Avantra Biosciences Management Team

Management Team

R. Brian McKernan CEO

Brian was a co-founder and CEO of Agencourt Bioscience where he helped create a business that employed 140 people and delivered 30%+ EBITDA margins and a 13X ROI to its shareholders when it was sold to Beckman Coulter in 2005 for over $140M. In 2005, Brian co-founded Agencourt Personal Genomics which was sold to Applied Biosystems in 2006 for $120M. Prior to his time at Agencourt, Brian co-founded StructuredMarkets, Inc., an online financial exchange, where he served as executive vice president of business development. Previously, Brian worked at General Re, where he designed and implemented the business plan for the Enterprise Risk and Capital Management Consulting practice of its wholly owned subsidiary New England Asset Management. While at General Re, Brian worked closely with the CFO and CEO on corporate finance, M&A and Board related matters and marketed complex derivative instruments to financial services companies. Prior to this, Brian was a manager at Deloitte Consulting Group, where he managed strategic and reengineering projects for clients in the life sciences, food distribution, petro-chemical, and insurance and healthcare industries. He holds an M.B.A. in Finance from Columbia Business School and a B.A. from Bucknell University with a concentration in Computer Science and Business Management. Brian was a member and Chairman of the Board of ALSSA, a prominent Life Sciences Organization

Brendan L. McKernan, COO

Brendan was a founding member, chief operating officer and board member of Agencourt Bioscience Corporation and Agencourt Personal Genomics. Agencourt Bioscience is a leading provider of nucleic acid purification products and genomic services for life science research. Agencourt employed 140 people and delivered 30%+ EBITDA margins and a 13X ROI to its shareholders when it was sold to Beckman Coulter in 2005. In 2005, Brendan co-founded Agencourt Personal Genomics which developed one of the leading next generation sequencing instruments called SOLiD. Agencourt Personal Genomics was sold to Applied Biosystems in 2006. Brendan is a managing partner for Courtagen Capital Group, a guest lecturer at Rensselaer's and Babson's School of Management, a mentor and investor to early stage companies through Boston Harbor Angels and is a judge for the Lemelson Program which celebrates and supports inventors and entrepreneurs in order to strengthen social and economic life. Brendan is a member of Rensselaer Lally School of Management's Advisory council where he helps guide the direction of the school and he is a board member of Avon Old Farms School. Brendan holds a MBA from Rensselaer's Lally Schools of Management and Technology and earned his BS in Management Science from Muhlenberg College. While at Rensselaer, Brendan received the Delmar W. Karger Award in Management for outstanding academic and leadership achievements. Brendan was named the 2006 William F. Glaser '53 Rensselaer Entrepreneur of the Year.

Dr. Jocelyn Burke, Acting Chief Science and Technology Officer

JOCELYN W. BURKE PH.D. is co-founder of Avantra Biosciences Corporation and acting Chief Science & Technology Officer. She is former Vice President and founding General Manager of the BioChip Ventures Division of Packard BioScience Company. Dr Burke’s achievements at Packard span the development and commercialization of more than 25 new products for life sciences research, including instrumentation and software for detectors, imagers, liquid handlers, microarrayers, and robotic workstations, as well as reagent products including solid scintillator detector flow cells, high-throughput screening assay reagents, and biochip substrates. Dr. Burke leveraged Packard’s PiezoTipnology™ and HydroGel™ substrate to enable the protein microarray market and championed the development of novel protein chips resulting in the first proof of concept of a quantitative six-plex assay for cytokines. Her division collaborated to prove protein microarrays for cytokine profiling (43-plex) and biomarker discovery (186-plex). Dr. Burke introduced Homogenous Time-Resolved Flourescence (HTRF™) to high-throughput screening and pioneered the first successful commercialization of reagents for proximity assays not based on the use of radioisotopes. Dr. Burke’s many achievements while at Packard BioScience supported the company’s IPO and subsequent acquisition by PerkinElmer, Inc.

Jocelyn earned her Ph.D. degree in Natural Products Chemistry from the College of Pharmacy at The Ohio State University. While conducting her dissertation research as an American Foundation for Pharmaceutical Education Fellow and the Johnson & Johnson Company Pharmaceutical Chemistry Fellow, Jocelyn discovered several novel diterpenes including one having a tetracyclic ring structure not previously known to exist in nature. Dr. Burke conducted post-doctoral research for NIH in collaboration with the Burroughs Wellcome Pharmaceutical Company at the University of South Florida where she synthesized carbocyclic nucleosides designed to inhibit human cytomegalovirus. Jocelyn earned a B.S. degree in both Chemistry and Marine Science from the University of Tampa, where she was named Outstanding Chemist and graduated summa cum laude.

Timothy Olcott, Senior Manager, Manufacturing

Tim worked for Agencourt Bioscience from its 2001 inception through its acquisition by Beckman Coulter in 2006, leaving in 2007 to pursue an MBA. Agencourt Bioscience, now Beckman Coulter Genomics, is a leading provider of nucleic acid purification products and genomic services to the life science industry. Throughout Agencourt’s rapid growth, Tim worked in manufacturing services. His responsibilities included purchasing, inventory planning and control, quality management, facilities management, and new product development. Most notably Tim led a task force that implemented lean manufacturing practices in the laboratory, maintaining a low cost structure to drive margins and other key indicators. Tim also served on the New Product Development committee at Agencourt and managed the release of several successful product launches. Before Agencourt, Tim earned his undergraduate degree in Business/Finance at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He left Agencourt in 2007, a year after the merger with Beckman Coulter, to pursue an MBA at Babson College. While studying at the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College he worked as an intern for the Boston Harbor Angel group coordinating deal screening and due diligence activities. He graduated from Babson in June of 2009.