Chief Executive Officer
Victor Esch
Dr. Victor Esch has successfully led product development in diverse organizations, from venture funded start-ups, to large integrated programs with more than 100 engineers and $100MM budgets. His diverse practical technical experience spans many disciplines, from interventional neuro catheters to free-space laser communication, and he has made significant contributions in these diverse areas. He has 23 issued patents, and more than 20 applications in prosecution. He received his Ph.D. in Optical Sciences in 1990.
Dr. Esch was Director of Research and Development at Indigo Medical, responsible for all product development. Indigo was acquired by Johnson & Johnson in 1996. Following this he was CTO of EndoVasix, a company that produced an ischemic stroke treatment system. Endovasix was eventually acquired by W.L. Gore. Dr. Esch is a co-founder of PowerVision, a company successfully developing an accommodating intra-ocular lens to treat presbyopia. Dr.
Vice President
Sergey A. Dryga
Sergey Dryga has over 20 years of experience in the development of expression and vaccine systems, development of diagnostic systems and controls, and protein purification. He was Director of Analytical Research at Alphavax Inc., where he established reagent production capability to support vaccine development and was responsible for the development of two new vaccines. In his role as Director, Virology/Immunology at SeraCare Life Sciences, Inc. he led the development of several new products (e.g. a line of HPV controls) and was responsible for government and commercial contracts. He has 16 papers published in peer-reviewed journals, and an inventor on 9 patents and several applications.
Director
Gavin Christensen
Since founding Kickstart in 2008, Gavin has been responsible for all aspects of managing the firm in addition to leading due diligence and investment decisions in conjunction with Kickstart’s Investment Committee.
Prior to Kickstart, Gavin was an analyst, associate and principal at vSpring (now Signal Peak). Before vSpring Capital, Gavin also worked as a Vertical Strategy Associate for Google and as a consultant in Monitor Group’s Cambridge office where he advised clients on a range of strategic, operational, and organizational improvements. Gavin began his career at Fidelity Investments as an investments representative.
Gavin received a Masters of Business Administration from the Kellogg School of Management and a B.S. in Economics (with Honors), cum laude, from Brigham Young University. Gavin currently serves on the boards of Chargeback Guardian, Fuze Network, Grosocial (observer), Jackrabbit Systems, Juxta Labs, nanoMR, Panoptic Security, Symbiot, Zenprint and Zerista.
Colin W. Dykes
Dr Colin W. Dykes has over 25 years experience across R&D in the pharmaceutical and biotechnical industries and has participated in several successful rounds of fund-raising for venture funded companies, including an IPO.
Prior to joining NanoMR as Chief Scientific Officer in February 2010, he served as Chief Scientific Officer and Executive Vice-President of OpGen Inc. in Gaithersburg, MD, where his responsibilities included leadership of the companys Scientific and Business Development programs and establishing collaborative preclinical studies with leading clinical microbiology labs. He also played a major role in raising over $30m in private equity financing.
Previously, Colin had served as Vice-President of Research at Variagenics, a Cambridge, MA-based pharmacogenomics company (now Nuvelo), where his duties included building a pharmacogenomics service business with Pharma/biotech partners and raising capital, including a successful IPO in July 2000.