Advisory Board

Brad Zaro President & CEO, Mariner Biomedical, Inc.

B.A. Zoology, M.S. Biology, San Jose State University

Brad has over 35 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. He started his career as a research chemist at Syntex in 1976, and, later, transferred to the Institute of Clinical Medicine at Syntex as a Clinical Research Associate. In 1987, he joined Triton Biosciences as Manager of Clinical Research. Brad founded Clinimetrics in 1988 and grew this full-service CRO from the ground up to 350 people and $45M annually in revenues then oversaw the successful acquisition by Omnicare, Inc. with whom he remained as a divisional CEO until 2009.

At Clinimetrics, he was responsible for finance, strategic planning, as well as overall corporate management. Brad has authored several publications in the field of pharmacology and is an Associate of the American College of Clinical Pharmacology, a member of DIA and AAAS.

He currently serves as President of the College of Science Advisory Board at San Jose State University and is a member of the Tower Foundation Board at San Jose State University.

James M Karis Chairman of the Board of Directors at Marina Biotech, Inc. and Schulman IRB Holding Company

B.S. in Management and Economics, Purdue University, M.A. in Applied Economics, The American University

Mr. Karis has had a 30-year career in the pharmaceutical, healthcare services, technology and medical device industries. In addition to his experience as an entrepreneur and a Board member, he has held a variety of senior executive positions in public and private companies.

From 2000 until 2009 he was President, CEO and Director of Entelos, Inc., a US-based life sciences company. Prior to joining Entelos, he held senior positions in the contract research industry, serving as Chief Operating Officer and President of Parexel International, and as Chief Operating Officer of Pharmaco International. Earlier, he was the Vice President of international operations for Baxter International and is the founder of KMR Group Inc., the leading pharmaceutical R&D analytics firm.

Currently, Mr. Karis is Chairman of the Board of Directors of the NASDAQ listed company Marina Biotech, Inc., and is also the Chairman of the Board of Schulman IRB Holding Company, a private equity owned services firm.

Stefan Ryser Co-Founder at BIOptima Advisors

Stefan Ryser, Ph.D., is currently a Managing Partner at BIOptima Advisors, a biotech consulting firm which he founded in 2009 with his partners from a previous biotech venture capital fund. Additionally, he is a business development and strategy consultant for private biotech companies, including Aridis Pharmaceuticals. 

Prior to founding BIOptima Advisors, Stefan Ryser was a Senior Vice President of Corporate Strategy and a board member of Telik. From 2000 until 2008, he was a General Partner of Bear Stearns Health Innoventures (BSHI), a New York-based $212 million biotech venture fund with investments in companies such as Achillion Pharmaceuticals, Affymax, Agensys, Corus, Raven Biotechnologies and Tolerx. He co-founded BSHI with his current partners Elizabeth Czerepak and Fritz R. Buhler, M.D. In 1997 Dr. Ryser, Dr. Jürgen Drews and Dr. Buhler co-founded International Biomedicine Management Partners (IBMP), a $60 million Switzerland-based biotech venture fund with investment in companies such as Arena Pharmaceuticals, Allos Therapeutics, Cytokinetics, Genaissance Pharmaceuticals, Exelixis, OrchidBiosciences, Sunesis and Telik. Dr. Ryser was a board member of Achillion Pharmaceuticals, Arena Pharmaceuticals, Cytokinetics, Entelos, Raven Biotechnologies, Telik, Tolerx and the R.Geigy Foundation, a charity organization that supports the Swiss Tropical Disease Institute of Basel. From 1989 until 1997, he held various positions at Hoffmann-La Roche, including Scientific Assistant to Roche’s head of global R&D, Jürgen Drews, M.D., where he focused on acquiring novel technologies and integrating them into pharmaceutical R&D. Subsequently Ryser was Chief of Research Staff and a member of Roche’s R&D board.

During his career, Dr. Ryser's R&D expertise focused on the integration of new technologies in the R&D process, increased productivity of R&D, and on therapeutic areas with major unmet medical needs such as oncology, bacterial and viral infectious diseases, and autoimmune diseases, such as type 1 diabetes.