We’re a Team with a Common Mission

Investment Team

Andrew W. Lo

Dr. Andrew W. Lo co-founded QLS Advisors in 2019 and currently serves as the firm’s Chairman and Co-CIO. He is also the Charles E. and Susan T. Harris Professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, director of MIT’s Laboratory for Financial Engineering, and principal investigator at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Prior to QLS, Dr. Lo was Chairman and Chief Investment Strategist of AlphaSimplex Group, a quantitative investment company. His healthcare-related research interests include new financial and business models for drug and device development and healthcare delivery, statistical methods for incorporating patient preferences into the drug approval process, and predicting clinical trial outcomes via machine learning techniques. Dr. Lo is a co-founder of BridegBio Pharma, Quantile Health, and Uncommon Cures; a director of AbCellera, Atomwise, BridgeBio Pharma, and Vesalius; and an advisor to the American Cancer Society’s BrightEdge Impact Fund. He holds a B.A. in economics from Yale University and an A.M. and Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University.

Shomesh E. Chaudhuri

Dr. Shomesh E. Chaudhuri co-founded QLS Advisors in 2019 and currently serves as the firm’s CEO and Co-CIO. Dr. Chaudhuri has developed portfolio intelligence platforms for several biopharma companies, consulting directly with CEOs, CFOs, and their staffs to help align their financing structures with their scientific and medical objectives. He has also led the development of the firm’s core analytics platform, including QLS’s machine-learning driven forecasts of clinical trial outcomes, and has overseen the implementation of the entire QLS technology infrastructure and computational architecture. Prior to QLS, Dr. Chaudhuri was a postdoctoral associate at MIT’s Sloan School of Management where he designed new funding vehicles and business models to access previously untapped pools of capital to support biomedical innovation. He has published articles in top finance and biotech journals including JAMA Oncology, the Journal of Financial Economics, and Management Science and is the co-author of the textbook Healthcare Finance: Modern Financial Analysis for Accelerating Biomedical Innovation. He holds a B.S, in engineering sciences (bioengineering) from Harvard University and an M.S. and Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT.

Alan Kwan

Alan Kwan

Dr. Alan Kwan joined QLS Advisors in 2022 and serves as Portfolio Manager, Biotechnology and Pharmaceuticals, with responsibility for trading strategies innovation and the optimized integration of fundamental analysis into those strategies, where appropriate. Dr. Kwan previously served as an Analyst at Millennium Management, LLC where he designed, managed, and implemented semi-automated infrastructure to support several fundamentals-based trading strategies for his coverage in both large and SMID cap biopharma US equities. Prior to joining Millennium, Dr. Kwan served as a Vice President of Research at Tekla Capital Management where he covered both public and private healthcare investments. His public coverage spanned SMID cap biotechnology, all cap life-science tools, all cap diagnostics, and all cap medical devices. In private investments, he was responsible for the evaluating opportunities in biotechnology, life-science tools and diagnostics, and medical devices and served as a board observer on select portfolio companies. He received his B.S. in Computer Science from the University of British Columbia, his M.S. in Computer Science from Washington University in St. Louis, his Ph.D. in Computational Genomics from Washington University School of Medicine, and his MBA from MIT.

Data Science & Operations

Robert Bowden

Dr. Robert Bowden joined QLS Advisors in 2020 and serves as the firm’s Chief Data Scientist at QLS. Dr. Bowden completed his Ph.D. in Computer Science at Harvard University. For his dissertation, he expanded on ideas from the field of natural language processing and applied them to computer program repair, developing new representations and algorithms for machine learning on source code. His research culminated in a tool that is able to automatically debug introductory programming assignments and provide students with directed feedback to fix their code. Dr. Bowden holds a B.A. and M.A. in Computer Science from Harvard University.

John Frishkopf

John J. Frishkopf joined QLS Advisors in 2019 as a Principal and is a member of the Advisory Committee. Prior to QLS, Mr. Frishkopf was a founder of NewStar Financial, Inc. As the Treasurer and Head of Asset Management he developed NewStar’s risk management and securitization platform, issuing pioneering middle market collateralized loan obligations. Before NewStar, he co-founded Benson Oak, a boutique investment bank focused on innovative international debt capital markets solutions for clients. Mr. Frishkopf has participated in research applying asset securitization techniques to drug development since 2013, is a director of the Global Coalition for Adaptive Research, the sponsor of an adaptive clinical trial for glioblastoma, and a former member of the board of directors of the National Brain Tumor Society and serves on its investment committee. He holds a B.S. from the MIT and an M.M.S. from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Gopal Kotecha

Gopal Kotecha

Dr. Gopal Kotecha joined QLS Advisors in 2023 and serves as a Senior Investment Associate. Prior to QLS, he focused on analytics of medical data science at Mass General Brigham and practiced as a medical doctor in England’s National Health Service. Dr. Kotecha holds a Ph.D. in Biostatistics from Harvard University focusing on clinical trial designs, a master’s degree in Machine Learning from University College London and a medical degree from Cambridge University.

Eliot Min

Eliot Min

Eliot Min joined QLS Advisors in 2023 and serves as a Data Scientist. Prior to joining QLS, Mr. Min holds an A.B. in Psychology at Harvard College with a minor in Statistics. For his senior thesis, he used a dictator game and statistical tests to investigate why individuals exercise “Strategic Ignorance”, a phenomenon by which individuals avoid ingesting information that modifies their decision-making processes. Mr. Min’s prior experience includes analytics at Zwift and DocuSign, as well as data science instruction at Harvard.

Lena Moretti

Lena Moretti

Lena Moretti joined QLS Advisors in 2021 as the firm’s Office Manager/Client Relations Associate with responsibility for overseeing the day-to-day implementation and execution of office policies, procedures, and overall needs, along with managing QLS’s marketing efforts and client relationships. Prior to joining QLS, Mrs. Moretti served as a Senior Administrative Assistant assisting faculty with their course-related portfolios within the academic areas at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. Prior to MIT, Mrs. Moretti was the Administrative Manager at NV5 for their Boston office and served as the main consult and liaison for project administration for their northeast offices. Mrs. Moretti holds a B.A. in political science with a focus in international relations from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Kim Nassar

Kimberly S. Nassar

Kimberly Nassar joined QLS Advisors in 2021 as the firm’s Chief Compliance Officer with responsibility for overseeing the day-to-day execution of the firm’s compliance program. Ms. Nassar previously served as a Senior Principal Consultant for ACA Group in their investment adviser regulatory consulting practice. Prior to joining ACA, Ms. Nassar served as a Director for Affiliated Managers Group, Inc. (“AMG”), a publicly traded asset management company with equity investments in boutique investment advisory firms (“AMG Affiliates”). In this role, Ms. Nassar was responsible for assisting AMG Affiliates with a variety of regulatory compliance matters. Overall, Ms. Nassar has over 30 years of experience with investment management compliance, holding positions with companies such as Fidelity Investments, Wellington Management Company, LLP, and Deutsche Bank (formerly Scudder Kemper Investments). Ms. Nassar holds a B.A. from Simmons College and an M.S. in Training and Development from Lesley University.

Raphaël Pellegrin

Raphaël Pellegrin

Raphaël Pellegrin joined QLS Advisors in 2023 and serves as a Quantitative Researcher. Prior to joining QLS, Mr. Pellegrin worked as a Software Engineer with a focus on computational geometry. He holds a BSc in Mathematics at Imperial College London, an MSc in Mathematical Sciences at the University of Oxford, and an ME in Computational Science and Engineering at Harvard University. Mr. Pellegrin’s master’s thesis at Harvard concerned Physics Informed Neural Networks, with applications to branched flows. His current interests include Machine Learning and Network Science.

Scientific and Financial Advisors

Peter Hancock

Peter Hancock

Peter D. Hancock joined QLS Advisors in 2019 as a Principal and is a member of the Advisory Committee. Mr. Hancock is the former President and CEO of AIG. Prior to leading AIG, he spent 20 years at J.P. Morgan where he founded the global derivatives business, restructured and managed the fixed income and credit businesses, and served as group CFO and Chief Risk Officer. After J.P. Morgan, Mr. Hancock co-founded Integrated Finance Limited, where he served as President for seven years, and then served as Vice Chairman of Keycorp. He currently serves on the board of two private insure-tech companies, is an advisor to Canadian VC fund and a number of early-stage companies. He holds a B.A. in politics, philosophy, and economics from Oxford University.

Robert S. Langer

Dr. Robert Langer serves as an advisor to QLS and is one of 12 Institute Professors at the MIT; being an Institute Professor is the highest honor that can be awarded to a faculty member. He has written over 1,500 articles, which have been cited over 368,000 times; his h-index of 301 is the highest of any engineer in history and the 3rd highest of any individual in any field. His patents have licensed or sublicensed to over 400 companies; he is a cofounder of a number of companies including Moderna. Dr. Langer served as Chairman of the FDA’s Science Board (its highest advisory board) from 1999-2002. His over 220 awards include both the United States National Medal of Science and the United States National Medal of Technology and Innovation (he is one of 3 living individuals to have received both these honors), the Charles Stark Draper Prize (often called the Engineering Nobel Prize), Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, Albany Medical Center Prize, Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, Kyoto Prize, Wolf Prize for Chemistry, Millennium Technology Prize, Priestley Medal (highest award of the American Chemical Society), Gairdner Prize, Hoover Medal, Dreyfus Prize in Chemical Sciences, and the BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Biomedicine. He holds 39 honorary doctorates, including Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Northwestern, and has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Inventors.

Robert C. Merton

Dr. Robert C. Merton joined QLS Advisors in 2020 as a Principal and is a member of the Advisory Committee. Dr. Merton is the School of Management Distinguished Professor of Finance at the MIT Sloan School of Management and John and Natty McArthur University Professor Emeritus at Harvard University. He is Resident Scientist at Dimensional Holdings, Inc. His research focuses on finance theory, including lifecycle and retirement finance, optimal portfolio selection, capital asset pricing, pricing of derivative securities, credit risk, loan guarantees, financial innovation, the dynamics of institutional change, and improving the methods of measuring and managing macro-financial risk. In 1997, Dr. Merton received the Alfred Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1997 for a new method to determine the value of derivatives. He is past president of the American Finance Association, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Merton holds a B.S. in Engineering Mathematics from Columbia University, a M.S. in Applied Mathematics from California Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. in Economics from MIT and holds numerous honorary degrees from US and foreign universities.

Lita Nelsen

Lita Nelsen serves as an advisor to QLS. Ms. Nelsen spent 30 years in the Technology Licensing Office of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 25 of them as director of the office. During that time, the MIT TLO licensed over 500 startup companies based on MIT research technology. She is the author of many articles and book chapters on technology transfer. During her tenure at the MIT TLO she was invited to lecture and consult in tech transfer and university-based entrepreneurship in over 20 countries around the world. She was a co-founder of Praxis (now Praxis-Auril) a UK non-profit company for training tech transfer professionals, or which she was awarded a Member of the British Empire (MBE) by the UK government. Other awards include Lifetime Achievement awards from Xconomy and from the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council Having retired from MIT, Lita is now a consultant for startups licensing technology from universities and an advisor to Good Growth Capital’s venture funds, and sits on several biotechnology company scientific advisory boards. She volunteers as a mentor in the MIT Sandbox Program, mentoring student entrepreneurs.

Ms. Nelsen holds a B.S. and M.S. in Chemical Engineering, and an MBA as a Sloan Fellow at the MIT Sloan School of management. Prior to joining MIT’s Technology Licensing Office she worked in R&D, consulting and venture management in medical devices and membrane separations companies.

Larry Norton

Dr. Larry Norton, M.D. is the Norna S. Sarofim Chair of Clinical Oncology, Senior Vice President in the Office of the President, and Deputy Director for Clinical and Translational Science in the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York and serves as an advisor to QLS. He is the Medical Director of the Evelyn H. Lauder Breast Center at MSK and is a founder of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, serving as Scientific Director and then Founding Scientific Director since the foundation’s inception in 1993. Dr. Norton has served on or chaired numerous committees of the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and has served as President of the American Society of Clinical Oncology among other leadership roles in that and other organizations. He is also a Fellow of the American Society of Clinical Oncology and of the American Association for Cancer Research Academy.

Dr. Norton has dedicated his life to the eradication of cancer by activities in medical care, laboratory and clinical research, advocacy and government. His research is broad, but he is best known for mathematical modeling in therapeutic development. He has been involved in the development of several effective agents including paclitaxel and trastuzumab. He co-invented the Norton-Simon Model of cancer growth which has broadly influenced cancer therapy, and more recently the self-seeding concept of cancer metastasis and growth. He is the Principal Investigator of the BCRF-Simons Mathematical Oncology Initiative and an author of more than 400 published articles and many book chapters.

Among many honors, he received ASCO’s Karnofsky and Bonadonna Awards, the McGuire Lectureship at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, MSKCC’s Whitmore Award for Clinical Excellence, the Columbia University’s Gold Medal for Outstanding Achievement in Medical Research, The Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Double Helix Award as well as the Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researcher Certificate.

Richard H. Scheller

Dr. Richard H. Scheller joined BridgeBio Pharma as chairman of R&D in 2019, having served as a member of the board since 2018. In addition, he serves on the board of directors at 23andMe, Alector, Maze Therapeutics, DiCE Molecules, and Aarvik Therapeutics, is on the board of trustees at Caltech and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and serves as an advisors to QLS. From 2015 to 2019, Dr. Scheller was head of therapeutics and chief scientific officer at 23andMe. At Genentech from 2001 to 2014, he was executive vice president of research and early development and served on the executive committees of Roche and Genentech focusing on research strategy, drug discovery, business development and early drug development activities.

From 1982 to 2001, Dr. Scheller was a professor at Stanford in the Department of Biological Sciences and the Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology and was an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute of Stanford University Medical Center. Since 2004, Dr. Scheller has served as an adjunct professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco.

He holds a B.S. in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Ph.D. in chemistry from Caltech. Scheller’s research elucidating the molecular machinery and regulatory mechanism that underlies neurotransmitter release earned him the 2013 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award, the 2010 Kavli Prize in Neuroscience, and the 1997 U.S. National Academy of Sciences Award in Molecular Biology. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a member of the National Academy of Medicine.

Phillip A. Sharp

Dr. Phillip A. Sharp is an Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and member of the Department of Biology and the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and is an advisor to QLS. He joined the Center for Cancer Research (now the Koch Institute) in 1974 and served as its director for six years, from 1985 to 1991, before taking over as head of the Department of Biology, a position he held for the next eight years. He was founding director of the McGovern Institute, a position he held from 2000 to 2004. His research interests have centered on the molecular biology of gene expression relevant to cancer and the mechanisms of RNA splicing.

His landmark work in 1977 provided the first indications of “discontinuous genes” in mammalian cells. The discovery fundamentally changed scientists’ understanding of gene structure and earned Dr. Sharp the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Dr. Sharp has authored over 430 papers. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the Royal Society, UK. Among his many awards are the Gairdner Foundation International Award, the Lasker Basic Medical Research Award, and the National Medal of Science. His long list of service includes the presidency of the AAAS (2013) and Chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the SU2C Project, AACR. A native of Kentucky, Dr. Sharp holds a B.A. degree from Union College, Barbourville, KY, and a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He is a co-founder of Biogen (1978) and served as a member of the Board of Directors (1982-2009) and as Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board. He is also a co-founder of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. (2002) and continues to serve as a member of the Board of Directors and Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board.

Cheng Chih Sung

Cheng Chih Sung

Dr. Cheng Chih Sung joined QLS Advisors in 2022 as a Principal and member of the Advisory Committee. Dr. Sung started his investment career at GIC in 1993 and retired as MD and Chief Risk Officer in 2011. Subsequently, he took on advisory and board positions with the finance ministries of Norway and Singapore; central banks of Singapore and Thailand; Markit Group; endowments of MIT and SUTD; Hassana Investment Company in Saudi Arabia; Ministry of Health, Wealth Management Institute, and NTUC Income Insurance in Singapore; as well as short-term advisory roles with Singapore Exchange, Bank of Korea and International Monetary Fund. In 2015, he co-founded Avanda Investment Management, a Singapore-based global asset manager. During his tenure as CEO, Avanda’s AUM grew to over US$9 billion. Since retiring from Avanda in 2021, he has been working with start-ups in diverse fields including sustainable investing, digital infrastructure, renewable energy, blockchain technology, long/short equity investing and healthcare finance. Dr. Sung earned his B.Math and M.Math degrees from the University of Waterloo and a Ph.D degree in mathematics from the University of Minnesota.

Advisors

Miyoung Chun

Miyoung Chun

Dr. Miyoung Chun is the executive director of MIT’s Alzheimer’s Innovation Hub and co-founder of Alzheimer’s X, and an advisor to QLS. Prior to her current positions, she has served in leadership roles in higher education, the biotechnology industry, and philanthropy. As a professor of biochemistry at Boston University School of Medicine, she conducted research in and taught cell biology and molecular medicine. As a scientist at Millennium Pharmaceuticals (now Takeda Oncology), her functional genomics and molecular imaging research led to 33 patents. From 2007 to 2017, Dr. Chun was executive VP at the Kavli Foundation where she managed a network of 20 world-class research institutes from the U.S., Europe, and Asia; shaped and directed a suite of interdisciplinary scientific programs around the world; and spearheaded and grew national initiatives and global projects from conception to completion including the U.S. BRAIN Initiative, the International Brain Project, The HUMAN Project, and the United Microbiome Initiative. She holds a Ph.D. in molecular genetics from Ohio State University and was a Life Sciences Research Foundation post-doctoral fellow at the MIT Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research under Professor Harvey Lodish.

Juliette Han

Juliette Han

Dr. Juliette Han is the Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer at Cambrian BioPharma, building a portfolio of innovative drug development programs, and is an advisor to QLS. She is also an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School. Han was previously the Chief of Staff at Two Sigma Private Investments Group, the Private Investments division of the Two Sigma. Prior to Two Sigma, Dr. Han was a Chief Operating Officer of People – Human Resources Operations at Citadel, where she led strategic thinking behind performance and teams. Prior to Citadel, Han was Chief of Staff for McKinsey New Ventures at McKinsey & Company and a strategy consultant in the New York office’s healthcare practice. Dr. Han holds a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Harvard University, as well as an M.S. in Physiological Sciences and B.S. in Neuroscience and Physiological Science, both from UCLA. She serves on the alumni advisory council of Harvard Medical School, Division of Medical Sciences, and is a CNBC contributor and Forbes Leadership Strategy contributor.

Michael Goldberg

Dr. Michael Goldberg is the Founder and CEO of Surge Therapeutics. Prior to this, he was a member of the faculty at Harvard Medical School and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Dr. Goldberg’s research has been published in Cell, Nature, Science, Nature Biotechnology, and Science Translational Medicine. Dr. Goldberg holds his Hon. B.Sc. in Biological Chemistry from the University of Toronto, his M/Phil. In BioScience Enterprise from the University of Cambridge, and his Ph.D. in Biological Chemistry from the MIT, where is also completed his post-doctoral training.

Neil Kumar

Neil Kumar

Dr. Neil Kumar is the Co-founder, Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors at BridgeBio. Dr. Kumar also previously served as the Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors of BridgeBio’s now wholly owned affiliate, Eidos Therapeutics. Prior to founding BridgeBio in 2015, he served as the interim Vice President of Business Development at MyoKardia from 2012 to 2014. He also served as a principal at Third Rock Ventures and as an associate principal at McKinsey & Company. Dr. Kumar holds his B.S. and M.S. degrees in chemical engineering from Stanford University and his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from MIT.

Parag Mallick

Dr. Parag Mallick is an Associate Professor at Stanford University. Originally trained as an engineer and biochemist, his research spans computational and experimental systems biology, cancer biology and nanotechnology. Dr. Mallick holds his undergraduate degree in Computer Science from Washington University in St. Louis and his Ph.D. from UCLA in Chemistry & Biochemistry, where he worked with Dr. David Eisenberg. Dr. Mallick completed Post-Doctoral studies at The Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, WA with Dr. Ruedi Aebersold. Beyond studying fundamental disease mechanisms, his group has been pioneering novel multi-scale approaches for enabling personalized and predictive medicine. Most recently, his group has been developing mode-based and physics-based approaches to machine learning that enables learning over domains that span a wide range of time and length scales. Outside of his academic interests, he founded Nautilus Biotechnology, a next generation proteomics company. He also actively advises numerous biotechnology companies and VC funds.

Steve Prewitt

Steve Prewitt

Steve Prewitt is the Global Head of Digital Innovation at Sumitovant Biopharma, Inc. He leads a team of data scientists and engineers to build novel machine learning pipelines and automation solutions to address problems in the biotech space. Prior to this, Mr. Prewitt was the Chief Analytics Officer at Healthfirst where he built the cloud analytics environment and data science capabilities from the ground up. He advises several startups in the healthcare tech space on how to transform healthcare at the intersection of data and technology. Prior to Healthfirst, he served in a variety of tech and analytics roles at the Visiting Nurse Service of New York, Charles River Labs, and Pfizer. Mr. Prewitt holds his B.S. from Avila University in Computer Science and his MBA from Washington University in St. Louis.

Richard T. Thakor

Dr. Richard T. Thakor is an Assistant Professor of Finance at University of Minnesota, Carlson School of Management. He is also a Research Affiliate at the MIT Laboratory for Finance Engineering (LFE). He joined the finance department at University of Minnesota after earning his Ph.D. in Financial Economics from MIT. He also holds an M.S. in Management Research from MIT, an M.Sc in Finance and Economics from the London School of Economics (LSE), and a B.A. (summa cum laude) in Economics and Psychology from Washington University in St. Louis. Prior to earning his Ph.D, Dr. Thakor worked in investment management as a Derivatives Trading Analyst. His research consists of empirical and theoretical work in the areas of corporate finance, financial institutions, R&D investments, healthcare finance, and the economics of the drug development industry.

Join Us

Interested in reshaping the healthcare industry? We want to meet you!

careers@qlsadvisors.com