David Olson

Mentor-in-Residence

Dr. Olson specializes in commercializing early-stage life science technologies and has more than 26 years of experience in building companies, product R&D, intellectual property management, business development and venture financing. He has co-founded multiple biotech start-ups, managed other early-stage businesses, and authored business plans backed by more than $66M in private and public funding, leading to exits totaling $328M to date. Dr. Olson is currently an Adjunct Faculty and Mentor-in-Residence at the University of Michigan. Previously he was a co-founder and senior executive of Accuri Cytometers (flow cytometers; acquired by Becton Dickinson), and later CEO and co-founder of Swift Biosciences (Next Generation Sequencing; acquired by IDT). His other companies have focused on therapeutics and medical devices.

Dr. Olson earned his Ph.D. from Princeton University in molecular biology.