Paul Blavin

CEO & Co-Founder

Paul is the co-founder and CEO of Mercy BioAnalytics. He began his career in 1986 as an investment banker with Citibank and Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. He then served as the President of First Mercury Financial Corporation, a publicly-traded insurance company. He also co-founded and managed a private investment partnership – PWB Value Partners, L.P. – which began with three investors and $3.2 million under management. Over 14 years, the business grew to more than 80 investors and approximately $2.0 billion, consistently outperforming the S&P 500 Index, net of all fees and expenses.

Paul was born and raised in Southfield, Michigan just outside of Detroit. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa with High Distinction with a BBA in Accounting from the University of Michigan, and earned an MBA at Harvard Business School.

Paul’s primary philanthropic focus is youth life transformation for those who need it the most and are least able to help themselves. Paul and Amy, his wife of 29 years, have immersed themselves in the following programs:

• Blavin Scholars – Programs at the University of Michigan and Northern Arizona University which provide holistic, wrap around support to youth who have experienced foster care to achieve their dreams of a post-secondary education and a better life. The Blavin Scholars Programs have supported over 100 scholars thus far with a graduation rate of approximately 95%.
• Freehab – A LA-based free, residential drug and alcohol rehabilitation center with up to 100 18-25 year old women in residence.  In the latter parts of their residency, each client is provided high-quality vocational training to enable them to gain employment and establish successful careers.
• Thrive Scholars – An elite post-secondary education opportunity for the most ambitious students (poor and almost all of color) in America’s lowest-performing public schools.
• Anti-Recidivism Coalition – A wraparound support and career services organization for men and women recently released from incarceration, and a national leader in criminal justice reform advocacy.
• Mully Children’s Family – A self-sustainable non-profit, empowering life transformation opportunities for abandoned children/orphans in Africa.

In 2015, Paul began an effort to harness the power of exceptional art to inspire hope, compel action, and ignite lasting impact. He is the Executive Producer of The Hunting Ground, an exposé on the epidemic of sexual assaults on college campuses, and Lady Gaga’s “Til It Happens to You” a Grammy, Emmy, and Oscar nominated original song written by Lady Gaga and Diane Warren who’s accompanying music video has more than 44 million views.  Additionally, Paul is an Executive Producer of the heartwarming, inspirational animal rescue documentary Harry & Snowman and Mully, the inspiring documentary of Dr. Charles Mully “Father of the World’s Largest Family” with over 13,000 rescued children. Paul is also the founding financier of One Community, a film and television co-financing company that harnesses the power of storytelling to inspire and encourage positive change in the world.

Dawn Mattoon, PhD

Chief Operating Officer

Dr. Dawn Mattoon is the Chief Operating Officer at Mercy Bioanalytics. She brings nearly 20 years of experience in the biotechnology industry and has held leadership positions in R&D, Strategy, and General Management for leading companies including Invitrogen, Life Technologies, Thermo Fisher, and Cell Signaling Technology. Most recently Dr. Mattoon served as the Senior Vice President for Clinical Diagnostics at Quanterix, where she led the development and commercialization of the company’s first two FDA authorized diagnostic tests for COVID-19, and received Breakthrough Device designations from the FDA for diagnostic tests in Alzheimer’s Disease and Multiple Sclerosis. She has developed and commercialized products across a range of proteomic and genomic technologies, and is thrilled by the opportunity to bring the highly innovative Mercy Halo diagnostic test portfolio to patients.

Dr. Mattoon earned her Ph.D. in Genetics with a focus in signal transduction from Yale University, where she also completed her postdoctoral fellowship.

Eric Huang, PhD

Chief Scientific Officer

Eric is Chief Scientific Officer at Mercy BioAnalytics. Dr. Huang was most recently the Chief Scientific Officer at GelMEDIX, a start-up focused on ocular drug delivery using a proprietary hydrogel platform, where he was part of the executive team that launched the company and raised initial funding. Previous to that, he was the Chief Development Officer and first hire of Glympse Bio, a spinout from Dr. Sangeeta Bhatia’s lab at MIT focused on the development of bioengineered activity sensors for detection and monitoring of diseases. He led the team responsible for company launch through Glympse Bio’s first human clinical trial, which supported Series A and B financings. Other prior roles include General Manager and Head of Technical Operations at Acusphere.

Dr. Huang has a Ph.D. in Medical Science from Brown University, a M.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Rutgers, and a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering also from Brown. He has been published in leading journals such as Nature Biotech and has been an inventor on multiple patents within the diagnostic space.

Joseph Sedlak

Scientific Founder, Advisor

Joseph is the Scientific Founder of Mercy BioAnalytics. Joseph graduated summa cum laude from the University of Michigan with a degree in biomedical engineering and entered the M.D./Ph.D. program at Harvard Medical School to pursue his mission to improve the lives of those with cancer. Since arriving at Harvard, Joseph focused on reducing the mortality and morbidity of cancer by seeking clinical opportunities to help care for cancer patients and studying in several research labs across Harvard and MIT. These research experiences included modeling the evolution of cancer resistance to small molecules, studying immunotherapy resistance, and biomarker assay development.

Informed by his experiences working with patients and the body of ongoing cancer research, Joseph critically assessed early detection as the largest unmet need in the field of oncology. The majority of early-stage, localized cancers can be cured by surgery alone. However, as cancer progresses and distant metastases have developed, surgery is rarely curative.

After gaining insight into the challenges of early cancer detection and seeing the need for detecting cancers earlier go unmet, Joseph dedicated his efforts to improving cancer screening by co-founding Mercy BioAnalytics. In July 2020, following a two year authorized leave of absence from Harvard Medical School, Joseph returned to the M.D./Ph.D. program. M.D./Ph.D. expected in 2025.

Joseph Sedlak

Co-Founder

• Co-founder and Harvard Medical School MD/PhD candidate, expected 2025
• Committed to early cancer detection with training atMGH/MIT/Harvard
• Scientific inspiration for Mercy

Emily Winn-Deen, PhD

Sr. Vice President, Diagnostics Strategy

Dr. Winn-Deen (B.S., Chemistry, Lehigh University and Ph.D., Chemistry, Boston University) brings over 40 years of experience developing diagnostic and genomics assays using novel technologies to her position at Mercy BioAnalytics. She had numerous peer-reviewed publications, and is an inventor on 38 issued US patents.

Recent executive experience includes serving as chief strategy officer and advisor for Mesa Biotech, a start-up company focused on delivering simplified molecular diagnostic solutions for point-of-care applications, vice president of research services at AltheaDx, and vice president for diagnostics product development at Illumina. Previously she was vice president for both strategic planning/business development and genetics/oncology R&D at Cepheid and senior director of the genomics business area at Roche Molecular Systems. Dr. Winn-Deen’s molecular experience also includes directing the high throughput genotyping laboratory at Celera Genomics, developing the Applied Biosystems cystic fibrosis assay, and directing diagnostics R&D at Oncor, Inc. Her earlier career included development of clinical chemistry reagents, urinalysis test strips, and immunoassays for several Siemens Healthcare business units. For the past 10 years she has also owned and operated RxDx Advisors, a diagnostics and life sciences consulting company, where she focuses on helping clients formulate their corporate product development and market entry strategies.

Dr. Winn-Deen has served as Principal Investigator or Co-Investigator on funded grants from the NIST Advanced Technology Program, the National Cancer Institute, and the US Department of Defense, and on grant review committees for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and the National Cancer Institute.

Professional, federal-level volunteer activities have included serving on the Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Genetics, Health and Society (SACGHS) (2003-2006), the Centers for Disease Control’s Clinical Laboratory Improvement Advisory Committee (CLIAC) (2007-2011), and on the Clinical Laboratory Standards Institute’s (CLSI) Expert Panel on Molecular Methods (2010-2019). In these roles she has co-authored 10 whitepapers and consensus practice guidelines for clinical molecular testing. She was also a panel member, advisor, and grant reviewer for the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Early Detection Research Network (EDRN)(1999-2002, 2009) and a member of the NCI Special Emphasis Panel on Clinical Assay Development for Cancer Diagnosis (2012-2014).

Dr. Winn-Deen has received a number of professional awards including the American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC) Northern California Section’s Harold Van Remortel Service Award (1993), their Outstanding Contribution to Clinical Chemistry through Science and Technology Award (2006), and AACC’s Outstanding Speaker Award (1997). Other awards include Behring Diagnostics’ Customer Acceptance Award (1981) and Behring Award (1985), and Applera Corporation’s Inventor Award (2001). In recognition of her career achievements, she was elected as a Fellow in the National Academy of Clinical Biochemistry in 2000.

Vera Imper, PhD

Senior Advisor, Corporate Development

Vera received her Ph.D. in Bioinorganic Chemistry from the University of Zagreb in 1993. She was subsequently the Visiting Scientist at Syntex in Palo Alto, California. She held the position of Manager of Strategic Marketing and Business Development at Roche Bioscience before joining Biometric Imaging as Director of Business Development.

She was the WW Vice President of Business Development and a member of the Global Leadership Team for the BD Biosciences business. Vera was responsible for in- and out-licensing, strategic alliances and research collaborations with a focus on research and clinical diagnostics and for identifying and evaluating acquisition targets.

Recently, Vera led the Business Development and Alliance Management Team for Roche Molecular Solutions Business Area within Roche Diagnostics, and she was a member of the Roche Molecular Solutions Leadership Team.

Vera has served as an Advisory Board Member to HBA since 2015 and actively participated in the Silicon Valley Leadership Group from 2010-2016. She joined the Cytek Biosciences Board in December 2021.

Diane Marcou

Chief Financial Officer

Diane Marcou is an independent financial consultant who provides interim financial leadership to early-stage companies. Working with start-up companies for many years, Ms. Marcou has applied her strategic planning and leadership capabilities to identify, implement and improve business systems, create operating plans and support growth. She has helped her clients raise hundreds of millions of dollars in equity and debt financing, public offerings, mergers and acquisitions and strategic partnerships.

Marcou has provided financial and strategic advisory services to a number of venture-backed technology and life sciences companies, including Immunome, Fractyl Laboratories, TARIS Biomedical, Cytrellis Biosystems, Boston Microfluidics, T2 Biosystems and Topera Medical. For more than 25 years working across private and public sector organizations, she has consistently built effective teams, strengthened relationships with investors, partners, customers and employees, secured funding and negotiated critical business agreements.

Stanley Lapidus

Chairman

• 30+ years successfully inventing and commercializing early cancer detection diagnostics
• Founded Cytyc, which revolutionized the Pap smear. Acquired for $6 billion
• Founded Exact Sciences which revolutionized early detection of colorectal cancer. Exact’s market capitalization has exceeded $22 billion

Paul Blavin

Co-Founder

• Serial entrepreneur and successful value investor

• Over 16 years, built and led a successful $2bn+ private investment partnership

• Founder of several highly successful social ventures

• Sole Funder of Mercy ($5.5 million) inception to November 2020

Paul Meister

• Retired Chairman of the Board of Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc. and Vice Chairman of Fisher Scientific International, Inc. prior to Fisher’s merger with Thermo

• President of MacAndrews & Forbes Incorporated from 2014-2018

• Chairman and CEO of inVentiv Health (now Syneos Health), a leading provider of commercial, consulting, and clinical research services to the pharmaceutical and biotech industries from 2010-2014

• Earlier in his career, Mr. Meister served in a number of executive leadership positions at Wheelabrator Technologies Inc., The Henley Group Inc., and AlliedSignal Inc. (now Honeywell International, Inc.)

Sonja Hoel Perkins

• Managing Director of The Perkins Fund, has been investing in high technology for over 30 years

• Youngest General Partner in Menlo Ventures’ history. Awarded the Menlo Ventures “Investor of the Year Award” six times in seventeen years

• Invested in several startups that have achieved multi-billion-dollar valuations including Acme Packet, F5 Networks and McAfee Associates

• Worth Magazine has ranked her among the 100 Most Powerful People in Finance in the World

• Invested in over 60 companies throughout her VC career

Barry Berger, MD

Lead Medical Advisor

Dr. Berger was the Chief Medical Officer for Exact Sciences Corporation for 20 years, and developed advanced DNA based tests for colorectal cancer screening. Prior to Exact Sciences, Dr. Berger’s clinical career was spent at the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine of Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare. Dr. Berger is the past chairman of the Advisory Committee on Clinical Laboratories for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and is a currently serves on the executive committee of the Massachusetts Society of Pathologists and the Policy Committee of the National Colorectal Cancer Roundtable. He has served as a panelist for the Medicare Evidence Development and Coverage Advisory Committee. He received his MD from the University of Pennsylvania where he also completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Immunology with Dr. Peter Nowell. Following a medical internship at Boston University Hospital, and two years as a general medical officer in the U.S. Air Force, he served as a resident and chief resident in Pathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Randy Schekman, PhD

Scientific Advisor

Dr. Randy Schekman is a Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He studied the enzymology of DNA replication as a graduate student with Arthur Kornberg at Stanford University. His current interest in cellular membranes developed during a postdoctoral period with S. J. Singer at the UC Diego. Among his awards are the Gairdner International Award, the Albert Lasker Award in Basic Medical Research and the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which he shared with James Rothman and Thomas Südhof. He served as the Editor of the Annual Reviews of Cell and Developmental Biology and as Editor-in-Chief of the Proceedings of the NAS and eLife. Beginning in 2018, Schekman has served as the Scientific Director of “Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s Disease” a major philanthropic effort organized along with The Michael J. Fox Foundation to identify molecular and cellular mechanisms in the initiation and progression of Parkinson’s Disease (https://parkinsonsroadmap.org).

Schekman’s laboratory investigates the mechanism of vesicular traffic in the secretory pathway in eukaryotic cells. Currently the lab investigates the mechanism of biogenesis of extracellular vesicles including how small RNAs are sorted for secretion in exosomes and the means by which these vesicles are internalized and function in target cells.

Alberto Gutierrez, PhD

Regulatory Affairs

• 35+ year career at the FDA

• FDA Director, Office of In Vitro Diagnostics

• Expert in preclinical and clinical testing of in vitro diagnostics

David Ransohoff, M.D.

• Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

• Pioneer in clinical trials to evaluate molecular biomarker discovery

• First “Rules of evidence” to evaluate diagnostic tests (NEJM 1978), cited 1500 times; methods papers in Science, Nature Reviews

• Guidelines-making: advisor to US Preventive Services Task Force

• Co-PI on Exact Science clinical study

Steven Skates, Ph.D.

• Associate Professor of Medicine (Biostatistics), Harvard Medical School
• Over 25 years and co-author of 50+ peer-reviewed articles on the early detection of ovarian cancer
• Trial Management Committee of UKCTOCS, the world’s largest prospective ovarian cancer screening trial (215,000+ women over 15 years)
• Co-inventor of ROCA, Risk of Ovarian Cancer Algorithm

Christine Berg, M.D.

• Senior author on five early cancer detection randomized control trials. Project officer for the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial (PLCO), a randomized control trial with 155,000 participants and the National Lung Screening Trial with 53,454 participants
• 40 years as a practicing physician. Research focus on cancer screening
• Chief, Early Detection Research Group, Division of Cancer Prevention, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD (2004-2012)
• Author, over 130 Peer Reviewed Original Scientific Publications, 10 Publications, New England Journal of Medicine