Cylex CEO and President Brad L. Stewart is responsible for global commercial operations, corporate strategy and business development. An experienced senior executive, Mr. Stewart maintains a record of success in many specialty-areas of the life sciences industry including: biotech; pharmaceuticals; orphan drugs; and diagnostics.

His accomplishments include the establishment and leadership of a successful U.S. business for a European pharmaceutical company; growth and diversification of an orphan drug company; strategic restructuring of the North American business unit of a global pharmaceutical company; development and management of joint ventures, including a multi-million dollar global pharmaceutical venture; creating an operational improvement business within a major global diagnostics company; and extensive management consulting and corporate strategy assignments.

Mr. Stewart is a graduate of the University of Florida.

 

Douglas J. Brown, chief financial officer, has more than 30 years experience in public accounting. At Cylex, he is responsible for management of global financial strategy, including planning, funding of current and future operations and maximizing stakeholder value.

Mr. Brown has successfully managed and grown industry and functional practice groups. As an executive officer, he directed transformations of global financial operations: increasing efficiency, while achieving significant cost reduction; developing, executing and realizing the benefits of value creation strategies; negotiating and obtaining equity and debt financing; improving and enhancing management information reporting; creating and implementing executive compensation programs; negotiating, structuring and closing asset and business acquisitions; developing and implementing tax minimization strategies; and strategically managing corporate balance sheets.

Mr. Brown received a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the University of Florida, and a master’s degree in taxation from the University of Texas at Austin.

 

Jack Kromar, vice president, sales and marketing, brings over 25 years of executive marketing expertise to Cylex.

Mr. Kromar, formerly president and CEO of DIREmed LLC, a private, early stage company, has a record of success with global and start-up companies. As vice president of laboratory, hospital and research systems at Roche Diagnostics, Canada, he managed 140 marketing, sales, service and support professionals; and was responsible for 54% of corporate revenues. Appointed vice president of corporate accounts for the Centralized Diagnostics Business Unit of Roche Diagnostics, USA, in 2005, he achieved growth objectives while managing a 30-member team accountable for over $700 million in annual sales. Mr. Kromar moved to a U.S.-based start-up, Boston Medical Technologies. There, he directed the market introduction of a product designed to assess autonomic nervous system condition in diabetes patients.

Mr. Kromar holds a bachelor’s degree from Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio.

 

Dr. Richard Kowalski, an experienced senior executive, is director of medical and clinical affairs at Cylex. He is responsible for the use of Cylex platform technology with immunosuppressed populations, as well as design and implementation of multi-center studies required to generate data for ImmuKnow in all of its various applications. These studies support market expansion into new areas including allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, Hepatitis C, HIV and cancer.

As senior manager of preclinical development for Osiris Therapeutics, Dr. Kowalski assisted in the development of cell-based therapeutics for gene therapy and tissue regeneration using Mesenchymal stem cells. He spent several years as a research and development scientist at Cambridge Biotech, a subsidiary of BioMerieux-Vitek.

Dr. Kowalski earned a bachelor ’s degree in biochemistry/molecular biology from the University of Maryland, and a doctorate in molecular biology from Vanderbilt University. He completed postdoctoral training at the University of Florida and the National Cancer Institute.

 

Teri Toth, director of quality systems at Cylex, is responsible for maintaining standards of excellence for the company’s successful ImmuKnow immune cell assay and related products. With a distinguished career spanning more than 25 years, Ms. Toth provides expertise in microbiology, quality control and quality assurance.

At KPL Inc., Ms. Toth implemented a c-GMP/ISO 9001 Quality System and coordinated the USDA licensing of 21 veterinary diagnostic kits. She moved into human diagnostic kits at Dexall Biomedical Labs Inc., where she managed FDA-licensed human diagnostic kits for allergy testing and obtained CE marking and EU IVD approval for their products. She implemented global quality assurance systems, global change control systems and integrated new DNA and RNA purification products at QIAGEN Inc.; and, as director of quality at MaxCyte Inc., an instrument manufacturer for cell therapeutics, successfully implemented a GMP Quality System and obtained ISO 9001:2000 certification in a 14-month period.

Ms. Toth earned a bachelor’s degree in general science from Bridgewater College in Bridgewater, Virginia.

 

Sharlene Blum, customer care director, brings more than 25 years of clinical laboratory experience to Cylex. She leads the Customer Care department, which handles product requests and provides technical support, education and training for laboratory customers.

Ms. Blum holds laboratory certifications in the fields of histocompatibility, immunogenetics and immunology. Her experience in the clinical reference laboratory industry includes director-level roles at Quest Diagnostics Inc., where she served as director of hospital and satellite laboratories; director of customer solutions and quality effectiveness; and director of patient services. In all capacities, Ms. Blum demonstrated her ability to implement integrated operations, sales and quality systems; cultivate client loyalty; and increase customer satisfaction.

Ms. Blum holds a dual bachelor's degree in biology and education from Oswego State University, and a master's degree in health science administration from Towson University. She is a trained Six Sigma Black Belt.

 

Marc Berman, director of operations, is responsible for manufacturing and materials management functions at Cylex. He also coordinates the company’s information technology program, designing and implementing effective enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.

Mr. Berman brings more than 20 years experience in biotech and diagnostic kit manufacturing, including his work at cGMP- and USDA-licensed facilities, and experience working under ISO 9001 Quality Systems. As project manager in one of these facilities, Mr. Berman organized the design of modern, efficient corporate facilities and coordinated the transfer of operations to the new location. His experience includes production of ELISA and IFA diagnostic kits, as well as protein detection reagents for researchers.

Mr. Berman has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Dena Meagher, director of human resources, is responsible for the oversight and management of Human Resource policies, programs and practices for Cylex. This includes critical business functions such as recruitment and talent management, organization development, employee development and training. She also develops and maintains the Company benefit, compensation, recognition and reward programs and leads our community outreach initiatives. She assists the management team in sustaining a Company culture that emphasizes quality, continuous improvement, and high performance.

Ms. Meagher brings more than 15 years experience, primarily from the Life Sciences and Healthcare Industries, as a strategic business partner aligning business objectives with human talent to create positive and productive work environments.

Ms. Meagher has a bachelor's degree from the University of Massachusetts and has been certified as a Human Resources professional since early 2000.