Automated Live Cell Imaging & Analytics
Automated Live Cell Imaging & Analytics
Thomas Forest Farb-Horch is the CEO, Co-founder and a Board Director of Thrive Bioscience, providing automated live cell imaging instruments and software, located in the Boston area, and founded in 2014.
As a highly successful entrepreneur he has been involved in the founding of 17 companies, seven of which have had multi-billion dollar exits. Tom’s companies have been in the fields of artificial intelligence, analytics, imaging and healthcare. It is no coincidence, then, that Thrive Bioscience is at the convergence of these four fields in which Tom has proven his ability to create immense value.
His successes include Cytyc (automation of cytology labs), Exact Sciences (colon cancer diagnostic; NASD: EXAS), Health Dialog (acquired by Rite-Aid), HNC Software (acquired by Fair Isaac; NASD: FICO), Retek, (acquired by Oracle; NYSE: ORCL), Saf-T-Med (acquired by Becton Dickinson; NYSE: BDX).
Tom has significant transaction experience and has been directly involved in raising over $750 million of private company early-stage financing, $1.45 billion of public equity offerings, and $2.4 billion of M&A transactions.
His senior management positions include president and COO of Indevus Pharmaceuticals (NASD: IDEV, acquired by Endo), VP of Corporate Development, Cytyc (NASDAQ: CYTC, acquired by Hologic), and EVP & CFO of Interneuron Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: IPIC).
Among the many companies that have sought Tom’s leadership and service on their boards include, in addition to Thrive Bioscience, Fair Isaac (NYSE: FICO), Redwood Trust (NYSE: RWT), HNC Software (acquired by FICO), Retek Systems (acquired by Oracle) and Saf-T-Med (acquired by Becton Dickinson).
Tom currently serves on the boards of directors of Autoimmunity Biologic Solutions (an immunotherapy company), Emervax (an RNA vaccine company), and a non-profit, North Shore InnoVentures, a life sciences and green tech business incubator.
Email: tom.farb@thrivebio.com
Alan Blanchard, Ph.D. is the Chief Scientific Officer, Co-founder and a Board Director of Thrive Bioscience, providing automated live cell imaging instruments and software, located in the Boston area, and founded in 2014.
Alan is responsible for several commercial instrumentation successes in DNA sequencing and DNA microarrays at such companies as Life Technologies, Applied Biosystems (Applied Bio), Agencourt Personal Genomics (Agencourt), and Rosetta Inpharmatics.
Previous to co-founding Thrive, Alan was a Research Fellow at Life Technologies and a Scientific Fellow at Applied Bio, both companies now part of Thermo Fisher.
At Agencourt, Alan was one of the inventors of the SOLiD sequencing system (Sequencing by Oligonucleotide Ligation and Detection) while he served as the Director of Bioinformatics Research and Co-Chief Scientific Officer. Applied Bio acquired Agencourt prior to its own acquisition by Life Technologies and then Thermo Fisher.
After his postdoctoral fellowship, Alan was one of the founding members with Leroy (Lee) Hood, M.D., Ph.D. of Rosetta Inpharmatics, where he was Senior Director of Technology Development at the time Rosetta was acquired by Merck & Co. Interestingly, there are only two instruments on display in the lobby of Merck’s major research center in Boston, both of them Alan’s from his work at Rosetta.
Alan performed his postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Washington where he developed the DNA inkjet microarrayer as a Senior Fellow in the Leroy Hood Lab. Alan previously received his Ph.D. in Computation and Neural Systems at California Institute of Technology, while developing the DNA inkjet microarrayer in Dr. Hood’s lab. The microarrayer was later licensed to Agilent.
Email: alan.blanchard@thrivebio.com
Dr. Takashi Kiyoizumi is Thrive Bioscience’s EVP, International. Dr. Takashi Kiyoizumi is EVP, International of Thrive Bioscience, providing automated live cell imaging instruments and software, located in the Boston area, and founded in 2014.
Dr. Kiyoizumi has over 40 years of experience in life sciences, and is also an angel investor, entrepreneur, and mentor. Prior to his executive position at Thrive, Dr. Kiyoizumi was the founder and CEO of MediciNova (NASDAQ: MNOV), and president and CEO of Tanabe Research Laboratories, a U.S. affiliate of Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma.
As the managing director of Kiyoizumi Advisory, LLC, Dr. Kiyoizumi provides life science companies and venture capital firms with in-depth analyses and recommendations on strategic, business development or investment matters. He is also the executive manager of the Japan Forum for Innovation and Technology (JFIT) at the University of California, San Diego. JFIT aims to foster new collaboration and innovation between San Diego and Japan.
On the investment side, Dr. Kiyoizumi is a member of NuFund Venture Group and BioPacific Investors.
Dr. Kiyoizumi received his M.D. and Ph.D. at the Keio School of Medicine in Tokyo, and his MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is a Guest Professor at the School of Health Innovation, Kanagawa University of Human Services in Kanagawa, Japan, and also served as a volunteer physician with Project HOPE.
You can reach Dr. Kiyoizumi at Takashi.kiyoizumi@thrivebio.com.
John Michalek is the acting VP of Sales & Marketing of Thrive Bioscience, a life sciences
company, providing automated live cell imaging instruments and software,
located in the Boston area, and founded in 2014.
John is an experienced executive with a demonstrated history of working in the life sciences
industry. Skilled in research and development (R&D), organic chemistry, life sciences, cell
culture, validation, chromatography, medical devices, and mass spectrometry, John effectively
targets Thrive’s principal markets: drug discovery, drug development, regenerative medicine,
basic research, and infectious disease research.
Prior to joining Thrive, John served as the VP of marketing for a manufacturer of HPLC
instrumentation and consumables, Axcend Corp. He was also the President of Acmic Inc., a
small business development group that he founded and which operates multiple divisions that
specialize in scientific instruments, medical devices, personal safety, and green energy.
John also served as the President and CEO of Advanced Chromatography Systems, held
several senior sales positions at Thermo Fisher Scientific, and is an executive board member at
Zebra Analytix. He received a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Connecticut and a
bachelor’s degree in Government from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of
Government.
Email: john.michalek@thrivebio.com.
Michael Moody is the VP of Software Engineering at Thrive Bioscience, providing automated live cell imaging instruments and software, located in the Boston area, and founded in 2014.
Mike has extensive experience across a variety of industries, including biotech, security, wireless telecommunications, and automation. As a hands-on technology leader, he thrives on customer interaction, building engineering teams, and developing world-class software solutions and products.
Prior to joining Thrive, Mike was the vice president of software development at Implant Sciences, which was later acquired by L3 Technologies, now L3 Harris Technologies. He continued as L3’s director of software development, driving various concurrent product development efforts, utilizing lean development processes and leveraging scalable and modular design platforms. At L3, Mike’s team continuously delivered on aggressive initiatives with high quality software solutions, highlighted by TSA certification, acquisition, and deployment of ~5000 B220 ETD systems throughout U.S. airports.
Mike also served as a principal software engineer at Powerwave, ADC Telecommunications, and OpenCell Corp (formerly Transcept, Inc.), a senior software engineer for Sanders, A Lockheed Martin Company, and as an electrical engineer at Auburn Systems, LLC. He received his B.S. and M.S. in Computer Engineering from Northeastern University.
Email: mike.moody@thrivebio.com.
Ken Chapman has worked as the VP of Imaging Algorithms at Thrive Bioscience since 2018. He and his team develop image processing algorithms and intellectual property for the analysis of images captured with Thrive imaging instruments. His team, with over 100 years of image processing experience, developed the proprietary Quantitative Phase Imaging capability that underlies Thrive’s unprecedented cell counting and confluence precision.
Ken started his career in image processing and machine vision at Intelledex, one of the very first industrial robot and machine vision companies in 1983. He continuously worked in imaging algorithm development in industry and academia since then, running research labs at University of Texas at El Paso and Texas A&M University, and performing imaging research in industry. He has solved difficult image processing with urgent business needs in retinal, medical, and pharmaceutical imaging, semi-conductor, electronic, and automotive manufacturing, agriculture, natural resource, and timber monitoring and measurement, and a wide variety of other domains. His experience includes the development of algorithms and other intellectual property in the use of 2d and 3d imaging, Optical Coherence Tomography, multi and hyperspectral imaging modes with patents and publications in all of these areas.
Ken received a B.S. from Oregon State University, an M.S. from University of Texas at El Paso, and a PhD from University of Nebraska—Lincoln (UNL) in Natural Resource Sciences, researching the use of ground-based imagery combined with ML/AI to revolutionize the way water resources are measured in the wild.
Email: kenneth.chapman@thrivebio.com
Ira J. Schaefer serves as the general counsel of Thrive Bioscience, providing automated live cell imaging instruments and software, located in the Boston area, and founded in 2014. Ira has special expertise in intellectual property in the fields of information technology, artificial intelligence, advanced computing.
Prior to joining Thrive, Ira was a Partner for 15 years at Hogan Lovells in the New York City Office and he was previously a Partner at Clifford Chance, and a Partner at Chadbourne & Parke.
Ira is admitted to the Massachusetts and New York bars and to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Ira received his Bachelor of Electrical Engineering at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in NYC, and his J.D. at Suffolk University Law School in Boston.
Email: ira.schaefer@thrivebio.com.