board member of three mutual funds managed by the Capital Research and Management Company since 1991: the EuroPacific Fund, the New Perspectives Fund and the New World Fund. She has served as the chief business advisor and negotiator for the Harvard Medical School in its publishing and media ventures. In this role she has negotiated major multi-year ventures with both traditional and non-traditional corporate partners, including Aetna, CBS, Cinven, and Scripps Howard.
Previously Dr. Allison served on the Board of Directors of Color Kinetics, a leading LED lighting company, from 2002 and as Chairperson from January 2007 until its recent acquisition by Philips in August 2007. She was Senior Vice President for Development at the McGraw-Hill Companies, responsible for corporate M&A activities and Corporate Planning. In this role she completed over 40 divestitures and acquisitions and had overall responsibility for the strategic planning process. She also held several other positions at MHC including publisher of Data Communication, and Vice President, Real Estate. Her business career began at Data Resources Inc. an economic forecasting and modeling firm, where she was Senior Economist and Vice President, with the responsibility for econometric modeling.. Dr. Allison received a BA from Harvard College and a PhD in Business Economics, a joint degree granted by the Harvard Business School and the Harvard Economics Department. She was then appointed instructor at the Harvard Business School and subsequently Associate Professor in the Harvard Economics Department, where she was responsible for the introductory economics course. She has published numerous articles in finance and economic journals. In addition, an 'Elisabeth Allison Chair in Economic Education' was established at Harvard in recognition of her pedagogic contributions.
Dr. Allison is an elected "town meeting member" and member of the Warrant Committee in Belmont, MA. She is also a member of the board of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (MSPCA).
Brian Atwood specializes in biotechnology investing at Versant. Brian co-founded Versant Ventures after spending four years at Brentwood Venture Capital where as a general partner he led investments in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and bioinformatics. He also has more than 15 years of operating experience in the biotechnology industry, with emphasis on therapeutic products, devices, diagnostics, and research instrumentation.
Prior to launching his career in venture capital, Brian was founder, president, and CEO of Glycomed, a publicly traded biotechnology company. At Glycomed, Brian concentrated on business development and strategic alliances, closing deals with Eli Lilly & Company, Millipore, Genentech, and Sankyo, before leading the sale of Glycomed to Ligand Pharmaceuticals. Prior to this, he co-founded and served as director of Perkin Elmer/Cetus Instruments, a joint venture for robotics automation and genomics research instruments and products later acquired by Perkin Elmer. Under Brian's management, the venture developed and launched the GeneAmp® Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) system, the fundamental DNA amplification innovation responsible for fueling the explosive growth of genomics research. Brian served on the Board of Directors at Pharmion Corporation (sold to Celgene in 2008). Brian currently serves as a Board member at the private companies FivePrime Therapeutics, Veracyte, Inc., Trius Therapeutics, Inc., OpGen, Inc., Immune Design Corporation, PhaseRx, and Clovis Oncology, Inc., as well as public companies, Cadence Pharmaceuticals (CADX), and Helicos Biosciences (HLCS). He is an observer of the Board at ForteBio Inc.
Brian received a Bachelor's degree in Biological Sciences from the University of California, Irvine, a Master's degree from the University of California, Davis, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Peter Barrett is a Partner in the life sciences group and joined Atlas Venture in 2002.
Previously, he was a co-founder, Executive Vice President and Chief Business Officer of Celera Genomics. Within two years of the founding of the company (1998), Celera announced the first successful sequencing of the human genome. Peter helped launch Celera as a publicly traded entity in 1999. He led Celera's strategic alliances and acquisitions and participated in raising nearly $1 billion in capital for the company.
Prior to Celera, Peter held senior management positions at The Perkin-Elmer Corporation, most recently serving as Vice President, Corporate Planning and Business Development. During his tenure, he expanded the life science business units through a series of licensing agreements, partnerships and acquisitions including: Applied Biosystems and PerSeptive Biosystems. Also during this time, Peter co-founded Celera Genomics with Dr. J. Craig Venter and the Applera Corporation management team.
Peter currently serves on the boards of Atlas portfolio companies Archemix, Aureon Laboratories, Helicos Biosciences (NASDAQ: HLCS), InfaCare Pharmaceuticals, IVREA Pharmaceuticals, Stromedix, Vitae Pharmaceuticals and Zafgen. He is chairman of the board at IVREA and Zafgen and lead Director at Archemix.. Previous Board seats include Atlas Venture portfolio companies Alnylam (NASDAQ: ALNY) and Momenta Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: MNTA)
Peter is currently Vice Chairman of the Advisory Council of the Barnett Institute of Chemical and Biological Analysis at Northeastern University, as well as Adjunct Professor at the Barnett Institute. He also serves as President of the Autism Consortium, a non-profit institution.
Peter received his Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Lowell Technological Institute (now known as the University of Massachusetts, Lowell) and his Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from Northeastern University. He also completed Harvard Business School's Management Development Program.
Mr. Higgins is the Managing General Partner at Highland Capital Partners. He has more than twenty years of experience in venture capital and has served as a director of many public and private companies. He is a former Director of the National Venture Capital Association and President of the New England Venture Capital Association.
Mr. Higgins has been an investor in many successful healthcare services, medical technology and information technology companies. Some of the services companies he has backed are Community Health Systems (NYSE: CYH), Mariner Health Group (IPO/acquired), New England Critical Care (IPO/acquired), Renal Treatment Centers (IPO/acquired) and U.S. Labs. His medical technology investments include AVEO Pharmaceuticals, Conor Medsystems (Nasdaq: CONR), Magen BioSciences, Mitotix (Neuer Market: GPC Biotech AG), Origin Medsystems (acquired), PerSeptive Biosystems (IPO/acquired), Pervasis Therapeutics and Praecis Pharmaceuticals (IPO/acquired). In addition, he has also served on the boards of SmartBargains, Staples.com and WordWave (acquired by Merrill Corporation).
Before co-founding Highland, Mr. Higgins was a general partner at a Boston-based venture capital partnership. Immediately prior to entering venture capital, he spent four years as the Executive Director of the John A. Hartford Foundation. He also was the Chief Executive of the Clark Foundation and the Burden Foundation. Mr. Higgins is a former assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce and an assistant to the head of the international division of the U.S. Treasury.
Currently, he is a member of the Advisory Board of the Department of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School and the Advisory Board of the Harvard - MIT Division of Health Sciences & Technology. Mr. Higgins is also a faculty member at the Harvard Business School, where he teaches courses in entrepreneurial management. He received an AB in History from Harvard College and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Mr. Lapidus is an experienced life-science entrepreneur. Helicos is his third life-science start-up. In 1995 he founded EXACT Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ: EXAS), an applied genomics company that develops and markets non-invasive, DNA-based methods for early detection of colorectal and other common cancers. He served as the CEO from 1995 to 2001 and Chairman of EXACT Sciences' Board of Directors from 2000 until the end of 2005. Prior to EXACT, Mr. Lapidus founded Cytyc Corporation (NASDAQ:CYTC) and was President and CEO from 1987 through 1994.
In addition to his entrepreneurial activities, Mr. Lapidus holds academic appointments in the Pathology Department at Tufts University Medical School and MIT's Sloan School of Management. He earned a BSEE from Cooper Union. He has served as a trustee of Cooper Union since 2002. Mr. Lapidus holds 30 issued patents.
Ronald Lowy
President & Chief Executive Officer
Mr. Lowy joined the Helicos Board of Directors in November 2007 and was appointment CEO in December 2008. He has more than 30 years of experience managing and growing technology based global businesses.
As president and CEO of Fisher Biosciences, a division of Fisher Scientific, Mr. Lowy was responsible for 14 business units with more than 5,000 employees in 56 locations in 100 countries around the world. Before joining Fisher Biosciences, Mr. Lowy was president of Global Connectivity Solutions for ADC Telecommunications. He also served as president and Chief Operating Officer at the KRONE Group where he was responsible for all facets of this global business unit. Mr. Lowy spent the first 15 years of his career in operations, technology and general management positions at GE Medical Systems where he was intimately involved with the development and commercialization of Computerized Tomography and Magnetic Resonance Systems. Mr. Lowy earned his Master of Business Administration from the University of Wisconsin and a bachelor's of science degree in mechanical engineering from the University of New Hampshire.
Theo Melas-Kyriazi
Mr. Melas-Kyriazi is Chief Financial Officer of Levitronix LLC, a developer of magnetically-levitated bearingless motor technology. From late 2004 to 2006, he was self-employed, serving as a consultant and director in several public and private companies.
Previously, Mr. Melas-Kyriazi worked for almost twenty years for Thermo Electron Corporation (now Thermo Fisher Scientific, NYSE: TMO), a global leader in providing analytical instruments, equipment and consumables primarily to the life science research market. Mr. Melas-Kyriazi joined Thermo Electron Corporation as assistant treasurer in 1986, and was treasurer from 1988 to 1994. He was President and Chief Executive Officer of ThermoSpectra Corporation, a publicly-traded subsidiary of TMO, from 1994 to 1998. He then served one year as Thermo Electron's Vice President of Corporate Strategy, and from 1999 to 2004, he was the company's Chief Financial Officer.
Mr. Melas-Kyriazi also serves on the board of directors of Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems and several private companies. He received an AB in economics from Harvard College and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.
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