Mr. Palay is a founder or early stage investor in genomics and stem cell-based companies. He was a founder and chairman of NimbleGen Systems, Inc., a molecular biology tools company, serving as its CEO prior to its sale to Roche for $272.5 million in August 2007. Mr. Palay is a founder and principal of Tactics II Ventures, LP and Tactics II Stem Cell Ventures, LP. Since 1991, Mr. Palay has served as the Chairman of Tactics II Group, a merchant banking and investment partnership with significant investment activity in next-generation biotechnology companies. From 1986 until 1991, Mr. Palay was Vice President, Acquisitions for Sam Zell’s Equity Group, where his focus was on acquiring distressed assets. Prior to joining Mr. Zell’s organization, Mr. Palay practiced law at Rudnick & Wolfe in Chicago. Mr. Palay earned a JD from Northwestern University and an MBA from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University with a BA.

Mr. Snyder has served as our Executive Vice President and our Chief Financial Officer since 2008.  He has served as director of Invenra since 2012.  He has also served on the Board of Trustees of Ottawa University since 2012.  He previously served as senior vice president of finance, site vice president and chief financial officer of Roche NimbleGen from 2007 to 2008.  From 2006 to 2007, he served as vice president and chief financial officer of NimbleGen Systems, Inc.  Mr. Snyder served as chief financial officer of The Cobalt Group, Inc., a publicly-traded internet software company, from 2000 to 2001, of Strategic Hotel Capital, LLC, a real estate company, from 1997 to 2000.  Mr. Snyder received a B.A., summa cum laude, from Ottawa University and an MBA with high honors from Harvard Business School, where he was designated a George Fisher Baker Scholar. 

Mr. Parker has served as our Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Business Development and our Chief Commercial Officer since 2008.  He previously served as chief commercial officer of Stem Cell Products, Inc. from 2007 to 2009 and as vice president of Affymetrix, Inc. from 1998 to 2007, where he managed sales and marketing for the global pharmaceutical business unit.  He also served on the drug discovery services team at Amersham Pharmacia Biotech Inc. and conducted research in molecular and cellular biology in the Department of Human Oncology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for over a decade.  He received a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Dr. Nuwaysir has served as our Vice President of Research and Development, Manufacturing and Quality Systems and as the Chief Operating Officer since 2008.  He is a founder and has served as director of Invenra, a Wisconsin-based early stage company developing technology for biopharmaceutical discovery, since its inception in 2011.  He previously served as senior vice president of program management at Roche NimbleGen from 2007 to 2008.  Prior to this, he was vice president of business development at NimbleGen Systems, Inc. from 2003 to 2007 and held various scientific and managerial roles at NimbleGen Systems, Inc. from 2000 to 2003, including molecular research and development group leader and senior manager of technical and client services.  Prior to NimbleGen Systems, Inc., he held a Postdoctoral Fellowship with the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences within the National Institutes of Health, a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and a research position at EI DuPont de Nemours Stine-Haskell Laboratory.  He earned his B.A. from the University of Delaware and his Ph.D. in Molecular and Environmental Toxicology with a focus in Oncology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research.