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Our Team

LEADERSHIP

Waichiro Katsuda

Chief Executive Officer, Co-founder

Waichiro is the co-founder and CEO of ThinkCyte. He started his career at a biotech startup, responsible for business and product development of a medical device in the U.S. and Japan. He was also a management consultant at Monitor Group, mainly focused on corporate strategy development and marketing for the world’s leading pharmaceutical and medical device companies. Waichiro holds an MBA from INSEAD.

Hikaru Nagahori, CPA

Chief Operating Officer, President of ThinkCyte North America

Hikaru is Chief Operating Officer and President of ThinkCyte, North America. He brings nearly 10 years of leadership experience at Mitsui & Co., working in various roles at international companies. Prior to joining ThinkCyte, he dedicated to establishing and operating a new company in the U.S. as a Commercial Director after the business acquisition, accountable for $50 million of global annual revenue in more than 50 countries. Previously, he served as a Vice President in the Specialty Chemical Division in another U.S. subsidiary company as well. Hikaru holds an MS in Bioengineering from the University of Tokyo and is a licensed Certified Public Accountant in the State of Washington, U.S.

Keiji Nakagawa

Chief Product Officer

Keiji leads product design and development at ThinkCyte. Prior to ThinkCyte, he served as a mechanical engineer at EPSON, specializing in MEMS and microfluidics. He led the design and development of new electronic devices such as an ink-jet printer, which are now successfully commercialized globally. Keiji holds an MS in Inorganic Chemistry from the University of Kyoto.

Janette Phi

Chief Business Officer

Janette Phi is Chief Business Officer at ThinkCyte and is responsible for leading global business development and commercial activities. Ms. Phi brings over 30 years of technical and business experience with advanced scientific technology companies. She has served as CBO for IntelliCyt (acquired by Sartorius), COO for Xcell Biosciences and CCO for Applied Cells and ONI. In addition, Janette previously held management positions at ForteBio, Guava Technologies, AmCell, and Becton Dickinson Bioscience.
She holds a B.S. in Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley and an MBA with an emphasis in Marketing & Finance from Santa Clara University.

Sadao Ota, Ph.D.

Chief Scientific Officer, Co-founder

Sadao is the co-founder and CSO of ThinkCyte. He is an interdisciplinary scientist at the interface of applied physics, engineering, biology and information science. Prior to ThinkCyte, he was a Sakigake Scholar at Japan Science and Technology Agency and an assistant professor at the University of Tokyo, Department of Chemistry. Currently he is an associate professor at U. Tokyo with specialization in networked biophotonics and microfluidics. Sadao holds a Ph.D. in engineering from UC Berkeley.

Ryo Otsuki

Chief Financial Officer

Ryo is Chief Financial Officer at ThinkCyte. He has nearly two decades of experience in finance and most recently was a CFO at a robotic technology startup, where he directed its fundraising activities and IPO preparation process. Before that, he was a director at Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ), a private equity fund, where he orchestrated investment, integration, and restructuring of a private company after making over $2 billion investments, and successfully led the company to an IPO. Prior to that, he was a principal at Nikko Principal Investments and was responsible for multiple buy-out deals, totaling over $300 million. Ryo holds an MS in Physics from Tokyo Institute of Technology.

Eiji Nara, Ph.D.

Vice President, IP & Legal Affairs

Eiji is Vice President of Intellectual Property and Legal Affairs at Thinkcyte. He brings to this role more than 20 years of experience in intellectual property and research in the biopharmaceutical industry. Prior to joining ThinkCyte, Dr. Nara served as Global Head of IP BD/Litigation at Takeda Pharmaceuticals, where he led the company’s worldwide IP litigations and IP due diligence for acquisitions, partnering, and product in-licenses. In recognition of his contribution at Takeda, he has received Takeda Global Award in 2011. Previously, he was a Senior Director of IP Department, where he was responsible for patent assessments, IP litigations, and other IP related advice or contract review for research collaborations. He started his career as a scientist at Takeda, specializing in a novel drug delivery system. Eiji holds a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Kyoto University.

Willem Westra, Ph.D.

VP, Business Development & Marketing

Willem is Vice President of Business Development at ThinkCyte. With over a decade of experience in commercializing novel biomedical technologies, Willem joined ThinkCyte from Oxford BioDynamics where he led US business development. He started his career at a Boston-based biotechnology startup that was an early pioneer in combining molecular analyses with AI-based approaches. Willem holds a B.S. in Pharmacological Chemistry and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Science from the University of California, San Diego and has authored over 20 publications on the industrial application of cell-based technologies.

Andy Wu, Ph.D.

Director, Business & Corporate Development

Andy is the Director of Business & Corporate Development at ThinkCyte. He has held business development roles at Teijin Pharma and has management consulting experiences at LEK Consulting as a Sr. Life Scientist Specialist, gaining extensive experience and insights in the life science industry. Andy also holds a Ph.D. from U. Tokyo specializing in regenerative medicine.

board of directors / co-founders

Waichiro Katsuda

Chief Executive Officer, Co-founder

Waichiro is the co-founder and CEO of ThinkCyte. He started his career at a biotech startup, responsible for business and product development of a medical device in the U.S. and Japan. He was also a management consultant at Monitor Group, mainly focused on corporate strategy development and marketing for the world’s leading pharmaceutical and medical device companies. Waichiro holds an MBA from INSEAD.

David Basiji, Ph.D.

Board of Directors

David Basiji is a member of Board of Directors at ThinkCyte. Dr. Basiji was the founder of Amnis Corporation, which developed and commercialized an imaging flow cytometry platform he co-invented. He became CEO and chairman of the board of Amnis in 2005, serving until the sale of the company to MilliporeSigma at a valuation of $110 million. He was responsible for the integration of Amnis within MilliporeSigma and subsequently managed worldwide sales and marketing for MilliporeSigma’s ~$60 million Cellular Analysis Business. Dr. Basiji is the co-author of 55 US and international patents and is currently developing a best-in-class clinical tissue staining platform based on a novel method of antigen retrieval.

Yusuke Shinozawa

Board of Directors

Yusuke Shinozawa is a member of Board of Directors at ThinkCyte and currently serve as Executive Officer of Leave a Nest Co., Ltd.
He holds an MS in Cellular and Molecular Biology from the University of Tokyo.

Ryoichi Horisaki, Ph.D.

Scientific Advisor, Co-founder

Ryoichi is the co-founder of ThinkCyte. He is an interdisciplinary scientist with dual expertise in information photonics and computational imaging, interdisciplinary research fields of optics and information science. He is an assistant professor of Graduate School of Information Science and Technology at Osaka University and a Sakigake researcher at Japan Science and Technology Agency. Ryoichi holds a Ph.D. in Information Science from Osaka University.

Issei Sato, Ph.D.

Scientific Advisor, Co-founder

Issei is the co-founder and senior scientific advisor of ThinkCyte. He is a leading scientist of machine learning and a frequent presenter of top machine learning conferences including KDD, ICML and NIPS. He is Lecturer of Computer Science at the University of Tokyo and Team Leader of Medical Image Analysis Team at RIKEN Center for Advanced Intelligence Project. Issei holds a Ph.D. in Information Science and Technology from the University of Tokyo.

Sadao Ota, Ph.D.

Chief Scientific Officer, Co-founder

Sadao is the co-founder and CSO of ThinkCyte. He is an interdisciplinary scientist at the interface of applied physics, engineering, biology and information science. Prior to ThinkCyte, he was a Sakigake Scholar at Japan Science and Technology Agency and an assistant professor at the University of Tokyo, Department of Chemistry. Currently he is an associate professor at U. Tokyo with specialization in networked biophotonics and microfluidics. Sadao holds a Ph.D. in engineering from UC Berkeley.