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Who We Are

 

 

At Champions Oncology, we are passionate about accelerating the development of next-generation oncology therapeutics through end-to-end research and development solutions and strong scientific engagement.  

With the largest collection of highly clinically relevant patient-derived models, a broad portfolio of ex vivo and in vivo platforms, advanced analytical solutions, and the richest molecular multi-omic datasets, Champions Oncology is your partner in meeting today’s needs and innovating for tomorrow’s challenges.

Champions by the Numbers

With clinical sites, laboratories, and a scientific team strategically distributed around the globe, Champions Oncology is able to support studies globally and generate insights faster.

We pride ourselves on becoming part of your scientific team and focus on providing high-quality data to you, on time, every time.

1400

 

Highly Characterized PDX Models 

2500

 

Client Studies Completed

125
 
 
Standard Care / Approved Therapeutics Tested
 
 
 
The history of Champions from 2007 to 2019.
The history of Champions from 2020 to 2023.

Mission & Values

Our mission is an important driving force that all our team members believe in and practice each day: 

Through scientific excellence, we focus on meeting the challenges of cancer drug development by providing innovative solutions that ultimately improve patients’ lives.

At Champions, we aspire to demonstrate each of these 4 core values each and every day: Scientific Excellence, Team Work, Integrity, and Respect.  

Icons depicting Scientific Excellence, Team Work, Integrity, and Respect, which are Champions Employee values.
Champions provides corporate citizenship to those with cancer and their families.

Corporate Citizenship

As a company whose goals are focused on giving patients a better quality of life and enabling pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to bring new therapies and potential cures to market faster, we are also dedicated to the cause.

Patients suffering from oncologic diseases have grown dramatically over the last 10 years, despite the innovation and novel immunotherapies that have recently been introduced in the marketplace. Champions Oncology is dedicated to providing scientific excellence in the work that we do each day as well as donating to worldwide oncology associations. Together, we will work to find a cure.

 

Leadership Team

Ronnie 

Ronnie Morris, MD
Chief Executive Officer

RonnieRonnie Morris, MD, serves as Champion Oncology CEO and was most recently one of the founders of MDVIP, the national leader in personalized healthcare. Serving as a board member, medical director and part of the executive management team, Dr. Morris helped build and manage MDVIP, a company that grew to a network of 400 doctors within 29 states servicing 125,000 consumers/patients. In December 2009, MDVIP was acquired by the Procter and Gamble Co. Prior to MDVIP, Dr. Morris was the chief medical officer and executive VP of AllianceCare, a 1500-plus-employee company that provided home healthcare, physical therapy and doctor visits for homebound patients.

At AllianceCare, Dr. Morris developed and operated the physician house call division of the business, and he was the general medical director for the company. He was the managing partner of a large multispecialty group that was acquired in 1998 by ProMedCo. Dr. Morris is a board-certified internist and until 2004, he had a private practice in Boca Raton, Florida. He has been a consultant for many pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer, Merck and AstraZeneca.

Brady New-2 

Brady Davis
President

brady-2

Brady Davis joined Champions Oncology in October of 2023 and currently serves as President, working with the Executive Team to help define and accelerate the future growth of Champions. Prior to joining Champions, he worked as the Chief Business Officer of Canexia Health, an oncology diagnostics company focused on enabling equal access to cancer diagnostics solutions matching patients to targeted therapies and clinical trials worldwide. Prior to that Mr. Davis served as an Executive at DNAnexus, Illumina and Oracle helping create and build clinically focused software solutions and manage business units at each company. Mr. Davis is a graduate of the University of Washington, has been an investor and Board Advisor to multiple healthcare technology companies including not for profit organizations.

Maria 

Maria Mancini, PhD
Chief Operating Officer

Maria

Maria Mancini, PhD, joined Champions in March of 2015 and serves as Chief Operating Officer, overseeing the drug testing and study conduct of pharmacology research initiatives including pre-clinical and clinical studies. She previously served as the Director of Research for Biomodels, LLC leading efforts to generate translational in vivo platforms to test the efficacy of agents developed to treat cancer and cancer regimen-related toxicities. Dr. Mancini received her PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics from the University of Maine and served a Postdoctoral fellowship in Oncology at Harvard Medical School in the laboratory of Dr. Alex Toker.

Mike 

Michael Ritchie, PhD, MBA
Chief Commercial Officer

Mike

Michael Ritchie, PhD, MBA joined Champions Oncology in July of 2014 and currently serves as Chief Commercial Officer, overseeing all aspects of commercial development, sales and marketing. Prior to joining Champions, he worked in the oncology research unit at Pfizer, managing therapeutic development programs in the antibody-drug conjugate space and developing novel therapeutic antibody programs. Dr. Ritchie received an MBA from New York University, a doctorate in biochemistry from Temple University School of Medicine, and served a postdoctoral fellowship in Neuroscience at Harvard Medical School. 

David 

David Miller, MBA
Chief Financial Officer

David

David Miller serves as the Chief Financial Officer at Champions Oncology, Inc. Mr. Miller served as vice president of finance and Operations at DMCWW, LLC. From January 2006 to March 2010, he served as the chief financial officer of NAF Funding, LLC. From January 2000 to December 2005, he served as vice president of finance and Operations at IDT Corp., where he led the creation and growth of the consumer phone services division to over one million customers of local and long distance service. From 1997 to 1999, he served as an assistant vice president of the internal audit department at Deutche Bank. He also held senior accountant positions at Schonbraun, Safris, Sternlieb, LLC and Margolin, Winer and Evans. He is a Certified Public Accountant. He holds a B.S. from Yeshiva University in 1991 and an MBA from Fordham in 1999.

karin 

Karin Abarca Heidmann, PhD
Executive Vice President,
Global Scientific Operations

karin

Karin Abarca Heidemann, PhD, joined Champions Oncology in September of 2019 and currently serves as Executive Vice President of Global Scientific Operations. Dr Abarca Heidemann oversees all aspects of Champions translational oncology services including in-vitro and ex-vivo programs encompassing pre-clinical, co-clinical and CLIA approved drug sensitivity testing. Prior to joining the Champions team, she served as VP of scientific operations at Rockland Immunochemicals Inc, leading product development & launch, and streamlining the production processes of top product lines for life sciences and bioprocessing markets. Dr. Abarca Heidemann was trained in Leadership & Strategic Management at the Wharton School of Business, holds a doctorate in biophysics from the University of Cologne, Germany, and served postdoctoral fellowships in structural biology and biochemistry at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University FFM, Germany, UTHSC San Antonio and Temple University.

Marianna 

Marianna Zipeto, PhD
Executive Vice President,
Commercial

Marianna

Marianna Zipeto, PhD joined Champions Oncology in March 2020 and currently serves as EVP of Commercial, Research Services & Partnering, overseeing the translational oncology services business development team, corporate development and marketing. Prior to joining Champions, she managed the scientific operations at a preclinical CRO and served as a management consultant for life science companies. Dr. Zipeto received her PhD in Translational and Molecular Medicine from the University of Milano Bicocca, and served as a Postdoctoral Fellowship in cancer biology at the University of California, San Diego.

Art 

Arthur Hanson, MSCS
Vice President of Technology

Art

Art Hanson joined Champions Oncology full-time as Vice President of Technology in May 2020 after serving as a consultant from 2010-2020, developing the company’s PDX and NGS databases and software tools. As Head of Engineering, Mr. Hanson is responsible for overall information technology, security, and software development strategy for Champions. Mr. Hanson also directs the development efforts for Lumin.

Mr. Hanson earned his master’s degree in computer science at The Georgia Institute of Technology.

Rachel-1 

Rachel Bunting, MS, MBA
Vice President,
Global Marketing

Rachel-1

 

Rachel Bunting joined Champions Oncology in September of 2019 and currently serves as the Vice President of Global Marketing. Prior to joining Champions, she worked in Business Development and Marketing at a niche CRO focused on flow cytometry services. Rachel started her career at Janssen Pharmaceuticals in Immunology and infectious Disease R&D, executing analytical assays and managing in vivo studies with external academic collaborators. Rachel received an MBA from Drexel University in Pharmaceutical Management, an MS from The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, and completed a thesis in Molecular Pathology and Infectious Disease. 

Board of Directors

Joel Ackerman

Joel Ackerman was appointed Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Company in January 2017. He was CEO and Director of the Company from 2010 to 2017. Prior to Champions, he spent 15 years at Warburg Pincus, a leading private equity investment firm, from 1993 to 2008. While at Warburg Pincus, he was a partner of the firm, a member of the executive management group and ran the healthcare services group. He invested in start-ups and early-stage companies as well as later-stage growth investments and management-led buyouts. For most of these companies, Mr. Ackerman served on the board of directors and worked closely with the respective management teams on strategy, financing, M&A and organizational development. Currently, Mr. Ackerman sits on the board of directors of Coventry Health Care, a publicly traded managed care company, and Kindred Healthcare, a publicly traded company that owns hospitals and nursing homes. He is also chairman of the board of One Acre Fund, a nonprofit microfinance organization in Western Kenya. He received a BA in physics from Columbia University and an MA in physics from Harvard University

Rob Brainin

Rob Brainin is a Senior Life Sciences/Healthcare Executive based in Boston, MA. He currently served as the EVP, Chief Business Officer at Veracyte, a genomic diagnostics company whose tests provide answers that improve care throughout the patient journey.  He recently served as the Chief Executive Officer at Genuity Science (f/k/a WuXi NextCode), a company focused on integrating clinical and molecular data to derive insights that accelerate drug discovery and development, and ultimately improve healthcare. Prior to that, he served as the Vice President and General Manager of the Life Sciences and Applied Genomics Business at Illumina, a leading global genomics company, and before that as a Vice President/General Manager of the Enterprise Genomics Solutions business of Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc. He joined Thermo Fisher via its acquisition of Life Technologies, Inc. in 2014. From 2004 to 2014, Mr. Brainin served in a number of positions at Life Technologies and its predecessor, Invitrogen, predominantly leading a variety of large businesses that served customers in the academic and BioPharma segments. Earlier in his career, he was a management consultant at McKinsey & Co. and has served as an adjunct professor at the University of San Diego School of Law.  He is currently on the Board of Directors of the Children’s Tumor Foundation.  He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics, with honors, from Emory University and received his Juris Doctor degree, cum laude, from Harvard Law School.

Philip Breitfeld, MD

Philip Breitfeld, MD, serves as the Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer at Champions Oncology.  Dr. Breitfeld has more than 30 years of experience in oncology and was most recently Global Vice President at IQVIA, responsible for the Therapeutic Centers of Excellence. Prior to that, he led the Oncology Center of Excellence at IQVIA where he worked with many large, mid-size and emerging biopharmaceutical firms. He held senior clinical development positions at Merck KGaA (EMD Serono in the US), where he led oncology development in the US, and at BioCryst, where he led oncology development and was Associate Chief Medical Officer.

Prior to his career in industry, he held academic positions at Harvard, University of Massachusetts, Indiana University, and Duke. He has approximately 50 publications in the literature dealing with basic cell and molecular biology, and translational and clinical oncology. He was trained in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, was a visiting scientist at the Whitehead Institute at MIT, received his medical degree (MD) from the University of Rochester, and his undergraduate degree (AB in chemistry) from Princeton. Dr. Breitfeld is also a Director on the Company’s Board of Directors.

Daniel N. Mendelson

Dan Mendelson has served as a Director of the Company since March 2013.  He is Founder and former CEO of Avalere Health, a vibrant community of innovative thinkers dedicated to solving the challenges of the healthcare system.  He is also Operating Partner at Welsh Carson, a private equity firm focused on healthcare and technology investments.  Prior to founding Avalere in 2000, Dan served as Associate Director for Health at the Office of Management and Budget in the Clinton White House, where he was responsible for the full healthcare portfolio including Medicare, Medicaid, NIH, CDC, and FDA. 

Dan presently also serves on the boards of Centrexion Corporation, Audacious Inquiry, and Partners in Primary Care.  He is Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, and a founding member of Guidon Partners, an investment management group.  Dan also serves on the board of the Alliance for Health Policy.  He previously served on the boards of Coventry Healthcare (CVTY, sold to Aetna in 2013), PharMerica (PMC, sold to KKR in 2017) and HMS holdings (HMSY).  He holds a BA from Oberlin College, and an MPP from the Kennedy School at Harvard University.

Ronnie Morris, MD

Ronnie Morris, MD, serves as Champion Oncology Chief Executive Officer and was most recently one of the founders of MDVIP, the national leader in personalized healthcare. Serving as a board member, medical director and part of the executive management team, Dr. Morris helped build and manage MDVIP, a company that grew to a network of 400 doctors within 29 states servicing 125,000 consumers/patients. In December 2009, MDVIP was acquired by the Procter and Gamble Co. Prior to MDVIP, Dr. Morris was the chief medical officer and executive VP of AllianceCare, a 1500-plus-employee company that provided home healthcare, physical therapy and doctor visits for homebound patients.

At AllianceCare, Dr. Morris developed and operated the physician house call division of the business, and he was the general medical director for the company. He was the managing partner of a large multispecialty group that was acquired in 1998 by ProMedCo. Dr. Morris is a board-certified internist and until 2004, he had a private practice in Boca Raton, Florida. He has been a consultant for many pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer, Merck and AstraZeneca.

David Sidransky, MD

David Sidransky, MD was appointed Lead Director of the Company in January 2017. He was Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Company from 2007 to 2017. Dr. Sidransky is a renowned oncologist and research scientist named and profiled by TIME magazine in 2001 as one of the top physicians and scientists in America, recognized for his work with early detection of cancer. Since 1994, Dr. Sidransky has been the director of the Head and Neck Cancer Research Division at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and professor of oncology, otolaryngology, cellular & molecular medicine, urology, genetics, and pathology at John Hopkins University and Hospital.

During the past decade, in the field of oncology, Dr. Sidransky has been one of the world’s most highly cited researchers in clinic and medical journals, with over 300 peer-reviewed publications. He has contributed more than 40 cancer reviews and chapters. Dr. Sidransky is a founder of a number of biotechnology companies and holds numerous biotechnology patents. He has served as vice chairman of the board of directors, and was, until the merger with Eli Lilly, a director of ImClone Systems Inc., a global biopharmaceutical company committed to advancing oncology care. He is the chairman of Alfacell Corporation and serves on the board of directors of Xenomics. He is serving, and has served, on scientific advisory boards of MedImmune, Roche, Amgen and Veridex, LLC (a Johnson & Johnson diagnostic company), among others. Dr. Sidransky served as director (2005-2008) of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). He was the chairperson of AACR International Conferences (2006 and 2007) on Molecular Diagnostics in Cancer Therapeutic Development: Maximizing Opportunities for Personalized Treatment.

Dr. Sidransky is the recipient of a number of awards and honors, including the 1997 Sarstedt International Prize from the German Society of Clinical Chemistry, the 1998 Alton Ochsner Award Relating Smoking and Health by the American College of Chest Physicians, and the 2004 Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Memorial Award from the American Association for Cancer Research.

Scott Tobin

Scott R. Tobin has served as Director of the Company since June 2011. Mr. Tobin joined Battery Ventures, a venture capital/private equity firm, in 1997 where he has been a managing partner of various funds affiliated with the firm since May 2000. He leads investments in the United States, Israel and Europe and has focused his investments in enterprise infrastructure, materials science, application software, business services, media and financial services. Mr. Tobin has been named multiple times to the Forbes Midas List, which ranks top venture capitalists from around the world. He graduated with honors from Brandeis University with a BA in International Relations and Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies.

Champions provides Global Sustainability through green strategies.

Global Sustainability

At Champions Oncology, we believe that sustainable business practices are paramount to succeeding in the global economy. We are committed to implementing strategies that respect and preserve the environment while enhancing economic prosperity for all stakeholders.

Our approach to sustainability is holistic and forward-thinking, with the aim of making a positive impact on the global community and ensuring a better tomorrow for future generations. 

 

Strategic Partnerships

Scientific expertise and agile decision-making are the key drivers of a successful partnership with Champions Oncology. By establishing a core research agreement with a fixed pricing model, principal investigators have priority access to warm models and interface directly with Champions’ expert scientific business development and project leadership to design, plan and execute programs. This accelerates the process and time to study results, which results in more effective decision-making for guiding clinical development scenarios.

 

Champions team members agreeing to a Strategic Partnership.
Creating corporate alliances with purpose to drive research forward.

Corporate Alliances

Corporate Alliances in oncology research play a pivotal role in accelerating the development of innovative cancer treatments. These collaborations, which often involve industry giants and leading research institutes, harness the strengths of each party, combining cutting-edge technology with world-class scientific knowledge.

By facilitating the sharing of resources, expertise, and data, corporate alliances in this field have the potential to expedite the drug discovery process, bringing life-saving treatments to patients faster. Moreover, they foster a multi-disciplinary approach, which is key to solving complex oncological challenges, and ultimately, improving patient outcomes. 

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