Administration
Mark A. Cochran , Ph.D.
Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director
Dr. Cochran joined the Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute (BRNI) as the CEO and executive director in April 2006. He has an extensive background in life sciences that includes roles in research, drug development, business development and venture capital. Before coming to BRNI, Dr. Cochran was the managing director of NeuroVentures Fund based in Charlottesville, Va. Over the past six years, the group invested in companies developing drugs, devices, and other medical technologies for clinical neuroscience.
Dr. Cochran holds a doctorate in microbiology and immunology from Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario; a master's in microbiology from the University of Guelph, Ontario, and a bachelor's degree from the University of Toronto. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Health.
Dr. Cochran sits as director on the boards of Kadmus Pharmaceuticals (Irvine, CA), NeurAxon Pharmaceuticals, Microbix Biosystems (Toronto, Canada), Acumen Pharmaceuticals, Rivanna Pharmaceuticals, and is an observer on the boards of BrainCells Inc., and Saegis Pharmaceuticals.
Prior to NeuroVentures, Dr. Cochran worked with MDS Capital Corporation, a Toronto-based healthcare venture capital group where he was responsible for MDS' San Francisco venture business and several MDS invested companies. His previous experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry includes Bayer Pharmaceuticals, most recently as vice president of business development, biotechnology, in Berkeley, California. Other positions held during his tenure at Bayer included project director of Recombinant Factor VIII, and head of molecular biology and biochemistry in Wuppertal, Germany. Before joining Bayer, Dr. Cochran co-founded MicroGeneSys, Inc., a Connecticut-based vaccine company. He is listed as the author on 22 scientific papers, 66 abstracts and six patents.