Leadership Team

Chad Costley, MD, MBA

President and Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Chad Costley became the President and Chief Executive Officer of BlueWillow Biologics in 2020 after serving on the Board of Directors for several years.  Dr. Costley has 20 years of clinical practice experience and has advised and served on the Boards of Directors of several technology companies.  As the managing director of Waubascon Capital and Line Moon Ventures, he’s led investment in and supported BlueWillow’s advancement for many years.  He earned his MD at the University of Michigan where he also completed medical residency training. He holds a MBA with distinction from Emory University as a Woodruff Scholar.

George Arida, MBA

Chief Financial and Operating Officer

George Arida joined BlueWillow in an operating role in May 2020, after serving on the Board of Directors since 2009. He previously founded 30 Ventures, a Madison-based early-stage venture capital firm focused on early-stage opportunities in digital health, biotechnology research tools, and diagnostics. George was previously a partner at Venture Investors LLC where he led investments in seed and early-stage biotech and medtech opportunities. He was a founding director of the Mid-America Healthcare Investors Network, an association of over forty regional venture capital firms active in early-stage healthcare investing, and has served as an advisor to various incubators, accelerators, venture conferences, and to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. George previously served as CFO for Capital Resource Advisors, a financial firm in Chicago, and prior to that he spent 12 years in the specialty chemicals and industrial water industries at U.S. Filter, Betz Laboratories and Alar Engineering Corp. George has a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Illinois and an MBA with high honors from University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Jakub Simon, MD

Chief Medical Officer

Dr. Simon brings over 20 years of clinical research and development experience, including roles in academia, biotech and pharmaceutical companies that span the full scope of executing clinical trials for numerous vaccines. He was responsible for the clinical trial programs that generated the data supporting the licensure of Vaxchora®, Ervebo®, and Vaxneuvance™. Most recently, Dr. Simon has served as Chief Medical Officer at Vaxcyte and played an essential role in initiating the clinical trial program for VAX-24 and VAX-31, two leading conjugate pneumococcal vaccines. He led the team that generated first in human clinical trial data that contributed to over $1B in investment.  Previously, during his tenure at Merck as the Director of Clinical Research for Vaccines, he led several vaccine programs, including pneumococcus and hepatitis A, and served as the clinical lead on the Ebola program. While at PaxVax, Inc., Dr. Simon served as Senior Director of Clinical Development and oversaw pivotal cholera challenge studies. Early in his career, while at the University of Maryland Center for Vaccine Development, Dr. Simon’s National Institutes of Health-funded research focused on developing vaccines against pathogens including Shigella, measles, and influenza. Dr. Simon earned his M.D. from the University of California School of Medicine and completed his pediatric residency training at Harbor-UCLA. He also obtained his M.S. in Epidemiology, focused on clinical studies, at the University of Maryland.

Kishna Kalicharran, PhD., MSc., MBA.

Strategic Advisor

Dr. Kalicharran brings a strong track record with over twenty years of experience in vaccines and biopharma, combining a unique blend of corporate strategy, business development, finance, R&D, commercial, investment management, IP, management consulting and entrepreneurship based on roles at small, medium and large companies, including global vaccine strategy at Merck and incubating two companies.
Kishna completed a BSc., in Biology at Acadia University, MSc., in Virology at University of Ottawa, PhD in Virology at Western University, MBA at Johns Hopkins University and Postdoctoral Fellowship in Virology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is Registered US Patent Agent.

Andrew Serazin, PhD

Strategic Advisor

Dr. Andrew Serazin is a Reuben College Senior Research Fellow and Director of the Global Challenges Programme.

As President of the Templeton World Charity Foundation from 2015 – 2023, Dr. Serazin was responsible for all aspects of the Foundation’s philanthropic activities as well as effective stewardship of its financial resources. As a researcher, entrepreneur, and executive, Dr. Serazin has worked to bring science, technology, and the humanities to address some of humanity’s greatest challenges. He is also a Trustee and past Chair of the Development Committee of the Jesuit Refugee Service/USA, one of the world’s largest organizations providing education and socio-emotional support for refugees.

From 2006 to 2012, Dr. Serazin served as Program Lead in Global Health Discovery & Translational Science at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. At the Gates Foundation, he was responsible for bringing new products, scientific approaches, and technologies to health and human development. He founded and led Grand Challenges Explorations, an early-stage medical research fund that has been recognized as one of the most successful programs in Gates Foundation history.

As a complement to his philanthropic endeavors, Dr. Serazin is an entrepreneur. He is Founder and Chairman of Matatu, Inc., a venture-backed biotechnology company dedicated to applying insights about microbiome and nutrition to health. He has also worked as a key scientific advisor to Mars, Inc., one of the world’s largest food companies, in the development of nutritious food choices for consumers in Africa and Asia.

Earlier in his career, Dr. Serazin was Departmental Lecturer (Assistant Professor equivalent) in the Zoology Department at the University of Oxford, where he conducted infectious disease research and taught courses on the biology of disease. As a Rhodes Scholar, he received his doctorate from the University of Oxford for his work on developing new drugs and vaccines against malaria. Dr. Serazin has also been a member of the College of Science Advisory Council of the University of Notre Dame, where he received his undergraduate degree. His original research has been presented at many international meetings and in leading peer-reviewed journals, including Science, PLOS Medicine, Nature Immunology, and Lancet.

In 2019, he was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.