Meet The Team

About
Veloxity Labs

Veloxity Labs is a bioanalytical contract research organization (CRO) specializing in services to help companies develop therapeutics to treat disease. Our expertise spans both non-regulated and GxP analysis of non-clinical and clinical samples. We also have expertise supporting microsampling and patient-centric sampling using Mitra , Tasso, and dried blood spot (DBS) technology. We can address your bioanalytical needs across different modalities, including small molecules and peptides, large molecules, antibody-drug conjugates and others, with applications to support pharmaceutical, biotech and animal health industries. We help our clients succeed by starting projects quickly and providing fast turnaround with high-quality data.

Meet our leadership team

President & CEO

Shane Needham, PhD

With more than 30 years experience in bioanalysis and 200 publications, Shane is a respected industry expert. A serial entrepreneur, he has founded several businesses and CROs, which collectively have an ROI of 70,000%, and have been recognized as a fast growing company by INC 5000 and start-up of the year. Under his direction his labs have led the industry in dried blood spot analysis, microflow LC−MS/MS and small and large molecule bioanalysis. Shane sits on many company and organization boards, helping guide them in business and science-related decisions. He is often an invited speaker, TED Talk presenter, author and expert witness for analytical chemistry.

Shane holds a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Washington State University and a PhD in chemistry from the University of Rhode Island.

Co-Founder, Laboratory Director

Mitch Johnson, PhD

Prior to co-founding Veloxity Labs, Mitch held several senior-level bioanalytical and DMPK laboratory positions within the biotech and CRO industries. During that time he served as principal investigator for regulated and non-regulated preclinical studies, and developed expertise relative to method development, validation and sample analysis using LC-MS/MS (QQQ, Q-Trap) and HRMS (Orbitrap). Additionally, Mitch has experience conducting in-vitro assays, including microsomal stability and drug-drug interactions in HLM, and the quantitative analysis of small molecule test articles, metabolites, biomarkers and peptides in several biological matrices (plasma, serum, whole blood and tissues).

Mitch earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Monmouth College and a PhD in analytical chemistry from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Co-Founder, Senior Scientist

Colt Cookson

Colt initially began his schooling at the University of Wyoming. With the oil and gas industry so prominent in that region, he began his career while at the university, determining the concentration of metals in plating baths for an electroplating facility.

He then joined Alliance Pharma where he progressed from an analyst to a team lead in the bioanalytical department. While there, he gained experience multitasking in a wide variety of roles and responsibilities, including working on method validation and regulated sample analysis in addition to toxicology studies and early-phase clinical studies.

He used his experience and skills as a scientist to go on to co-found Veloxity Labs in 2022.

Colt received a bachelor's degree in Chemistry from Millersville University of Pennsylvania.

Director of Quality Assurance

Christopher Tudan, PhD

Chris brings over 25 years experience as a drug discovery biochemist, with particular expertise in compliance and regulatory bioanalysis, biomarkers and drug development. He has been involved in the development of assays for discovery and characterization of both small and macromolecules, resulting in numerous patents, publications and clinical submissions. He has worked in a variety of bioanalytical labs, developing and validating immunoassays, LC-MS/MS, cell-based, PCR and GCP-compliant DDI methods. He is a frequent speaker at SQA and other industry events.

Chris received his PhD in Experimental Medicine and Biochemistry from The University of British Columbia. Additionally, he completed post-doctorate work at McGill University and University of British Columbia.

Executive Vice President

Paul Corcoran

Paul has led an esteemed 35-year career developing lease, finance and asset management products and strategies in the pharmaceutical, biotech, clinical, healthcare and related industries. He serves as President and CEO of McKinley Scientific after co-founding the company in 2000. McKinley enjoys client relationships in over 60 countries and a clientele that ranges from the very largest pharmaceutical companies in the world to newly formed and emerging laboratories.

Additionally, Paul serves as Managing Partner of Lake Mohawk Ventures (LMV), a long-term investment and management consulting firm that brings instrumentation management and financial services to the scientific industry. LMV also supported the formation and ongoing operations of Veloxity Labs.

Senior Director, Business Development

Callie Celichowski

Callie brings more than 15 years of experience in the clinical research industry supporting pharmaceutical and medical device research and development for both human and animal health clients. During her career she has held various roles of increasing responsibility in marketing, commercial operations and sales. After earning her degree, she led the marketing activities for a large automotive dealership group. She then began her career in the CRO industry, first at Labcorp (Covance) where she supported bioanalytical, toxicology, pharmacology, drug metabolism and antibody generation services. From there she transitioned to Inotiv where she supported bioanalysis, pharmacology, toxicology and drug metabolism services.

Callie earned a bachelor's degree in Business Management from North Central College.

Senior Director, Business Development

Shelly Robbins

Shelly joined Veloxity Labs in May of 2023 where her extensive background in science and the drug development process helps her understand the challenges and needs of clients. She began her career in investigative toxicology at Eli Lilly before transitioning to Covance following their purchase of Eli Lilly's toxicology campus, serving as a study director for non-regulated toxicology studies.

From there, she joined Seventh Wave Labs (Inotiv), serving in various business development roles and helping to shape the commercial engine as the company grew from 50 people to over 1000. She then moved to Prolytix in a business development role, supporting CMC process development and analytical services.

Shelly received her bachelor's degree in Biology from Purdue University.

Vice President, Procurement

Martin Steel

Martin brings 35 years of experience around high-technology equipment sourcing, sales, service and asset management after starting his career with IBM in 1980. Over the course of his career he served in various sales and leadership roles until he joined McKinley Scientific as senior vice president of sales at its inception in 1997. Additionally, he is a business partner at Lake Mohawk Ventures (LMV), a long-term investment and management consulting company that brings instrumentation management and financial services to the scientific industry. In his role with Veloxity Labs, his sourcing and acquisition skills are used to maintain required LCMS capacity. Originally from the UK, he now calls the US his country and home.

Martin earned a BA in Business Studies at the University of Hertfordshire in the UK.

Vice President, Finance

Herb Lindsley

Herb has been in the equipment finance industry for over 40 years. He currently serves as president of McKinley Capital, COO and executive vice president of McKinley Scientific and vice president of finance for Veloxity Labs. Previously, he served in a variety of leadership roles for Charter Financial, Inc. (Wells Fargo Equipment Finance) until he founded Commercial Finance Group, LLC in 2003. CFG merged with McKinley Scientific in 2016.

Herb has a bachelor's degree in business and economics from Wagner College.