Leadership Team

Focus on Excellence

The team at Tangen Biosciences, Inc. is committed to developing diagnostics that are fast, accurate, and able to be used in a wide array of settings.

President and CEO

Rick is a seasoned executive and an accomplished entrepreneur with a proven track record. Rick joined CD Diagnostics, Inc. in 2012 as Chief Executive Officer. CD Diagnostics is a fully integrated diagnostics company with expertise in immunoassay development and commercialization. The detection of synovial fluid biomarkers using immunoassay technology is a powerful new concept that has earned numerous awards. The company was purchased by Zimmer Biomet in 2017. Prior to CD Diagnostics, Rick founded Strategic Diagnostics, Inc.

Co-Founder and CSO

John Davidson is the Vice President, R&D and Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder of Tangen Biosciences  John co-founded Tangen Biosciences in 2013. John has focused on bringing to market the TangenDx System, a highly sensitive molecular platform for rapid diagnosis of infectious disease. John joined Blue Heron Biotechnology in 2003, where he invented a novel cell-free DNA error correction method, and implemented it into an automated gene synthesis platform. John joined Ion Torrent in 2008, before the company had demonstrated proof of concept and prior to the acquisition by Life Technologies in 2010.

VP, Quality

Robert McNamee has over 25 years’ Quality Management expertise in early phase development, implementation and management of FDA 21 CFR part 820 and ISO 13485 compliant Quality Management Systems.

VP, Operations

Brian Chirico has over 30 years of Life Sciences Operations experience for both analytical and diagnostic instrumentation and reagents at Perkin Elmer, 454 Life Sciences, and Roche Diagnostics.  As part of the 454 team, he spearheaded the scale-up of manufacturing for next-generation sequencing systems including MRP, Quality Systems, Documentation Control, and Supplier Qualification.

Director of Product Development

Tony’s career spans over 30 years of product development in several fields ranging from agricultural and food microbiology diagnostics to the life sciences and clinical diagnostics and across a wide number of diagnostic testing platforms including ELISA, Luminex, ECL Meso Scale, immuno-chromatographic, and time-resolved- and FRET-based assays for low- and high-throughput applications.

Board of Directors

Richard C. Birkmeyer, Ph.D.

President and CEO

John Davidson, Ph.D.

Co-Founder and CSO

Christopher K. McLeod

Chairman of the Board

Daniel W. Wagner

Senior Managing Director at Connecticut Innovations

Christopher C. Benoit

Co-Founder and CEO, Alphazyme

Vance V. Kershner

Founder, President and CEO, LabWare

Alan B. Levin

Former President & CEO, Happy Harry’s

Advisors

Corporate Counsel:

Kathleen M. Shay, Partner at Duane Morris, LLP.



Regulatory:

Jeffrey Gibbs, Director of Hyman, Phelps, and McNamara.

Elliot Cowan, Principal at Partners in Diagnostics, LLC. 

Patent:

Dan Salehi, Partner at Spectrum IP Law Group, LLC.



Financial Audit:

Kyle Gibbons, Managing Director at Deloitte & Touche, LLP.



Internal Quality System Audit:

Gloria Ferko, Independent Consultant.