Management Team
Bill G. Kachioff, CPA, Senior Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer
Mr. Kachioff is experienced in corporate finance, investor relations, corporate governance and manufacturing accounting and systems. He has over twenty years of life science industry experience, having most recently served as CFO at Althea Technologies, a contract manufacturing organization. He was also a CFO Partner with Tatum LLC, a national Executive Services firm focused on the Office of the CFO where he served a variety of life science industry clients in senior financial management roles. Prior to joining Tatum, Mr. Kachioff was CFO at MicroIslet, a publicly traded biotech company developing cell transplant therapies for insulin dependent diabetes. He was Director of Finance at Cutera where he helped prepare the Company for the commercial launch of its first product and its Initial Public Offering. Mr. Kachioff has also served in a variety of financial management roles at Coulter Pharmaceutical, Vivus and Abbott Labs. He began his professional career as an auditor with Deloitte & Touche LLP.
Mr. Kachioff has a B.S. in Management from the State University of New York at Buffalo and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Association of Bioscience Financial Officers.
Lyle Arnold, Ph.D., Senior Vice-President of Research & Development, Chief Scientific Officer
Dr. Arnold is a biotechnology executive, entrepreneur, and developer of innovative technologies covering therapeutics, molecular diagnostics, and genomics. Dr. Arnold recently founded Aegea Biotechnologies to acquire, develop, and commercialize, next generation nucleic acid technologies. Dr. Arnold also serves on the board of directors of Asuragen, a rapidly emerging biotechnology company in Austin, Texas as well as on the board of Aegea. Previously he was VP, Research at Gen-Probe from September 2003 to October 2009. He has also held senior scientific and management positions at Molecular Biosystems (co-founder), Genta, Synteni, Incyte Genomics, and Oasis Biosciences (co-founder), where he was President and Chief Scientific Officer from October 2001 to September 2003. In addition, Dr. Arnold was a faculty member in the UCSD School of Medicine and a member of the UCSD Cancer Center. Dr. Arnold is an inventor or co-inventor on 36 issued U.S. patents and more than 140 issued and pending patents worldwide. He is the principal inventor of the chemiluminescent Hybridization Protection Assay (HPA) and associated technologies; core to Gen-Probe assays that have generated more than $5B in product revenue. In addition, he has authored more than 50 scientific publications.
He received a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of California at Los Angeles and a Ph.D. in Chemistry/Biochemistry from the University of California at San Diego.
Farideh Z. Bischoff, Ph.D., Vice-President Translational Research and Clinical Development
Prior to joining Biocept, Dr. Bischoff had been a full-time faculty member in the Department of Obstetrics/Gynecology at Baylor College of Medicine from 1994 to 2007. An expert in clinical cytogenetics and molecular human genetics, she has conducted research and focused on clinical assays relevant to non-invasive (prenatal) genetic testing and more recently cancer screening and surveillance. Dr. Bischoff has been a key investigator in the multi-center NIH/NICHD funded study focused on establishment of protocols and investigations into the clinical utility of circulating rare fetal cells as well as cell-free DNA/RNA for noninvasive prenatal genetic diagnosis. She was also charged with establishment and supervision of the molecular cytogenetic pre-implantation genetic diagnostic (PGD) program at Baylor College of Medicine.
She holds a Ph.D. in Cancer Biology from University of Texas Graduate School for Biomedical Sciences in Houston, Texas, with postdoctoral training at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and Baylor College of Medicine. Her graduate thesis project directly contributed to the discovery of germline p53 mutations in Li-Fraumeni Cancer Patients.Dr. Bischoff has published numerous peer-reviewed papers and book chapters.
Philip D. Cotter, Ph.D., FACMG, Vice President and Director of Clinical Laboratories
Prior to joining Biocept, Dr. Cotter was Director of Advanced Molecular Diagnostics at U.S. Labs in Irvine, California from 2002 to 2004. Previously, he was Director of Cytogenetics and Molecular Genetics at the Children's Hospital and Research Center in Oakland, California from 1996 to 2002 and Director of Molecular Cytogenetics at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York from 1994 to 1996. He has published extensively in cytogenetics, molecular genetics and prenatal diagnosis.
Dr. Cotter holds a Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from the Department of Human Genetics at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. He is Board Certified by the American Board of Medical Genetics in both clinical cytogenetics and clinical molecular genetics. He is also a Fellow of the American College of Medical Genetics and a Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of California San Francisco.
Michael Dunn, MBA, Senior Vice President Corporate Development
Mr. Dunn assumed duties as Senior Vice President Corporate Development in March 2011 after serving as a consultant for several months. He has 30 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. Prior to Biocept, Mr. Dunn served as Vice President and Chief Business Officer of Monogram BioSciences, a biotech laboratory specializing in infectious disease and cancer testing, which was acquired by LabCorp in 2009. Mr. Dunn served as Vice President and Chief Business Officer of Aclara BioSciences, a company specializing in microfluidic chips and oncology testing through its merger with Virologic, Inc., as well as Vice President and Chief Business Officer at ActivX BioSciences, a biopharmaceutical company that utilizes proteomics to discover and develop small molecule drugs for major unmet medical needs. Additionally, Mr. Dunn served as Vice President of Business Development at Aurora BioSciences, a company that developed and commercialized proprietary drug discovery systems, services and technologies prior to its acquisition by Vertex Pharmaceutical. Mr. Dunn began his biotech career with various project management and business development roles at the Salk Institute Biotechnology Industrial Associates Studies (SIBIA) and it successor SIBIA Neurosciences, culminating as VP of Business Development. SIBIA was acquired by Merck in 1999.
Mr. Dunn holds a B.A. in Biology from the University of Chicago and a MBA in Finance from the University of San Diego.
Tom Burns, Vice President of Manufacturing
Mr. Burns has more than 30 years of manufacturing experience, including 22 years in medical device manufacturing. Prior to joining Biocept he was Vice President of Manufacturing Operations at Abiomed, Inc. Mr. Burns has held executive positions in manufacturing and operations at Haemonetics Corporation and Boston Scientific Corporation. He has also held manufacturing management positions at Polaroid and BASF.
Mr. Burns has a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Northeastern University.
Kathe Houghtaling, Vice President of Human Resources
Ms. Houghtaling has extensive human resources experience with medical device companies. Prior to joining Biocept, she was Director of Human Resources with Boston Scientific Corporation. Previously, she served as a corporate officer of Interventional Technologies, a medical device maker, and was a member of the committee that conducted due diligence in preparation of the company's acquisition by Boston Scientific.
Ms. Houghtaling has a B.A. from Northeastern State College, Tahlequah, Oklahoma.
Todd G. Johnson, MBA, Vice President of Sales & Marketing
Todd G. Johnson has been Vice President of Sales & Marketing at Biocept since July 2010. Prior to joining Biocept, Mr. Johnson served as Vice President of Sales for Insight Health, a national diagnostic imaging provider, with annual sales exceeding $110 million and a sales force of over 60 sales personnel. Prior to Insight Health, Mr. Johnson served as Sales Officer for Lab Corp/Esoterix, where he was responsible for the sales and managed care contracts of the Western Region with sales exceeding $500 million annually and supervising over 136 sales personnel. Mr. Johnson served in various senior commercial and worldwide marketing manager roles for Ventana Medical Systems and commercial marketing positions for Abbott Laboratories (Diagnostic Division). Additionally, he served in various sales roles at Abbott Laboratories culminating as District Sales Manager. Prior to his sales and marketing positions, Mr. Johnson served worldwide as a military pilot and officer in the US Army.
Mr. Johnson has a BS in Engineering from the United States Military Academy (West Point) and an MBA from Webster University.
Stephen Mikolajczyk, Sr. Director of Research and Development and Principal Scientist
Mr. Mikolajczyk has more than 30 years in research with a wide variety of fundamental protein, biochemical and immunological technologies, including extensive experience with diagnostic immunoassay development. Previously he held the position of Senior Staff Research Scientist/Group Manager, Clinical Discovery at Beckman Coulter, Inc., San Diego. During this time he received the Yamanouchi Award at the American Urological Association for his discoveries of several new diagnostic isoforms of PSA for use in prostate cancer. Mr. Mikolajczyk has more than 50 publications on his research findings in the scientific literature, and holds multiple patents.
Mr. Mikolajczyk holds a B.A. in Chemistry from the University of California, San Diego.