The Team
MEET THE TEAM
The Team
MEET THE TEAM
Colin A. Baron, MBA
PARTNER AND MANAGING DIRECTOR
Drawing on over 15 years experience in genomics discovery and translational research, Colin co-founded Chrysalis Biomedical Advisors in 2016. Prior to Chrysalis, Colin served as Senior Director, Head of Global Product Management at QIAGEN and was responsible for driving development, commercial strategy, and marketing for Next Generation Sequencing and Single Cell platforms.
Previously, Colin held numerous positions at Illumina, joining the former Solexa team shortly after its acquisition. During his 6-year tenure, he managed the company’s NGS sequencing chemistry portfolio and led over 35 major sequencing platform launches, ranging from the the Genome Analyzer II to the NextSeq and HiSeq X10 systems. He also designed and developed Clinical & Translational products for Illumina’s BeadXpress Diagnostic platform, as well as Illumina’s premium line of LDT-focused sequencing products.
Prior to Illumina, Colin held several Academic Core Lab management positions at UC Davis, including bioinformatics analysis and clinical tissue and serum biobanking for an NCI-designated Biobank. Colin graduated from UC Davis in 2001 with a double major in Microbiology and Economics. He earned his MBA from the UC Davis Graduate School of Management in 2008.
Colin is an avid traveler, enjoys British dramatic theatre, and loves having his German pronunciation corrected by his 3 year old son.
ROBERT D. COHEN, MBA
Partner and Managing Director
Rob has been in the Life Sciences industry for more than 20 years. He co-founded Chrysalis Biomedical Advisors after 15+ years in product marketing and business development leadership positions at Applied Biosystems, Agilent Technologies, and Illumina. Rob has worked extensively with customers, commercial and R&D teams to identify, justify, launch and support new products and services across basic and applied markets. Most recently, Rob led a team to design and launch Illumina’s Propel Core Lab certification program, in addition to leading the Actionable Genome Consortium - a high-profile, global effort to define standards for clinical tumor sequencing.
Prior to joining industry, Rob spent two years at Front Line Strategic Management Consulting (now Navigant Consulting) servicing life science and biopharmaceutical clients. Additionally, he spent 4 years as a senior molecular biology technician at UCLA characterizing mouse models of lipid metabolism and running the core lab, and at the University of Wisconsin's McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research. Rob graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1992 with a Bachelor of Science. He earned his MBA from the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business in 1999 with a focus in Entrepreneurship and Strategic Human Resource Management. Rob enjoys spending time with his family and playing any sport with a racquet or club.
JORDAN D. STOCKTON, Ph.D.
Partner and Managing Director
Jordan brings a unique mix of technical and commercial experience to the Chrysalis team. Before co-founding Chrysalis Biomedical Advisors, Jordan was Vice President of Marketing at Syapse, serving healthcare providers with enterprise software to deploy and scale precision oncology programs. Previously, Jordan was Director of Marketing for the Enterprise Informatics Business Unit at Illumina where he led commercial efforts to democratize genome-scale sequencing and the analysis of genomic data. In addition, Jordan held the roles of Market Manager for Microarray Gene Expression Products and Platform Manager for Bioinformatics Software at Agilent Technologies. He began his professional career at Silicon Genetics where he launched the GeneSpring software product line, which was foundational in standardizing analytical methods for interpreting microarray data.
Jordan completed his undergraduate studies at Grinnell College. He later received a Ph.D. in chemistry from Georgetown University where he studied the cellular machinery that enables cotranslational protein translocation in the rough endoplasmic reticulum. He enjoys competitive cycling and skiing, and he secretly hopes that his two children will never fully grow up.
CHRYSALIS AFFILIATES
ARSHAD AHMED, mba
FOCUS: Digital Innovation and Transformation
Arshad is a founder of Zaylan Associates, a strategy consulting practice specializing in digital innovation in life sciences and healthcare. Zaylan is a close partner of Chrysalis, jointly engaging on projects in digital innovation and precision medicine. Arshad’s experience in digital transformation spans early research, translational, clinical trials, medical affairs, commercial and patient/physician engagement. He has advised Novartis, Astellas, Philips, Avantor and numerous other companies. He was the Vice President of Strategy and Business Development at Danaher where he and his team developed the strategy and business case for transformative acquisitions such as Pall Corporation which enabled Danaher’s entry into Bioprocessing. Prior to Danaher, Arshad was the founding Partner of Scientia Advisors management consulting (now Precision for Medicine) focused on life sciences and healthcare strategy. Arshad holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois and an MBA in Finance and Business Strategy from the University of Chicago.
PRANIL CHANDRA, D.O.
FOCUS: MOLECULAR AND CLINICAL PATHOLOGY
Dr. Chandra is the Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, Genomic and Clinical Pathology Services, PathGroup. PathGroup is a comprehensive anatomic, clinical and molecular pathology services lab that in 2019 provided in excess of 12 M laboratory tests to 95 hospitals and 1000’s of group practices. Dr. Chandra holds board certifications in anatomic and clinical pathology, hematopathology and molecular genetic pathology. He completed his AP/CP training and fellowships in hematopathology, oncologic pathology and molecular pathology at NYU Langone Medical Center and the University of Texas-MD Anderson Cancer Center, respectively. While at MD Anderson, he served as Chief Fellow and received numerous awards for his research. He has presented numerous abstracts and platform presentations at various pathology meetings and has published peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. Dr. Chandra is considered a national thought leader in Precision Medicine and Cancer Genomics.
DAVID KERN, MBA, RAC
FOCUS: Regulatory
Dave is the Founder and Principal at K2 Regulatory Consulting. During his 25+ years in the life sciences and medical device industries, Dave has held positions in Product Development, Program Management, Alliance Management, and most recently, Regulatory Affairs. Before starting K2 Regulatory Consulting, Dave was Head of Regulatory Affairs at Illumina, where he also served as the interim Head of Clinical and Medical Affairs. There Dave build a global regulatory organization, with offices in China, Australia, and the UK. He also led the regulatory efforts to bring Illumina their first PMA product approval for the Extended RAS Panel Test in 2017.
Glenn George D.Sc., M.S., MLS (ASCP)
FOCUS: CLINICAL DIAGNOSTIC LABORATORIES
Glenn has been working in the clinical laboratory profession since 2002. Glenn was the Director of Clinical Laboratories for a multi-hospital system in Kenosha Wisconsin, a CLIA director for an urgent care center, and a professor of Medical Laboratory Sciences for two University of Wisconsin schools. Glenn also works as an independent consultant for clinical laboratories and as expert testimony/advisor in pathology malpractice cases. His research experiences include transcriptional analysis of select agents, characterizations of antimicrobial peptides, and early biomarkers of graft versus host disease for solid tissue transplants.
Michael S. Sherman, MD, MBA, MS
FOCUS: REIMBURSEMENT
Dr. Michael Sherman serves as chief medical officer and senior vice president for health services for Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, a not-for-profit health plan that has been recognized by NCQA as one of the top health plans in the nation for over a decade. A pioneer in developing outcomes-based payment agreements with pharmaceutical companies that go beyond the historical “pay for pill” approach and tie reimbursement to patient outcomes, he recently signed the first value-based agreement for a gene therapy used to treat a form of blindness.
Jennifer Gardy, Ph.D.
FOCUS: Infectious Disease and Public Health
Dr. Jennifer Gardy is a pioneer in the field of using NGS as a tool to reconstruct outbreaks of infectious disease. She is currently the Deputy Director, Surveillance, Data, and Epidemiology in Malaria for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She leads strategy and investment in data-driven decision making, genetic and genomic epidemiology, and math modelling for improved malaria control worldwide. Before joining the BMGF, she had a ten-year career in academic research, where she held the Canada Research Chair in Public Health Genomics at the University of British Columbia.
BRUCE QUINN, MD-Phd, mba
FOCUS: health policy
Dr. Quinn is a nationally-recognized expert on health reform, innovation, and Medicare policy. He is a sought-after speaker, presenting at numerous healthcare and investment conferences. He is also the author of the Discoveries in Health Policy blog which has been cited in major trade journals, has 100K+ hits per year and hosts 1,000+ articles. He holds an MD-PhD from Stanford University, completed a postdoctoral fellowship at MIT, and is a UCLA-trained board certified pathologist. He holds an MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management in Health, Finance and Strategy.
Viktor Adalsteinsson, Ph.D.
Focus: Cancer Molecular Diagnostics
Viktor Adalsteinsson is the Associate Director of the Gerstner Center for Cancer Diagnostics at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. His research involves developing molecular methods for cancer detection, response monitoring, and genomic characterization, with a strong emphasis on liquid biopsies. Together with his collaborators, he has analyzed over 15,000 liquid biopsy samples. In 2017, Dr. Adalsteinsson was recognized as one of MIT Technology Review’s “Innovators Under 35,” and in 2021, he was recognized as one of Clinical Omics’ “Pioneers Under 40.” Dr. Adalsteinsson holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering from MIT.
STEVEN LEE, Ph.D.
Focus: FORENSIC GENOMICS
Leveraging 25+ yrs of scientific leadership and networking, Steve has been innovating in the forensic genomics space, building and inspiring collaborative research teams to create and test new genomics tools, advance public safety and the next generation of forensic scientists. Steve is currently Professor at Florida International University (2018-present), Professor Emeritus and former Director of Forensic Science Programs at San Jose State University (2003-present). Steve has held several leadership positions including Senior Technical Marketing Manager at Illumina (2012-2016), Director of R&D at MiraiBio Inc. (2000-2009), and Assistant Laboratory Director of the California Department of Justice DNA Laboratory (1994-2000). In these roles, Steve formed and led multiple deep collaborations and initiatives and co-developed strategic plans with leaders in the field executing evaluation, validation and implementation of emerging forensic genomics tools including automation, liquid arrays and massively parallel sequencing. During his tenure at SJSU and FIU, Steve has authored or co-authored over 40 publications, delivered over 200 scientific presentations and has acquired over three million dollars in funding as PI, co-PI or research mentor participant. Steve holds a BS from SUNY Binghamton in Biology, an MS from NYU and PhD from University of California, Berkeley in Molecular Biology. Steve was honored by being selected by peers to serve as co-chair of the 2022 Gordon Research Conference on Forensic Analysis of Human DNA, received the 2019 CHHS Lifetime Faculty Service Award from SJSU and the 2014 AAFS Criminalistics Meritorious Service Award.
Steve spends his free time playing in his four jazz bands (piano and guitar), gardening, tasting new wines and foods, exercising to make room for more, and loves spending time with his wife and four, now adult children and grandchildren.