S. Roopom Banerjee
President and Chief Executive Officer
Mr. Banerjee joined RainDance from Leerink Swann where he was a Director of Healthcare Investment Banking and led the Life Science Tools and Diagnostics sector. Previously, Mr. Banerjee held positions at McKinsey and Goldman Sachs advising Fortune 500 healthcare companies globally on corporate and growth strategy, product development and launch strategy, international expansion, and mergers and acquisitions. He has successfully completed over 50 transactions, including private placements, IPOs, Followons, PIPE/RDs, and fixed income as well as mergers and acquisitions. Mr. Banerjee also worked at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, the Whitehead Institute/M.I.T. Human Genome Project, and at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center. He holds an M.P.P. from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and dual B.S. degrees in Biology and Economics from M.I.T., where he was elected a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Scholar.
Andy Watson
Chief Commercial Officer
Mr. Watson joins RainDance from Life Technologies where he was most recently Vice President, SOLiD Sequencing Product Management responsible for business strategy, market analysis, and product management for all sequencing-by-ligation and single-molecule DNA sequencing systems. Previously, he led Applied Biosystems’ (now part of Life Technologies) capillary electrophoresis (CE) sequencing business. At Applied Biosystems, he also led a number of genetic analysis market and strategy projects that culminated in the acquisition of the SOLiD sequencing technology. Before joining Applied Biosystems, Mr. Watson was a founder of Quantum Dot Corporation (acquired by Invitrogen). He also led the development of technologies and software for large scale DNA analysis at Sequana Therapeutics (acquired by Celera) and at The Sanger Centre. Mr. Watson has been the principal investigator on competitive federal grants and is an inventor on more than 25 issued patents and applications. He holds M.Eng., M.A., and B.A. degrees from King’s College, Cambridge University, England.
Roch Kelly
Senior Vice President, Operations
Mr. Kelly joined RainDance from Synarc, Inc., where he served as Vice President, Clinical Operations. He has over 30 years of management experience, with more than 25 years in life sciences. Mr. Kelly was Chief Operating Officer at Protedyne, a leader in bringing the industrial design for automation philosophy to genome-based drug research. He also was Vice President of Clinical Operations, North America and Worldwide Business Operations for PAREXEL International and was Executive Director of Manufacturing Operations at Chiron Diagnostics. Mr. Kelly holds a B.S. in finance from Miami (Ohio) University, and a MBA from Syracuse University.
Laura L. Deming
Senior Vice President, Product Development
Ms. Deming has more than 25 years of experience in the development of instrumentation and consumables directed at genomics and proteomics research, in vitro diagnostics, cell analysis and therapeutic medical device applications. Prior to joining RainDance, she was Vice President of Research, Development and Operations at medical device startup WaveRx. Ms. Deming has also held senior Product Development and R&D roles at leading life science and diagnostics companies including Cytyc Corporation from 2000-2003, PerSeptive Biosystems (acquired by Applied Biosystems) from 1994-2000, and Millipore Corporation from 1985-1994. She holds a B.S. in Chemistry from Bridgewater State College, an M.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Lowell and an M.B.A. from Worcester Polytechnic.
Darren R. Link, Ph.D.
Co-Founder and Vice President, Research and Development
Dr. Link holds a B.S. degree in physics from Montana State University and a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Colorado. Before joining RainDance, he spent 2 years at Harvard University as a postdoctoral scientist studying soft materials physics in the department of physics and division of engineering and applied sciences. Dr. Link spent 2 years at Tokyo Institute of Technology as a postdoctoral scientist studying liquid crystalline materials. He has received grant funding from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and participated in the National Science Foundation’s U.S.-Japan exchange program for young scientists in Nanotechnology. Dr. Link has co-authored more than 60 peer-reviewed articles and 20 patent applications. He also serves on the Industrial Advisory Board of the Vanderbilt Institute for Integrative Biosystems Research and Education.
Alan Sherr
Vice President, Chief Intellectual Property Counsel
Mr. Sherr brings 30 years of experience in regulatory, corporate, and intellectual property (IP) law, including deep experience in life science tools and diagnostics to RainDance. He previously served as Vice President, Chief Intellectual Property Counsel at Helicos BioSciences. From 2000 to 2007, Mr. Sherr was Senior IP Counsel and Vice President of Licensing at Affymetrix. From 1990 to 2000, Mr. Sherr was an attorney in private practice with leading intellectual property and general corporate law firms including Wolf, Greenfield, and Sacks and Hale and Dorr. Prior to that, he was General Counsel to the Massachusetts Executive Office of Human Services, and a Massachusetts Assistant Attorney General. He holds a J.D. from Boston University, an MSEE from Stanford University, and a BSEE from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.