Who We Are

Joel Ackerman was Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Company from 2017 to 2025. 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 is the Chief Executive Officer of Champions Oncology. He leads the company’s mission to accelerate oncology drug development through advanced preclinical models and data-driven insights. Rob brings more than two decades of leadership experience across genomics, diagnostics, and life sciences technology, with a career focused on harnessing data to improve patient care. Before joining Champions, Rob served as Executive Vice President and Chief Business Officer at Veracyte, an oncology diagnostics company whose tests inform critical decisions across the patient journey. He previously held the role of Chief Executive Officer at Genuity Science (formerly WuXi NextCode), where he advanced the integration of clinical and molecular data to drive drug discovery and development. Earlier, Rob led major genomics businesses as Vice President and General Manager at Illumina and Thermo Fisher Scientific, following Thermo Fisher’s acquisition of Life Technologies, where he spent a decade building and scaling businesses serving academic and biopharma customers. Rob began his career as a management consultant at McKinsey & Co. and has served as an adjunct professor at the University of San Diego School of Law. Prior to becoming CEO he served on the Board of Champions Oncology, as well as Code Ocean, a genomic informatics platform company, and the Children’s Tumor Foundation. Rob holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics, with honors, from Emory University and a Juris Doctor, cum laude, from Harvard Law School.

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.

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 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.

Dr. Brian Alexander is Chief Executive Officer at Valo Health Inc., and a Partner at Flagship Pioneering. Prior to joining Valo Health in 2024, he was an SVP for R&D at Roche/Genentech, where he worked to leverage data science and AI/ML approaches for novel clinical development strategies. Previously, he led Foundation Medicine as CEO, advancing its mission to transform cancer care by leveraging molecular information to improve clinical decision making and therapeutic development.

Dr. Alexander serves on the Board of Directors of MassBio and is a co‑founder and board member of the Global Coalition for Adaptive Research, a nonprofit organization focused on accelerating the discovery and development of treatments for patients with rare and deadly diseases through pioneering, patient‑centric clinical trial design. He was also the founding director of the Harvard/MIT Center for Regulatory Science.

Dr. Alexander previously served as an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School and as a radiation oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women's Hospital. He received his MD from the University of Michigan, MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health and served as a White House Fellow in the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations.