Executive Officers

Steve Kafka, 51
Chief Executive Officer and Director

Dr. Kafka is a Managing Partner of Section 32, where he focuses on investments in innovative companies operating at the confluence of life sciences and technology. Dr. Kafka has led the firm’s investments in companies including Thrive Earlier Detection Corp., Glympse Bio, Inc., Celsius Therapeutics, Inc., and C2i Genomics. Dr. Kafka is also an accomplished company-builder and strategic leader in molecular diagnostics and data: from April 2019 to January 2021 he was founding Chief Executive Officer and Executive Chairman of Thrive Earlier Detection Corp., a healthcare company advancing a breakthrough blood test for the earlier detection of multiple types of cancer that was acquired by EXACT Sciences Corporation (Nasdaq: EXAS) in January 2021; from June 2018 to October 2020 he was Executive Chairman of ArcherDx, Inc., an innovator in personalized cancer monitoring utilizing next generation sequencing that was acquired by Invitae Corporation (NYSE: NVTA) in October 2020; and from January 2013 to February 2018 he was President and Chief Operating Officer of Foundation Medicine, Inc., a pioneer in oncology precision medicine that was acquired by Roche in June 2018. Dr. Kafka is currently Chairman at Glympse Bio, Inc. and a director of ImmuneID, Inc., and was previously an independent director at Relay Therapeutics (Nasdaq: RLAY) from June 2018 to August 2019. Previously, Dr. Kafka held senior leadership roles with several therapeutic biotechnology companies including Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Infinity Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: INFI), and Aileron Therapeutics (Nasdaq: ALRN). Dr. Kafka was also previously a Research Director at the leading technology research and consulting firm Forrester Research and was a Senior Engagement Manager at boutique strategy consultancy Strategic Decisions Group. Dr. Kafka holds a Ph.D. in political economy and government from Harvard University and an A.B. degree in economics and political science from Stanford University.

Christopher Wolfe, 41
Chief Financial Officer and Secretary

Mr. Wolfe has 20 years of experience in investing in healthcare and services businesses with a focus on complex and structured transactions. Mr. Wolfe has served as chief financial officer of previous Deerfield-sponsored SPACs, including DFB Healthcare Acquisitions Corp. until the consummation of its business combination in November 2019 with AdaptHealth Corp. (Nasdaq: AHCO), Deerfield Healthcare Technology Acquisitions Corp. until the consummation of its business combination in June 2021 with CareMax Inc. (Nasdaq: CMAX), and DFP Healthcare Acquisitions Corp. (Nasdaq: DFPH), which announced a business combination with The Oncology Institute in June 2021. Mr. Wolfe helped source, negotiate, structure and execute the business combination transactions with AdaptHealth Corp., CareMax Inc., and The Oncology Institute. From June 2003 to December 2017, Mr. Wolfe was a partner of Capital Z Partners Management, LLC, a middle-market private equity fund that has invested $3 billion in over 50 transactions since 1990, and worked in M&A at Credit Suisse First Boston. Mr. Wolfe graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College.

Board of Directors

Andrew ElBardissi, 39
Director

Dr. ElBardissi is a Partner on the structured products team at Deerfield Management, where he has been since January 2017, and focuses on healthcare technology, including diagnostics and life sciences tools. At Deerfield Management, Dr. ElBardissi has led investments and serves as a member of the Boards of Directors of Sema4, Singular Genomics, Encodia, Inc., DNAMx, Inc., Epic Sciences, Acutus Medical Inc., Farapulse, Inc., Endologix LLC, Element Science, Inc., and InCarda Therapeutics, Inc., among others. Previously, Dr. ElBardissi was a principal at Longitude Capital from January 2014 to January 2017 and a banker in J.P. Morgan’s (NYSE: JPM) healthcare practice. Dr. ElBardissi holds an M.D. from the Mayo Clinic, an M.P.H. in Quantitative Methods from Harvard University, an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.S. with honors in Biology (Phi Beta Kappa) from the Schreyer Honors College at the Pennsylvania State University. He received his residency training in General Surgery at Harvard Medical School’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital and in Cardiothoracic Surgery at Stanford.

Keith Crandell, 61
Director

Mr. Crandell is a co-founder and has served as a Managing Director of ARCH Venture Partners since July 1994, where he focuses on life science tools, devices, and diagnostics. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Quanterix Corporation (Nasdaq: QTRX), a publicly-traded company focusing on ultra-sensitive digital biomarker detection; Twist Bioscience (Nasdaq: TWST), a publicly-traded synthetic biology company whose silicon-based DNA writing platform offers broad application across the life science and biotherapeutics, and 908 Devices Inc. (Nasdaq: MASS), a publicly-traded company focused on bringing mass spectrometry to bio discovery and processing and field forensic applications. Mr. Crandell has played a key role in the formation and initial funding round of life science companies, including Quanterix Corporation, Twist Bioscience; and 908 Devices Inc., among others. Mr. Crandell is also a director of several private companies and serves on the Entrepreneurship Advisory Board at the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering Advisory Council, and on the Investment Advisory Board for the Partners Innovation Fund, a venture capital fund affiliated with Harvard Medical School Hospitals. Mr. Crandell has a B.S. degree in chemistry and mathematics from St. Lawrence University, an M.S. in chemistry from the University of Texas at Arlington, and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago.

Mara Aspinall, 58
Director

Ms. Aspinall has been a Managing Director and Co-Founder of BlueStone Venture Partners, a venture fund investing in life sciences technology companies in the US Southwest, since 2017, and has been Managing Director of the Health Catalysts Group, a consulting firm dedicated to the growth of health information technology and diagnostics firms, since 2014. Ms. Aspinall previously served as Executive Chairman of GenePeeks from January 2015 to May 2018. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of Abcam plc since 2015, Allscripts (Nasdaq: MDRX) since 2017, Castle Biosciences (Nasdaq: CSTL) since 2015, OraSure (Nasdaq: OSUR) since 2017, and Blue Cross Blue Shield Arizona since 2015. She previously served on the Health and Human Services Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Genetics, Health and Society (SACGHS) in the Obama and Bush administrations. Ms. Aspinall was the President and CEO of Ventana Medical Systems, a billion-dollar division of The Roche Group (now Roche Tissue Diagnostics), from 2011 to 2014. Previously, she spent 13 years at Genzyme Corporation from 1997 to 2009 where she served as President of Genzyme Genetics and Genzyme Pharmaceuticals. She transformed Genzyme Genetics from a small specialized player to one of the leading laboratories in the country, prior to its sale to LabCorp for $925 million. Ms. Aspinall has a B.A. from Tufts University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Kevin Hrusovsky, 60
Director

Mr. Hrusovsky has been Chairman and CEO of Quanterix (Nasdaq: QTRX), a company digitizing biomarker analysis to advance the science of precision health, since 2015. Prior to joining Quanterix, he was President of Life Sciences and Technologies at PerkinElmer (NYSE: PKI) from 2011 to 2013, CEO of Caliper Life Sciences (now PerkinElmer) from 2003 to 2011 and CEO of Zymark Corporation (now PerkinElmer) from 1996 to 2003. Previously, he served as President of FMC Corporation’s (NYSE: FMC) Pharmaceuticals division from 1992 to 1995 and as head of International Agricultural Products from 1995 to 1996 and held key management positions at E.I. DuPont de Nemours from 1983 to 1992. Mr. Hrusovsky currently serves on the Board of Directors of BioreclamationIVT since 2016, and is Chairman of 908 Devices (Nasdaq: MASS) and has been on the board since 2013. He previously served on the Board of SeraCare from 2010 to 2012, Caliper Life Sciences from 2003 to 2011, Synap Dx (Nasdaq: SYNA) from 2013 to 2017, Cellaria from 2015 to 2019 and Xenogen from 2004 to 2006. Additionally, he serves on the Educational Board of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, the Advisory Committee for the Center for Biomedical Engineering at Brown University, the Association for Laboratory Automation, the Journal of Laboratory Automation Editorial Board, and the Strategy Committee of Boston Children’s Hospital. Mr. Hrusovsky has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from The Ohio State University and an M.B.A. from Ohio University.

Angela Lai, 50
Director

Ms. Lai is CEO of BetterOmics, a company she founded in 2019, building an AI data engineering platform for Life Science companies. Previously, she was the Chief Technology Officer at GRAIL, a company developing a blood-based diagnostic for early cancer detection, from 2018 to 2019 and held other roles since joining the company in 2016. Prior to her endeavors in the life science industry, she was a Vice President at Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) from 2004 to 2016, where she led the Product and Engineering teams that developed key Google products, including Search, Payments, and AdWords. Ms. Lai has a B.S.E. in Computer Engineering from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, a B.S. in Economics concentrating in Finance from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and a Master’s degree in Robotics from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania.

Nick Roelofs, 63
Director

Dr. Roelofs has been an Advising Partner for Summa Equity, a Swedish private equity firm, since 2019, and an Industrial Advisor for Nordic Capital, a Swedish private equity firm, since 2014. He has been directly involved in four start-up companies and several multi-national corporations including Baxter Healthcare (NYSE: BAX) from 1989 to 1997, Applied Biosystems from 1997 to 2001, Stratagene from 2001 to 2004, Bio-Rad (NYSE: BIO) from 2004 to 2005, and Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A), where he served as the President of the Life Sciences Group at Agilent from 2009 to 2013. Dr. Roelofs currently serves on eight company Boards of Directors for a range of venture capital backed start-ups, larger private equity backed multinational companies and U.S. public companies, including Olink Holding AB (Nasdaq: OLK) since 2018. He also serves as an advisor to a range of governments and public, private equity, and venture capital investors. Dr. Roelofs has an M.S. in Organic Chemistry from Iowa State University and a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Nevada, Reno.