VELOXITY TEAM
Dr. SHANE NEEDHAM, PhD
President & CEO
Shane has more than 30 years experience in LC−MS bioanalysis, is a known resident expert and has over 200 publications in this area. He is a serial entrepreneur for scientific businesses including bioanalytical contract research organizations (CRO’s). Over 20 years, his businesses have an ROI of over 70,000% and his CRO’s have been listed as a fastest growing company by INC 5000. 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 is also a wrestling coach, national champion bodybuilder, state champion powerlifter and Ted Talk speaker. He has four children and considers them his biggest accomplishment.
Dr. MITCH JOHNSON, PhD
Mitch earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Monmouth College (IL, USA) and a PhD in analytical chemistry from the University of Missouri (MO, USA). His dissertation work was primarily focused on LC−MS/MS for metabolomics analysis of agricultural products. Since 2017, he has held senior level bioanalytical and DMPK laboratory positions within the pharmaceutical CRO industry.
Laboratory Director
Senior Scientist
COLT COOKSON
Colt is the Senior Scientist and a co-founder of Veloxity Labs. He began his degree at the University of Wyoming and finished it at the University of Millersville. With such a large concentration of oil and gas work in Wyoming, he worked at an Electroplating facility determining the concentration of metals in plating baths, and an assortment of Restaurants while he finished his degree. After graduating he joined Alliance Pharma from 2016 to March of 2022 progressing from an analyst to a team lead in the bioanalytical department. When he started in 2016, Alliance had around 40 employees and had grown to about 300 just before his involvement with Veloxity. He was able to gain experience multitasking in a wide variety or roles and responsibilities in the early days and .mainly worked on method validation, and regulated sample analysis in addition to Toxicology Studies, and Phase I, II, and III clinical studies.
Director of Quality Assurance
Dr. CHRISTOPHER TUDAN, PhD
Chris is a Compliance & Regulatory Bioanalytical, Biomarker and Drug Development expert who has worked in a variety of Bioanalytical labs, developing and validating immunoassays, LC-MS/MS, cell-based, PCR and GCP-compliant DDI methods in the role of both Sponsor, CRO and Quality and Compliance. Chris is Director of Quality Assurance with Veloxity Labs. He has provided technical, regulatory and QA expertise to the drug development community (GLP, GCP, GMP, CLIA/CAP), globally, and biotechnical due diligence to BoDs and investors. He has trained biopharmaceutical QAU staff and bioanalytical/biomarker scientists the science and compliance associated with GLP/GCP bioanalysis and biomarkers (including CLIA) and has managed the outsourcing of preclinical and clinical studies to CROs on behalf of over 10 companies. His training and regulatory expertise has resulted in his being a frequent speaker at SQA, keynote speaker at the SQA in France and Switzerland and trainer at the SQA College and for many companies. Chris has over 25 years’ experience as a drug discovery biochemist and has been involved in the development of many assays for discovery and characterization of both small and macromolecules (including peptide memetics), resulting in numerous patents, publications and clinical submissions.
PAUL CORCORAN
Paul Corcoran is the Co-Founder, President and CEO at McKinley Scientific, Managing Partner at Lake Mohawk Ventures (LMV) and EVP at Veloxity. He brings over 35 years of experience developing lease, finance and asset management strategies in high-technology sectors. He has taken great pride in creating a company, in McKinley Scientific, that brings instrumentation management and financial services to the scientific industry and an investment vehicle in LMV to support Veloxity Labs.
Executive Vice President
Senior Director,
Business Development
CALLIE CELICHOWSKI
Callie is Senior Director, Business Development at Veloxity. Callie has more than 15 years of experience in the contract research industry supporting pharmaceutical and medical device research and development for both human and animal health clients. She’s held roles of increasing responsibility in marketing, commercial operations, and sales. After earning her Bachelor’s degree in Business Management from North Central College, she lead the marketing activities for a large automotive dealership group. She then began her career in the CRO industry, first at Labcorp (Covance) where supported bioaalytical, toxicology, pharmacology, drug metabolism, and antibody generation services. From there she transitioned to Inotiv where she supported bioanalysis, pharmacology, toxicology, and drug metabolism services.
Senior Director,
Business Development
SHELLY ROBBINS
Shelly started her career at Eli Lilly and worked most of that time in the Investigative Toxicology department, participating on teams to resolve issues identified during drug development programs. She transferred to Covance when they purchased the toxicology campus from Lilly in 2008. At Covance she served as Study Director for non-regulated toxicology studies. It was during her time at Covance that she transitioned from operational roles to commercial roles, joining the client services team as a liaison between sales, clients, and scientific teams. From there, she joined Seventh Wave Labs (Inotiv) as Business Development Manager and advanced to Director of Business development while helping to shape the commercial engine as the company grew from 50 people to over 1000. For Inotiv she represented the full range of drug development services including pharmacology models, histopathology, toxicology, bioanalytical, and DMPK. She then moved to Prolytix and served as Business Development Director, supporting CMC process development and analytical services. She joined Veloxity Labs in May of 2023 as Senior Director, Business Development.
MARTIN STEEL
Martin is a Senior VP in sales at McKinley Scientific and has been at the company since inception.
He earned a BA in Business Studies at the University of Hertfordshire in the UK and he has over 35 years of experience around high-technology equipment sourcing, sales, service, and asset management after starting his career with IBM in 1980. He is a business partner at Lake Mohawk Ventures (LMV). As VP of Procurement for Veloxity, his sourcing and acquisition skills will be deployed to keep Veloxity to maintain required LCMS capacity. Originally from the UK, he calls the USA his country and home.
Vice President of Procurement
Vice President of Finance
HERB LINDSLEY
Herb is President McKinley Capital, COO & Executive VP, McKinley Scientific LLC and VP of Finance for Veloxity Labs. He has been in the equipment finance for over 40 years. From 1985 to 2000 he was Senior VP for Charter Financial, Inc. serving in a variety of roles including Chief Credit Officer 1985-1990, Media/Health Care Division Head, 1990-2000. Following the acquisition of Charter Financial, Inc. by Wells Fargo Equipment Finance in 2000, he continued as Senior Vice President through 2003. In 2003, he founded Commercial Finance Group, LLC, served as CEO and President until it was successfully merged into McKinley Scientific in 2016.
Herb has a B.A. in Business/Economics, Wagner College where he played varsity football and baseball. Residing in Sparta, NJ, he enjoys time spent with his wife , four children, their spouses, and seven grandchildren.