Board of Directors
Management Team
Scientific Advisory Board
Board of Directors
Jerry O’Brien, Chief Executive
Jerry O’Brien has 16 years semiconductor and consumer electronics market experience, having held senior commercial and product development roles in various start-up and early phase high tech companies competing across Far East, US and European markets. Most recently he was Product Marketing Director at Frontier Silicon, responsible across broadcast TV and wireless platforms for mobile handset markets. While Product Marketing Director at Silansys Semiconductor, he transitioned their consultancy design service to a product-based business, triggering the company’s subsequent acquisition by Frontier Silicon. His design and applications strengths were developed at Parthus Technologies, where he led Technical Sales through Parthus’ IPO before becoming Worldwide Business Development Manager for their Wireless Division. Jerry has a B.E. (‘94) and M.Eng.Sc (‘99) from University College Cork and an MBA (‘03) from Smurfit Business School, Dublin.
Kevin Fielding, Non-Executive Director
Kevin Fielding joined Alta Berkeley VC in 2003 and has a 20-year track-record of building and managing technology companies in both Europe and the US. Prior to joining Alta Berkeley, Kevin held the position of President and CEO of ParthusCeva. He also led several successful high-technology start-up activities, including Parthus Technologies which had a successful IPO on the LSE and NASDAQ in 2000, and the StrongARM microprocessor business, acquired by Intel in 1998. Prior to returning to Europe in 1998, Kevin spent 10 years working on several high-tech businesses. He was the General Manager of the StrongARM business in Palo Alto, CA prior to its acquisition by Intel in 1998, and also worked on the original Alpha microprocessor for Digital Equipment Corporation. Before moving to the United States, Kevin worked on high-speed processor design for Philips BV in Eindhoven and in Dublin. He also spent four years working in the research labs at the NMRC (National Microelectronics Research Centre) attached to University College, Cork, Ireland.
Gary Kennedy, Non-Executive Director
Gary Kennedy served as Group Director, Finance & Enterprise Technology, at Allied Irish Banks (AIB) from May 1997
to December 2005, was a member of the main Board of AIB and was also on the Board of M&T, AIB’s associate in the United States. Prior to that, Gary was Group Vice President at Nortel Networks Europe after starting his management career at Deloitte & Touche. He served on the Board of the Industrial Development Authority (IDA) of Ireland for 10 years until he retired in December 2005. Gary was appointed a Director of Elan plc in May 2005, and is also a Director of Greencore Group. He is Chairman of a number of private companies. Gary is a chartered accountant.
Management Team
Jerry O’Brien, Chief Executive
Jerry O’Brien has 16 years semiconductor and consumer electronics market experience, having held senior commercial and product development roles in various start-up and early phase high tech companies competing across Far East, US and European markets. Most recently he was Product Marketing Director at Frontier Silicon, responsible across broadcast TV and wireless platforms for mobile handset markets. While Product Marketing Director at Silansys Semiconductor, he transitioned their consultancy design service to a product-based business, triggering the company’s subsequent acquisition by Frontier Silicon. His design and applications strengths were developed at Parthus Technologies, where he led Technical Sales through Parthus’ IPO before becoming Worldwide Business Development Manager for their Wireless Division. Jerry has a B.E. (‘94) and M.Eng.Sc (‘99) from University College Cork and an MBA (‘03) from Smurfit Business School, Dublin.
Dr. Eoin Ó Nualláin, Chief Scientist
Eoin Ó Nualláin has 20 years experience across the University, Hospital and Manufacturing sectors. He has an extensive background in the diagnostics industry ranging from diagnostic start-up to multinationals, most recently being R&D Manager for the Infectious Disease Group at Trinity Biotech. While in this position he delivered three generations of point-of-care HIV lateral flow tests from the laboratory to the market place. Eoin’s extensive experience of the diagnostics industry includes an established record in the successful development of diagnostic tests according to internationally recognized standards of performance and quality including FDA approval. He has a proven record of developing IP and translating it into protected and approved patents. He has 14 publications in peer-reviewed journals. Eoin holds a M.Sc. (‘84) and Ph.D (‘89), both in Biochemistry from University College Dublin.
Dr. Ian Hayes, Business Development Director
Ian Hayes has 20 years experience in the therapeutic and diagnostics industry, at senior management level. Coming from the UK pharmaceutical industry (now Sanofi-Aventis), Ian has built up an impressive deal sheet specialising in the development and commercialisation of technologies by high potential start-up companies. As co-founder, research director and then CEO, Ian took cancer Drug Discovery Company EiRx Therapeutics public on the UK AIM market, having secured the Company’s first deal with the multinational OSI Pharmaceuticals. Most recently, Ian lead the development and execution of Opsona Therapeutics Ltd business and commercial development strategy, underpinning the Company’s successful €23m Series B financing in Jan 2009. Ian would describe himself as entrepreneurial and results focused with a tenacious but influential approach to business development; bridging the gap between high tech science and the customer divide to effectively deliver networking collaboration and commercialisation deals. Ian has a B.Sc Hons (’86) from Bristol, UK, a Ph.D. (’91) from University of East Anglia, UK and Diploma Financial Management (’07) with the ACCA.
Lee Barry, Engineering Director
Lee Barry has 16 years semiconductor industry experience, having held various senior design, operations and management roles through multiple growth phases of semiconductor start-ups, most recently being Engineering Director with Ceva DSP Group. Lee graduated from Cork Institute of Technology in 1991 with a B.Eng. in electronic engineering and a M.Eng.Sc. in Microelectronics from the Tyndall National Institute, Cork in 1993. Lee has worked as a research engineer in the bioelectronics field developing highly sensitive heavy-metal-in-water detection systems, before joining Parthus Technologies from startup in 1995, progressing through various senior design and project management roles, delivering numerous complex multi-sited multinational contracts. Upon going IPO in 2000, Lee became engineering manager for the European wireline and storage group, and upon merging with Ceva in 2002, to
create Ceva DSP, Lee became Engineering Director for Ceva’s worldwide wireline and storage operations, before joining Radisens in February 2009.
Scientific Advisory Board
Professor Jens Ducrée
Prof. Ducrée is an Associate Professor for Microsystems at Dublin City University (DCU) and is the Principal Investigator for Microfluidic Platforms at the Biomedical Diagnostics Institute (BDI) in DCU. He is a founding director of the Polymer MicroNanoFab at the National Centre for Sensor Research (NCSR) in DCU. Before joining DCU in 2008, Dr. Ducrée founded and led the Lab-on-a-Chip Technologies and Foundry Service groups at the HSG-IMIT in Germany. Since 2005 he has been a faculty member at the world renowned Institute for Microsystems Engineering (IMTEK) at the University of Freiburg, Germany.
Prof. Ducrée has published over 40 papers in peer reviewed scientific journals, presented at over 50 major international conferences in the microfluidic lab-on-a-chip field and has authored several books and chapters, among them the best selling market study “FlowMap – Microfluidics Roadmap for the Life Sciences”. His application oriented approach has resulted in more than 25 patent applications and numerous successful collaborative RTD projects with industry. His interests include micro- and nano-fluidic lab-on-a-chip technologies and associated polymer fabrication schemes for point-of-care diagnostics, systems biology and life science applications.
Dr. Alfonso Blanco
Dr. Blanco is the manager of the Flow Cytometry Core Facilities at the Conway Institute of Biomedical and Biomolecular Research Center in University College Dublin (UCD). This Flow Cytometry Core Facility is extensively used by research groups, international universities, hospitals and private industry to design, test and diagnose myriad complex biological assays and is used as a beta testing site for numerous cytometers that are about to come to market. As manager of this facility, Alfonso has participated and collaborates in very diverse research projects in human, animal, plant and microbiology fields and is an expert on cytometry instrumentation, including it’s setup, configuration and calibration. Alfonso received his Ph.D. in Biology from Universidade de Vigo, Spain before joining UCD in 2004. He is founder and President of the Irish Cytometry Society.