Leadership

Dr. Seeto is an experienced leader and has held executive leadership roles in both biotech and large pharma and across a broad range of functions. Before joining CareDx, Dr. Seeto was Chief Operating Officer at Ardelyx leading pre-launch efforts for tenapanor and corporate development where he completed a series of partnerships. Prior to this, Dr. Seeto worked at AstraZeneca/Medimmune and was a member of the MedImmune Executive Team. His responsibilities included leading corporate development and strategy, global strategic marketing and portfolio management for all therapeutic areas, as well as a country leadership role at AstraZeneca in Thailand. He started his career as a physician, during which time he performed a medical rotation in a renal transplant unit, before joining McKinsey and Company.

Abhishek became CareDx’s Vice President, Corporate Controller in August 2021. Prior to joining the Company, he spent the last 20 years at Agilent Technologies, Inc., a global leader in the life sciences, diagnostics and applied chemical markets, in a series of finance and customer-facing roles of progressing responsibility. In his last role at Agilent as an Associate Vice President II, Controller-Sales and Marketing, he drove above market growth for a $5B business. He has extensive knowledge in driving channel strategy, expanding margins, scaling operations, and leading global teams. Mr. Jain is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.

Alex Johnson brings broad international business experience in pharma and clinical diagnostics to CareDx. Prior to joining the company, Alex was Chief Operating Officer of BioGraph 55, a venture-backed immuno-oncology drug development company that uses advanced imaging analytics and machine learning to capture clinically relevant content from the tumor microenvironment. From 2009 to 2014 he was with Novartis, where he held roles at Novartis Diagnostics, a global provider of blood screening solutions, and Novartis M&A, based in Basel, Switzerland, where he led acquisitions in oncology and diagnostics. Prior to Novartis, Alex was with UBS Investment Bank in the Global Healthcare Group. Alex studied economics at Union College (N.Y.) and received his MBA in finance from Columbia Business School.

Stacey Follon is Senior Vice President, Head of Human Resources. A member of the Executive Leadership Team, Stacey is responsible for leading the human capital strategy for more than 700 employees worldwide. She joined CareDx in February 2022 based in Omaha, Nebraska as a Vice President, HR Business Partner for Digital business, G&A (including Finance, Legal and HR) and Business Development. Her passion and impact were immediately clear as she spearheaded employee engagement efforts, building capabilities for employees and managers, and strategic talent planning.

Stacey brings highly valued experience from Intrado (a Multinational Telecomms Technology Company) where she led Human Resources Mergers and Acquisitions activities since 2019. Prior to this role, Stacey worked at S&P Global Platts and Bloomberg LP in a variety of progressive HR executive leadership roles that included living and working Internationally in the UK, Asia, New York and Omaha. Stacey graduated from Florida State University with a B.A. in English Literature.

Marica has spent the past two decades building and leading high-performing technology and product development teams. At CareDx, Marica has held roles of increasing leadership and management responsibilities and is currently accountable for strategy and operational oversight of the Cell Transplant Therapy business unit and Pharma Partnerships. Earlier in her career, Marica spearheaded the development of AlloSure^®, the first analytically and clinically validated cell-free DNA test developed specifically for transplant patients. Prior to CareDx, Marica was a founding scientist at the stem cell-based drug discovery platform technology company iPierian (acquired by BMS), and its spin out, True North Therapeutics (acquired by Bioverativ).

Marica completed her post-doctoral fellowship on gene regulation in stem cells at University of California San Francisco and holds a PhD in molecular biology and biochemistry from European Molecular Biology Laboratory and University of Heidelberg, Germany.

Mickey brings over 25 years of corporate development, strategy and innovation experience in the health care delivery, health care IT, and medical products sectors. Before joining CareDx, Mickey was the Senior Vice President of Research and Commercialization at Inova Health System, where he led all aspects of commercialization activities, and the President of the Inova Translational Medicine Institute, a research and development organization focused on applied genomics. Prior to Inova, he worked at AstraZeneca/MedImmune as a member of MedImmune’s Partnering & Strategy Leadership Team as a healthcare venture capitalist, and he also worked as a strategy consultant with McKinsey and Company. Mickey holds several degrees; he earned his Medical Doctor degree from the Northwestern University Medical School; his Master of Business Administration from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University; and his Bachelor of Arts from the University of Chicago.

Kashif Rathore has over 22 years of executive management experience in the healthcare and information technology industry. Before joining CareDx, Kashif was Vice President, Interoperability at Cerner Corporation, a global provider of electronic health records and population health solutions. He headed the expansion of the unit with worldwide growth in its interoperability business. Having served on the Board of Directors for CommonWell Health Alliance and Superscripts Advisory Council, he brings industry perspective that enables him to engage leaders across the industry to build alignment. Kashif holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Management Information Systems from the University of Central Oklahoma, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mathematics from the University of Punjab. Kashif earned an Executive MBA from University of Missouri, Kansas City.

Dr. Robert Woodward has led research and development projects in transplant diagnostics and gene expression discovery for over 20 years. Most recently at CareDx he was responsible for the bioinformatics, biostatistics, and laboratory teams that developed and validated AlloSure®, an application of cell-free DNA to solid organ transplantation. Earlier in his career, he initiated biomarker discovery efforts with BioCardia and XDx and subsequently led the laboratory development of AlloMap, a gene expression test that has become an integral component of precise patient care in heart transplantation. During a post-doctoral fellowship at the Gladstone Institutes and University of California San Francisco, Dr. Woodward developed unique methods for analysis of gene regulation in vivo to study atherosclerosis. Following a bachelor’s degree in biology from Missouri State University, Dr. Woodward earned his Ph.D. in physiology at the University of Missouri-Columbia where he described the effects of a new transcription factor in the coordinate regulation of gene expression in response to steroids.

Jarrod Borkat brings 22 years of global sales, marketing and business development experience to CareDx. Prior to joining CareDx in 2021, Jarrod served as vice president of corporate strategy at Emergent BioSolutions, a $1 billion life sciences company focused on developing vaccines and therapeutics for public health threats. While in this role, Jarrod also served on the Maryland Governor’s Life Science Advisory Board and was a board director for BioHealth Innovation and the Maryland Technology Council. Before Emergent, Jarrod held several leadership positions at MedImmune/AstraZeneca, including portfolio management, business development & licensing and government, non-government organizations and academic strategic partnerships. He spent the first half of his career at Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, where he started as a pharmaceutical sales representative and rose through the marketing ranks to become the U.S. commercial lead for BI’s HIV franchise and global marketing lead for its CNS franchise. Jarrod is recognized in the life sciences industry for speaking at conferences throughout the nation, including SXSW, AUTM, BIO, and The BioHealth Capital Region Forum. Jarrod graduated from University of Georgia with a bachelor’s in biology and has an MBA from Kennesaw State University.

Pauline brings over 15 years of business development and licensing experience in the biopharmaceutical and academic tech transfer sectors. Before joining CareDx, Pauline was the Vice President of Business Development & Strategy for Sensei Biotherapeutics. Prior to Sensei Bio, she worked for AstraZeneca/MedImmune in the Partnering and Strategy Group, and Johns Hopkins Technology Transfer, as Portfolio Director, Life Sciences. Before that, Pauline was a post-doc at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, where she studied the epigenetics of human disease. She has published a book chapter, review articles, and first-authored publications in peer reviewed journals.

Pauline holds a PhD degree in biochemistry from Louisiana State University, and a BSc in human biology with honors from Loughborough University in the United Kingdom.

Hal Gibson brings 22 years of sales, marketing, and business development experience in transplant diagnostics to CareDx. Prior to CareDx, Hal was at One Lambda, Inc., where he was a leader in launching and driving early clinical research and commercial adoption of single antigen bead technology for detection of anti-HLA donor specific antibodies. Post-acquisition of One Lambda by Thermo Fisher Diagnostics, he served as a senior leader in its Transplant Diagnostics business, where he helped drive clinical strategy and business development. Hal received a Bachelor of Science in biology from the University of Tampa.

Julian has more than two decades of experience spanning the healthcare spectrum, as both a clinician and through his work in multiple corporate functions with different types of companies. At Apria Healthcare, he led the creation and execution of the most successful initiative ever at Apria — a COPD clinical management program that grew to over $200M annually in five years with a 60% reduction in readmissions. At Edwards Life sciences, he had strategic and line management responsibilities within the Critical Care and Surgical Heart Valve businesses. Julian’s background also includes management consulting with McKinsey and Company, and he trained as a general surgeon at the University of Pennsylvania. Julian received his Bachelor of Science in business administration from the University of California, Berkeley and his Doctor of Medicine from the University of Pennsylvania.

Ashish Kothari has more than 20 years of experience in clinical development, medical affairs, strategy and business development that spans across academia, industry, and investment management. Ashish started his academic career as a spine surgeon and managed patients and taught medical students for 10 years. Following that, he held multiple leadership roles in strategy, medical affairs, and clinical development across cell therapy, oncology, neurology, infectious disease, autoimmunity, and transplant, including roles at CareDx, Genentech/Roche, McKinsey, and Royalty Pharma. He cites CareDx’s commitment to transplant patients, focus on innovation, can-do attitude, and singular focus on improving transplant patient outcomes as the elements that fuel his passion to work with his amazing team to drive the science, enhance the standards of medical practice, and ultimately, improve patients’ lives.

Ashish conducted research in tissue engineering and cell therapy at the Harvard Medical School and MIT’s Health Sciences and Technology (HST) program. He earned an MBA from the MIT-Sloan School of Management, where his thesis focused on the impact of research, innovation, and regulatory strategy on the global launch of medical technologies. He is also a CFA charter holder from the Chartered Financial Analysts’ Institute.

Marco brings over 30 years of global experience in therapeutics and diagnostics with mid- and large-cap pharma companies in roles spanning strategy, new product development, marketing, analytics, business development and operations, both commercial and clinical. Most recently at CareDx, Marco led the R&D Program Management Office, supporting the development of various new products and services, including AlloMap Kidney and KidneyCare. Prior to joining CareDx, Marco led the strategy and new products function at Ferring. Earlier in his career, Marco worked at McKinsey & Co., advising healthcare clients around the world. Besides transplantation, Marco’s therapeutic area experience includes cardiovascular, CNS, women’s health and oncology. Marco holds a master’s in pharmaceutical process engineering from ETH Zurich and an MBA in finance from Columbia Business School.