What makes us different?
Analytical rigor. Seasoned judgment. Inspired solutions.
Clarion Advantage
A unique commitment and approach to consulting.
Tailored solutions and strategies for your most complex life sciences challenges–that is at the heart of what makes Clarion different. Leveraging our years and breadth of experiences, the Clarion team looks at your challenges uniquely. Our insatiably curious and deeply committed team of seasoned advisors contemplates each situation with a fresh perspective. Never afraid to challenge the conventional perspectives, Clarion’s agile thinkers find possibilities where others see obstacles.
We get your commitment to tackling some of life sciences most intractable challenges; that is what inspires us.
At Clarion, we applaud you and commit ourselves to matching your energy, creativity and inspiration. We promise to be rigorous, creative and bold as we help your team navigate the sometimes turbulent, and always uncertain, waters ahead.
People
A culture of entrepreneurs.
Deeply embedded in Clarion’s DNA is the drive and creative optimism of an entrepreneur–the kind of person that makes the impossible achievable. Complementing the rigor of the seasoned analyst, this entrepreneurial spark helps Clarion’s team see opportunities where others see obstacles. It gives us the confidence to look beyond the patterns of the past towards the possibilities of tomorrow.
Passion
An insatiable curiosity.
Clarion’s team consists of individuals who are deeply passionate about life sciences. Seasoned professionals who obsess with the details of daunting challenges deep into the night. Scientists and business brains working in symphony. Gritty professionals who thrive on taking problems apart and putting them together again as elegant solutions. At Clarion, we have no B-team, egos, or hierarchies. We do what we do because we are obsessed. Our brains are restless. We cannot let problems remain unsolved. What is wrong is not good enough. What is possible is. Our consultants are solvers, doers, believers.
Process
A commitment to collaboration.
At Clarion, we have designed a truly collaborative consulting process. True collaboration–the kind where confident professionals listen, exchange ideas and find inspired solutions as a result–is quite rare. It takes confidence, commitment and time. We structure all of our engagements around the Clarion Collaborative Process Model. This allows us to build insights and bridges across functions, see new possibilities, and ensure a level of understanding and buy-in that leaves our clients stronger at the end of our engagements.
Leadership Team
Seasoned practitioners dedicated to your success.
Thomas Murtagh
CEO & Founder
Thomas Murtagh
CEO & Founder
Tom Murtagh is the CEO and a founder of Clarion. He has been working with leading life science companies since 1995—helping build and deliver on growth and leadership strategies across the sector.
Tom’s experience ranges from product level strategy, where he has supported dozens of brand teams with their go-to-market strategies, to executive/board support where he has helped design corporate growth strategies as well as turnarounds.
Building off his early career training as a banker and his advanced degree work at the University of Chicago, Tom is skilled in the application of quantitative tools and analysis in support of sound strategic decision making. “Too frequently, financial tools, analyses, and metrics are viewed as belonging to the domain of the bankers and financial analysts and are underutilized as inputs to help shape rich strategic decision-making. At Clarion, we seek to infuse our projects with the discipline and insights from finance – as both a way to better understand strategies and their embedded assumptions, as well as a catalyst to help sharpen strategic thinking.”
In recent years, Tom has spent much of his time working to improve client decision-making throughout the product development process. From very early guidance to research teams to more advanced input to product development teams, Tom enjoys working collaboratively with client teams to fully realize the potential of promising science in the pursuit of life-changing therapies. Examples of Tom’s recent contributions include:
- Input and refinement to product concepts and product profiles for dozens of rare and specialty therapeutic candidates;
- Evaluation of numerous pre- and post-POC development-stage candidates for potential in-licensing
- Architecting and implementing a new product decision-making model for a leading rare disease firm
- Development of therapeutic growth strategies for firms in areas as varied as immunology, fibrosis, rare diseases, CNS, and oncology
Tom is particularly proud of Clarion’s commitment to growing and developing industry leaders within the Clarion team. “In addition to allowing us to do great work for our clients, Clarion’s training and development model allows us to help develop a cadre of potential leaders to help advance science and deliver on the promise to patients. It is encouraging to stay in touch with Clarion alumni who are now leading and shaping the industry from the front-lines. We are proud of our commitment to helping these leaders develop their strategic and organization building skill set.”
Outside of Clarion, Tom enjoys time with his family, time on the water and has a new-found passion for competitive badminton.
Tom received an M.B.A. with a concentration in Finance/Marketing from the University of Chicago and a B.A. from Dartmouth College.
Bart Lombardi
Managing Director & Founder
Bart Lombardi
Managing Director & Founder
Bart J. Lombardi, a founder and managing director of Clarion, brings over 20 years of experience in corporate and portfolio strategy, new product launches, commercialization strategy, indication prioritization, managed care strategy, and BD&L strategy. Bart has also worked with emerging biotech companies to develop commercialization and organizational scale-up strategies for the launch of their first commercial asset.
Prior to founding Clarion, Bart was a vice president of the Strategy Practice at Braun Consulting (previously Vertex Partners), where he started up and led the Chicago Strategy Practice.
Bart enjoys helping companies provide innovative therapeutics that make a significant impact on patients’ lives. He was the sponsor for Clarion’s internal PatientLink initiative that invites patients to discuss their journey with the goal of more closely linking Clarion’s client work with actual patient experiences and outcomes.
Outside the office, Bart enjoys spending time with his family, watching soccer, and running.
Bart holds an M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a B.A. from Middlebury College.
Carol M. Kearney
Managing Director
Carol M. Kearney
Managing Director
Carol Kearney, a managing director with Clarion, utilizes over 20 years of industry and consulting experience to help clients address challenges and develop solutions that positively impact their business. While working on a wide range of projects over her past 14 years at Clarion, Carol particularly enjoys helping organizations to develop therapeutic area and product strategies that transcend across both the commercial and medical divisions and to design and implement innovative approaches to engaging patients and building thought leader advocacy. Additionally, Carol has played an integral role in preparing for and executing new product launches for both established and emerging biopharmaceutical organizations.
Prior to joining Clarion, Carol spent eight years working in the industry with a majority of her time focused in the area of ophthalmology. Carol’s role at Pfizer/Pharmacia as the global director of marketing focused on strategy development, market expansion, professional education and lifecycle management/phase IV planning for XalatanⓇ/XalacomⓇ. Carol also has sales and training experience in both primary care and specialty markets and has worked in a variety of global markets including Europe, Japan, Latin America and Asia Pacific.
Outside of the office, Carol enjoys traveling the country with her family and spending time with her husband watching their two children play sports.
Carol has a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Kansas.
Dominick Mastropoalo
Managing Director
Dominick Mastropoalo
Managing Director
Dominick Mastropoalo, a managing director of Clarion, has nearly 20 years of consulting experience working with clients ranging from global pharmaceutical to development-stage biotech and device companies to optimize their investments through portfolio management and planning, business development and licensing, competitive strategy, new product commercialization and launch planning, and organizational change.
Dominick has supported the commercialization of more than 15 new pharmaceutical and medical device products. Over the past five years, he has focused almost exclusively on partnering with emerging biopharma clients to commercialize their first asset, involving constructing integrated commercialization roadmaps, defining market entry and market access strategies, and designing organizational structures and scale up plans. Dominick has experience across a wide range of therapeutic categories, including CNS, dermatology, ophthalmology, oncology, pain, cardiovascular, respiratory, vaccines, and metabolic disorders.
Prior to joining Clarion, Dominick was a management consultant with Accenture, where he designed, developed, and implemented operations and change management solutions for life sciences, government, and financial services clients in North America and Europe.
Dominick takes great pride in working with emerging biopharma companies to commercialize their first asset. “It is an exciting and rewarding opportunity to become a true strategic partner with a lasting impact.”
Outside of the office, Dominick enjoys spending as much time as possible with his wife and two daughters.
Dominick has a MALD from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and graduated with honors from Villanova University.
Robert (Bobby) Moy
Managing Director
Robert (Bobby) Moy
Managing Director
Robert (Bobby) Moy is a managing director with Clarion. Since joining Clarion in 2004, he has built expertise in a broad range of therapeutic areas and projects—from rare to mass markets and from the earliest stages of product development through launch.
His current area of focus is in developing market expansion and business development strategies in rare disease and transplant markets as well as supporting early commercialization decisions in these areas. Bobby also has a strong interest in building strategies around novel therapeutic approaches and mechanisms of action.
Bobby’s key project types include:
- Market entry strategies
- Indication prioritization for new MOAs and platforms
- Defining product value propositions
- Product valuation assessment
- Identification of key stakeholders and decision points during patient journey
Outside the office, Bobby is a living kidney donor who previously worked as a translation coach for Haruki Murakami and can usually be found trailing his two children.
Bobby received an M.A. in Neurobiology from Harvard’s Division of Medical Sciences and received a B.A. with dual concentrations in History and Neuroscience from Oberlin College.
Dennis Chang
Managing Director
Dennis Chang
Managing Director
Dennis Chang, Ph.D. is a managing director at Clarion with a primary focus in oncology. Through 100+ projects, Dennis has led the cultivation of world-class oncology expertise within the firm, overseeing activities that keep Clarion on the cutting edge of cancer-related science, medicine, evolving policies, key trends, and biopharma best practices. This knowledge and experience is applied to help biopharma clients develop strategies for their most challenging and complex problems, such as investing in combination immunotherapy regimens or navigating the evolving economics and science of precision oncology.
Before joining Clarion, Dennis worked as an academic scientist and educator, holding positions as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Biology Department at Brandeis University and as a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Biology Department at Wellesley College.
Dennis embraces his current focus on oncology product and portfolio strategies: “The pace of advancement in cancer science and medicine has never been faster, and the hurdles for commercial success of new oncology therapies have never been higher. Helping biopharma companies adapt and persevere—and thus bring new, better medicines to cancer patients—is incredibly demanding but immensely rewarding.”
Outside the office, Dennis enjoys drawing, writing, and conducting science experiments with his son.
Dennis received a Ph.D. from the Neurobiology Department at Harvard Medical School and a BScH in Life Sciences from Queen’s University in Canada.
Tim Barder
Senior Principal
Tim Barder
Senior Principal
Tim Barder, Ph.D. is a senior principal at Clarion. He has over 14 years of experience in the life science industry, from leading drug discovery, development, and delivery programs to advising global pharmaceutical, early-stage biotech, CDMO, and investment firm clients. Tim’s expertise and passion are in innovation strategy development, where he identifies and develops actionable recommendations in order to maximize growth by ensuring clients embark on cutting-edge science and drive towards commercially superior products and services.
Prior to joining Clarion, Tim spent 6 years at L.E.K. Consulting and Arthur D. Little, where he led the Technology & Innovation Practice in the US. Prior to his time in consulting, Tim worked as a scientist at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Merck Research Labs, and Blend Therapeutics where he led groups in pharmaceutical development focused on oncology, inflammation, and neurology.
Outside of work, Tim enjoys spending time with his family, traveling to new destinations, enjoying the outdoors, and staying fit.
Tim received his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from MIT under the tutelage of Professor Stephen Buchwald and was a NIH postdoctoral fellow under the late 2008 Noble Laurate Professor Roger Tsien in the field of cancer imaging and targeting. He also received a B.S. in Chemistry from UC San Diego. Tim is a co-author on more than 25 peer-reviewed publications and patents, garnering ~6,000 citations to date.
Alyssa Trigger
Senior Principal
Alyssa Trigger
Senior Principal
Alyssa Trigger is a senior principal at Clarion. She has spent more than eight years in the life sciences industry with a significant focus on new product commercialization, particularly involving the launch of a company’s first asset. Alyssa leads project teams that help define integrated commercialization and organizational scale-up strategies while supporting collaboration and alignment across commercial, non-commercial, and corporate functions. In addition, Alyssa has supported opportunity assessments, Medical Affairs strategy and KOL engagement approaches, BD&L strategy, performance optimization strategies for established products and business process design. She has experience working across a range of therapeutic areas, including dermatology, aesthetics, oncology, pain, and rare diseases.
Prior to joining Clarion, Alyssa spent nearly four years developing medical devices as a research and development engineer with Johnson & Johnson.
Alyssa is excited by the expanding opportunities that building a career at Clarion provides.
“We work intimately alongside emerging companies through periods of transformational growth and evolution as they shift their focus from development to commercialization.”
Outside the office, Alyssa enjoys traveling, yoga, and DIY projects.
Alyssa holds a Master of Engineering Management degree from Duke University and graduated with a B.S. in biomedical engineering, magna cum laude, from Boston University. She is also certified as a Six Sigma Black Belt.
Natalie Thovmasian
Senior Principal
Natalie Thovmasian
Senior Principal
Natalie (German) Thovmasian, Ph.D. is a senior principal at Clarion with a key focus in oncology. Her expertise includes pipeline strategy for preclinical and clinical assets, franchise strategy in at the disease level, and portfolio prioritization at the company level. She has extensive experience working across solid tumors and hematologic malignancies, spanning a broad spectrum of MoAs including immunotherapy, cell therapy, and targeted therapy. Natalie’s favorite part about working at Clarion is the level of teamwork and camaraderie within the project teams.
Prior to Clarion, Natalie was a member of the Business Development team at Boston Children’s Hospital in the Technology and Innovation Development Office. In this role, she helped create academic-private partnerships and propel the commercialization of intellectual property.
In her free time, Natalie enjoys marathon training and hiking with her Bernese mountain dogs named Maeby and Armand.
Natalie received her Ph.D. in Biological and Biomedical Sciences from Harvard University with a focus on cancer cell metabolism. She received her B.S. in Biochemistry from Creighton University.
Petya Spletzer
Senior Principal
Petya Spletzer
Senior Principal
Petya Spletzer, M.B.A. is a senior principal at Clarion with more than 15 years of consulting experience in the life sciences industry. She has worked on a wide range of projects across pharmaceutical and biotech clients’ commercial and medical organizations. Petya brings significant expertise in new product marketing and commercialization across multiple therapeutic areas, including CNS, cardiovascular, metabolic disorders, musculoskeletal and autoimmune disease. She leads project teams that support product strategy development and performance optimization, while also helping elevate organizational effectiveness and facilitate cross-functional collaboration and alignment. In addition, she has supported therapeutic area strategy development, opportunity assessments, asset valuations, patient engagement capability development, business process design and optimization, new product launch planning and support for both established and emerging biopharmaceutical companies.
Prior to joining Clarion, Petya worked for Braun Consulting (formerly Vertex Partners) and Putnam Associates, strategy consulting firms focused on the pharmaceutical and biotech industries.
Outside of the office, Petya enjoys spending time with her husband and three sons, cheering for their baseball teams, and planning family trips to the beach.
Petya received her M.B.A. from the MIT Sloan School of Management and graduated with a B.A. in Economics from Middlebury College.
Ellen Edenberg
Principal
Ellen Edenberg
Principal
Ellen Edenberg, Ph.D. is a principal at Clarion. She has 12+ years of experience in the life sciences, with strategy consulting expertise across a wide variety of projects ranging from early commercial projects including indication prioritization, opportunity assessments, and portfolio strategies through commercial strategy development with a key focus on helping clients build strategies to tackle commercial challenges including for novel therapeutic approaches and mechanisms of action. Her work has spanned therapeutic areas from GI, CNS, critical care, neonatology, neuromuscular disease, and radiopharmaceuticals, with a concentration in rare disease and immunology. Ellen came to Clarion as one of the first hires through the PROPEL program for advanced degree candidates and has enjoyed contributing to the continued success of that program.
Prior to joining Clarion, Ellen received a Ph.D. in Genetics from the University of California, San Francisco, and performed post-doctoral research in biochemistry and molecular biology at the Whitehead Institute at MIT. She is the lead author in four peer-reviewed scientific papers.
Outside the office, Ellen enjoys hanging out with her kids, playing strategy-based board games, and reading.
Ellen completed her undergraduate degree at Stanford University in Biological Sciences.
Casey Thevenot
Associate Principal
Casey Thevenot
Associate Principal
Casey Thevenot, MPH is an associate principal at Clarion. She has over four years of experience in consulting working with early stage biotechs to large, multinational pharmaceutical companies in a variety of therapeutic areas. While Casey has worked on a wide range of projects, she specializes in helping clients develop comprehensive brand / therapeutic area strategies and design and execute tactical plans that advance the overall vision. Casey also has extensive experience with US and EU new product commercialization, including developing cross-functional launch plans, creating detailed budget models, and defining organizational scale-up plans.
Prior to joining Clarion, Casey worked as federal lobbyist at Akin Gump representing a broad range of healthcare clients, including pharmaceutical manufacturers, during ACA implementation. She also held a position in corporate strategy and government relations at CVS Health.
Outside the office, Casey loves to travel internationally, explore national parks, visit museums in her hometown of DC, cook for family and friends, and box at her local gym.
Casey received an MPH in Health Policy and Management from Yale University and a B.S. in Public Health from the University of Georgia.
Carolina Lahmann
Associate Principal
Carolina Lahmann
Associate Principal
Carolina Lahmann is an associate principal at Clarion. She has worked on a variety of projects including early stage indication and pipeline portfolio prioritization, opportunity assessments, co-positioning strategy, and medical affairs strategy. Her projects have spanned across a wide range of therapeutic areas including rare diseases, neuroscience, genetic immunodeficiencies, and reproductive medicine.
Prior to joining Clarion, Carolina received her doctorate in Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics from the University of Oxford, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School. Her research focused on neuronal cellular metabolism and elucidating the anti-epileptic mechanisms of the ketogenic diet.
Outside the office, Carolina enjoys long-distance running, gardening, and traveling with her family.
Carolina completed her undergraduate in Pharmacology at University College London in the United Kingdom.
Martin Strebl-Bantillo
Associate Principal
Martin Strebl-Bantillo
Associate Principal
Martin Strebl-Bantillo is an associate principal at Clarion. He has extensive expertise in primary market research and strategy development to support new product commercialization across a range of therapeutic areas, with a focus on oncology and transplant care.
Prior to joining Clarion, Martin received his PhD in Chemistry & Chemical Biology from Harvard University, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Neuroimaging at MGH/Harvard Medical School. His research focused on chemical methodology of introducing radioactive labels into small molecules, and the applications of his technology in PET-based visualization of epigenetic enzymes in the living brain.
Outside the office, Martin enjoys food, orchids, and reading about a range of topics. He loves traveling with his husband and practicing his foreign language skills on unsuspecting locals.
Martin completed his B.Sc. in Chemistry and Biochemistry from LMU Munich in his native Germany.
Daniel J. Hawkins
Founder Emeritus
Daniel J. Hawkins
Founder Emeritus
Daniel J. Hawkins is a founder emeritus of Clarion. Dan has over 30 years of experience in healthcare, having worked with life sciences companies ranging from global pharmaceutical companies to development stage biotech to device and diagnostic companies, as well as financial firms that invest in the industry. In addition to core life science clients, Dan has worked with health plans such as WellPoint and New York Life, provider groups such as Joslin Diabetes Center and Fallon Clinic, and retail pharmacies such as Walmart.
He has worked in functional areas from product development through sales, on issues from product acceleration to board-level M&A advice, and in therapeutic areas ranging from oncology to orthopedics, with a particular interest in diabetes, dementia and substance use disorders. In addition, Dan has deep experience in pricing, reimbursement, and product access.
Prior to founding Clarion, Dan was CEO of a respiratory medical device company. He spent his first 10 years at the consulting firm of Corporate Decisions, Inc. (now Oliver Wyman), where he was partner, co-head of the healthcare practice, and one of three elected members of the Management Committee.
Dan has an M.B.A. from the Yale School of Management, and an A.B. in Economics from Princeton University. He is chair of the Joslin Leadership Council and a past board member for M|C Communications, the parent company of Pri-Med.
Jen Fennessy
Director of Finance & Operations
Jen Fennessy
Director of Finance & Operations
Jen Fennessy is the director of finance and operations at Clarion. In her role, she oversees all aspects of the financial business including financial reporting and analysis, cash management, 401k management, payroll, insurance, vendor and client management. In addition to these duties, she aids the Operations team in ensuring overall operational excellence. Jen is also a member of the Leadership Team.
Prior to her eight years at Clarion, Jen was the director of corporate consolidation at MMA Financial where she managed operational accounting, consolidation accounting, and delivery of financial reporting requirements to the company’s umbrella organization. She has twenty years of experience in accounting and financial analysis, beginning with a job in audit assurance and business advisory.
Outside of work, Jen spends time with her three children as full-time chauffeur and chef with her husband. She’s an avid reader, cheerleader for her children’s sports leagues, and wine expert.
Jen holds a B.S. in Business and Accounting from Virginia Tech.
Board of Directors
John Svoboda
Board Chairman, Svoboda Capital
John Svoboda
Board Chairman, Svoboda Capital
John Svoboda joined the Clarion Board of Directors in 2020. He co-founded Svoboda Capital Partners (“SC”) in January 1998 with Michelle Collins. Prior to co-founding SC, John worked in the Corporate Finance Department of William Blair & Company LLC (1983-1997), where he managed Business Development and became a Partner in 1988. John graduated from Williams College with a B.A. in 1979 and received his M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1983.
John serves as a trustee of the University of Chicago Medical Center as well as for the Otho S. A. Sprague Memorial Institute. He is a Board member of the Pat Tillman Foundation and the Better Government Association, and is an honorary trustee of Marwen and a life trustee of the Francis W. Parker School. John previously served on the Advisory Council of Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, served on the Steering Committee for the Stanford Campaign, and recently served on the GSB’s Racial Equity Task Force. John is a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago, serves on the Global Council of the American Ballet Theatre and is former Board Chair of Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre.
Will King
Vice President, Svoboda Capital
Will King
Vice President, Svoboda Capital
Will King is a vice president at Svoboda Capital Partners (“SC”) and is responsible for sourcing and evaluating potential investment opportunities, leading due diligence, structuring and negotiating transactions, and managing portfolio company investments. Will has served as a board member of Clarion since 2022. He is also on the board of Horwitz, The Variable, and Sonoma Creamery and has been intimately involved with other SC portfolio companies including Reliable Parts and One North Interactive.
Prior to joining SC, Will was an analyst in the Investment Banking Division of BMO Capital Markets (“BMO”) in Chicago. During his tenure at BMO, Will advised clients in the consumer sector on a variety of transactions including mergers and acquisitions, as well as debt and equity financings.
Will serves on the board of Care for Friends and actively volunteers with Big Shoulders Fund.
Will holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Business Administration from the University of Michigan.
Mark Altmeyer
Independent Board Director
Mark Altmeyer
Independent Board Director
Mark Altmeyer joined the Clarion Board of Directors in 2021. Mark, who was most recently the President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Arvelle Therapeutics, has 30 years of experience leading successful global drug commercialization efforts across a broad set of therapeutic areas and geographies.
Prior to starting Arvelle Therapeutics, Mark was the President and Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) of Axovant Sciences, where he led the establishment of the global commercial capabilities and product launch preparations as well as establishing and building out a global headquarters in Switzerland. He was also previously the CEO and President of Otsuka America Pharmaceutical, Inc., where he led a team of 1,700 employees and helped grow the company’s revenue from $2.6 billion to over $5 billion. He led the launch of Abilify®, the top-selling CNS drug in history and the number-one selling drug in the United States in 2013. Earlier in his career, Mark held executive leadership roles at Bristol-Myers Squibb, including Senior Vice President, Global Commercialization for Neuroscience and Oncology, and Senior Vice President, Neuroscience Business Unit. Mark received an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.A. in economics from Middlebury College.
Gloria Cox
Independent Board Director
Gloria Cox
Independent Board Director
Gloria Cox joined the Clarion Board of Directors in 2021. Ms. Cox—who is currently a Senior Partner at The Cambridge Group—is a seasoned senior executive with commercial client service leadership and management consulting experience. She specializes in assisting Fortune 500 FMCG clients to accelerate profitable growth through the development of differentiated business, market and brand strategies that capitalize on current, latent, and emerging demand.
Prior to her return to The Cambridge Group, Gloria was an Executive Vice President at Nielsen, serving as the US Commercial Leader for their 18 largest global-national clients. She joined Nielsen in 2009 through the acquisition of The Cambridge Group, where she was the Managing Director. During her previous 20 years at The Cambridge Group, Gloria specialized in consumer products and services clients, working with them to develop market driven growth strategies through consumer targeting, brand strategy and positioning, and new product development. Earlier on in her career, she was an Engagement Manager and core member of the Consumer Goods Practice at McKinsey & Company and began her career in market research in the Paper Division of Procter & Gamble. In addition, Gloria received an M.B.A. from the J.L. Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Indiana University with a dual degree in Telecommunications and Business.
Thomas Murtagh
Board Director, CEO & Founder
Thomas Murtagh
Board Director, CEO & Founder
Tom Murtagh is the CEO and a founder of Clarion. He has been working with leading life science companies since 1995—helping build and deliver on growth and leadership strategies across the sector.
Tom’s experience ranges from product level strategy, where he has supported dozens of brand teams with their go-to-market strategies, to executive/board support where he has helped design corporate growth strategies as well as turnarounds.
Building off his early career training as a banker and his advanced degree work at the University of Chicago, Tom is skilled in the application of quantitative tools and analysis in support of sound strategic decision making. “Too frequently, financial tools, analyses, and metrics are viewed as belonging to the domain of the bankers and financial analysts and are underutilized as inputs to help shape rich strategic decision-making. At Clarion, we seek to infuse our projects with the discipline and insights from finance – as both a way to better understand strategies and their embedded assumptions, as well as a catalyst to help sharpen strategic thinking.”
In recent years, Tom has spent much of his time working to improve client decision-making throughout the product development process. From very early guidance to research teams to more advanced input to product development teams, Tom enjoys working collaboratively with client teams to fully realize the potential of promising science in the pursuit of life-changing therapies. Examples of Tom’s recent contributions include:
- Input and refinement to product concepts and product profiles for dozens of rare and specialty therapeutic candidates;
- Evaluation of numerous pre- and post-POC development-stage candidates for potential in-licensing
- Architecting and implementing a new product decision-making model for a leading rare disease firm
- Development of therapeutic growth strategies for firms in areas as varied as immunology, fibrosis, rare diseases, CNS, and oncology
Tom is particularly proud of Clarion’s commitment to growing and developing industry leaders within the Clarion team. “In addition to allowing us to do great work for our clients, Clarion’s training and development model allows us to help develop a cadre of potential leaders to help advance science and deliver on the promise to patients. It is encouraging to stay in touch with Clarion alumni who are now leading and shaping the industry from the front-lines. We are proud of our commitment to helping these leaders develop their strategic and organization building skill set.”
Outside of Clarion, Tom enjoys time with his family, time on the water and has a new-found passion for competitive badminton.
Tom received an M.B.A. with a concentration in Finance/Marketing from the University of Chicago and a B.A. from Dartmouth College.
Bart Lombardi
Board Director, Managing Director & Founder
Bart Lombardi
Board Director, Managing Director & Founder
Bart J. Lombardi, a founder and managing director of Clarion, brings over 20 years of experience in corporate and portfolio strategy, new product launches, commercialization strategy, indication prioritization, managed care strategy, and BD&L strategy. Bart has also worked with emerging biotech companies to develop commercialization and organizational scale-up strategies for the launch of their first commercial asset.
Prior to founding Clarion, Bart was a vice president of the Strategy Practice at Braun Consulting (previously Vertex Partners), where he started up and led the Chicago Strategy Practice.
Bart enjoys helping companies provide innovative therapeutics that make a significant impact on patients’ lives. He was the sponsor for Clarion’s internal PatientLink initiative that invites patients to discuss their journey with the goal of more closely linking Clarion’s client work with actual patient experiences and outcomes.
Outside the office, Bart enjoys spending time with his family, watching soccer, and running.
Bart holds an M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a B.A. from Middlebury College.
Carol M. Kearney
Board Director, Managing Director
Carol M. Kearney
Board Director, Managing Director
Carol Kearney, a managing director with Clarion, utilizes over 20 years of industry and consulting experience to help clients address challenges and develop solutions that positively impact their business. While working on a wide range of projects over her past 14 years at Clarion, Carol particularly enjoys helping organizations to develop therapeutic area and product strategies that transcend across both the commercial and medical divisions and to design and implement innovative approaches to engaging patients and building thought leader advocacy. Additionally, Carol has played an integral role in preparing for and executing new product launches for both established and emerging biopharmaceutical organizations.
Prior to joining Clarion, Carol spent eight years working in the industry with a majority of her time focused in the area of ophthalmology. Carol’s role at Pfizer/Pharmacia as the global director of marketing focused on strategy development, market expansion, professional education and lifecycle management/phase IV planning for XalatanⓇ/XalacomⓇ. Carol also has sales and training experience in both primary care and specialty markets and has worked in a variety of global markets including Europe, Japan, Latin America and Asia Pacific.
Outside of the office, Carol enjoys traveling the country with her family and spending time with her husband watching their two children play sports.
Carol has a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Kansas.
Dominick Mastropoalo
Board Director, Managing Director
Dominick Mastropoalo
Board Director, Managing Director
Dominick Mastropoalo, a managing director of Clarion, has nearly 20 years of consulting experience working with clients ranging from global pharmaceutical to development-stage biotech and device companies to optimize their investments through portfolio management and planning, business development and licensing, competitive strategy, new product commercialization and launch planning, and organizational change.
Dominick has supported the commercialization of more than 15 new pharmaceutical and medical device products. Over the past five years, he has focused almost exclusively on partnering with emerging biopharma clients to commercialize their first asset, involving constructing integrated commercialization roadmaps, defining market entry and market access strategies, and designing organizational structures and scale up plans. Dominick has experience across a wide range of therapeutic categories, including CNS, dermatology, ophthalmology, oncology, pain, cardiovascular, respiratory, vaccines, and metabolic disorders.
Prior to joining Clarion, Dominick was a management consultant with Accenture, where he designed, developed, and implemented operations and change management solutions for life sciences, government, and financial services clients in North America and Europe.
Dominick takes great pride in working with emerging biopharma companies to commercialize their first asset. “It is an exciting and rewarding opportunity to become a true strategic partner with a lasting impact.”
Outside of the office, Dominick enjoys spending as much time as possible with his wife and two daughters.
Dominick has a MALD from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and graduated with honors from Villanova University.
Management Team
A balanced team with diverse and complementary backgrounds.
Alissa Clear
Manager
Alissa Clear
Manager
Alissa Clear, Ph.D. is a manager at Clarion. Her project experience encompasses scientific and commercial strategy across a range of therapeutic areas, with a focus on oncology and rare disease. Alissa’s projects have included competitive intelligence and pipeline strategy, target & indication prioritizations, and go-to-market, LCM, and brand/franchise strategy. Her functional expertise includes market research, opportunity assessments, due diligence, and strategy development.
Prior to joining Clarion, Alissa worked in life sciences consulting in the San Francisco Bay Area. Alissa received her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and Genetics from the Irell & Manella Graduate School of City of Hope, where her research aimed to better understand DNA repair mechanisms underlying cancer susceptibility and to identify protein regions for future drug development. Her postdoctoral fellowship at the Public Health Research Institute of Rutgers/NJMS focused on the genetic underpinnings of antifungal drug resistance.
Outside of work, Alissa enjoys hiking, camping, paddle boarding, and other quintessentially Californian activities.
Alissa completed her B.S. in Biology, with a minor in French, at Purdue University.
Alice Lu
Manager
Alice Lu
Manager
Alice Lu, Ph.D. is a manager at Clarion. She has more than 10 years of experience in life sciences strategy consulting, collaborating with clients from a broad range of organizations across the pharmaceutical and emerging biotech industries. Alice has extensive project experience in opportunity assessments for early-stage pipeline products, market analysis and commercialization strategy for later-stage pipeline products, early commercial business case development, and therapeutic area strategies. She also has expertise across a range of therapeutic areas, especially CNS disorders, ophthalmology, cardiology, dermatology, and respiratory diseases.
Prior to joining Clarion, Alice received her Ph.D. in Neurobiology from Harvard Medical School. Her graduate dissertation explored the potential role of Ubiquilin-1 in Alzheimer’s disease pathogenesis.
Outside the office, Alice enjoys traveling with her family, reading, and most recently, learning to play platform tennis.
Alice received a B.A. in Neuroscience from Columbia University.
Hannah Melinchuk
Manager
Hannah Melinchuk
Manager
Hannah Melinchuk is a manager at Clarion. Her project experiences range from early commercial opportunity assessments to complex therapeutic area and business unit strategy projects for clients ranging from small biotech to large pharma across a range of therapeutic areas. Her specific interests focus on early commercial strategy, such as opportunity assessments and indication prioritization, for products in the rare disease space. More broadly, her project experience includes opportunity assessment, indication prioritization, brand strategy, commercial due diligence, patient journey analysis, BD assessments & strategy, diagnostic strategy, therapeutic area strategy, sales force optimization, and organization structure optimization.
Outside the office, Hannah enjoys skiing, mountain biking, and other outdoor activities.
Hannah received a B.A. in Biology from Dartmouth College.
Archana Vitale
Manager
Archana Vitale
Manager
Archana Vitale, Ph.D. joined in 2008 and is the manager of strategic business operations at Clarion. In her current role, she provides strategic, operational and executional support to the leadership team. Her daily duties involve providing project management support for cross functional initiatives, collaborating with the leadership team and internal stakeholders to determine, document, and maintain business processes for a diverse set of business functions. Additionally, she conducts relevant business analytics to support project & resource management/ planning and inform strategic business decisions.
Prior to her role in strategic business operations, Archana was a manager at Clarion with 10+ years of experience as a life sciences strategy consultant supporting a variety of client engagements by utilizing deep scientific understanding and a broad perspective on commercialization strategies to define solutions across multiple therapeutic areas.
Archana received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Psychology from the Laboratory of Cognitive Neurobiology at Boston University.
Outside of the office, Archana enjoys spending time outdoors, running, hiking, and spending time with her family.
Joe Festa
Manager
Joe Festa
Manager
Joe Festa, M.B.A. is a manager at Clarion. His project experiences range from early stage indication prioritization and opportunity assessments, to launch planning and execution for emerging biopharma companies, to corporate strategy and BD&L analyses across small biotech and global pharma companies. He has experience working with gene therapies, drug formulation technologies, and a range of therapeutic areas including dermatology, rare disease, and transplantation.
Prior to joining Clarion, Joe worked in R&D Strategic Planning at Ironwood Pharmaceuticals where he gained extensive experience supporting preclinical indication prioritizations and external innovations, including planning and overseeing multiple research collaborations, across mainly CNS and inflammatory diseases. He also supported planning of the spinoff of Ironwood’s R&D pipeline into Cyclerion Therapeutics. Joe is passionate about working at the intersection of the cutting-edge science and practical business applications, which he views as equally important to changing the lives of patients in a complex healthcare environment. Joe is passionate about the partnership he develops as he works with clients to develop innovative new medicines. “We not only write the playbook for our clients to bring life-changing treatments to market, we stick around as a partner to help them execute and react appropriately to the many obstacles they will face along the way.”
Outside the office, Joe enjoys playing soccer and golf, hiking, fishing, or doing anything outdoors.
Joe received an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, as well as an MS in Engineering and B.S. in Bioengineering from Harvard University.
Krisstel Gomez
Manager
Krisstel Gomez
Manager
Krisstel Gomez is a manager at Clarion. Her focus is on projects in the oncology space, with extensive work across a range of both solid tumors and hematological malignancies. Krisstel has experience working across a broad range of therapeutic approaches, including cell therapy, immunotherapy, and targeted therapy. She has assisted clients with pipeline portfolio prioritization, opportunity assessment, primary market research and strategy development.
Prior to joining Clarion, Krisstel held internships in a biotech accelerator and at a research lab at the Yale School of Medicine.
Outside the office, Krisstel enjoys long outdoor jogs, reading, and travelling.
Krisstel received a B.A. in Economics and a B.S. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Yale University.
Meredith Corsi
Manager
Meredith Corsi
Manager
Meredith Corsi, MPH is a manager at Clarion. Her project experiences range from launch planning, commercialization strategy development, and brand planning for large brands to account segmentation and strategic planning for rare and orphan diseases. Her functional project expertise includes data analysis, commercial and medical strategy development, budgeting and execution, and organizational scale-up. She works extensively within the rare disease space, and is specifically experienced with neurologic, ophthalmologic, and immunologic conditions.
Prior to joining Clarion, Meredith received her master’s in public health at Yale University.
Meredith is excited to continue to work at a firm that allows her to use her public health background to frame problems and create solutions for the life sciences industry. She has greatly appreciated working with colleagues and companies who care deeply about patient perspectives when designing treatments, ensure equity in patient access to life-saving therapies, and work to enhance outcomes across patient groups.
Outside the office, Meredith enjoys traveling, learning new recipes, trying new restaurants in Boston, and her book club.
Seth Bensussen
Manager
Seth Bensussen
Manager
Seth Bensussen, Ph.D. is a manager at Clarion. He has worked on a variety of projects with a focus on new enterprise commercialization strategy and launch planning. His projects have spanned across a range of therapeutic areas, including rare disease, fertility & reproductive health, medical aesthetics, and nephrology.
Prior to joining Clarion, Seth received his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Boston University. His research focused on developing fluorescent molecular tools to monitor neural activity. He also has previous research experience in AAV and lentivirus production. During his Ph.D., Seth worked in the Office of Technology Development at BU for 2 years and spent 6 months working at the life science focused investment bank, Outcome Capital.
Outside the office, Seth enjoys spending time with friends and family, exercising, reading, and finding new restaurants around Boston. He is also an avid Seattle sports fan.
Seth completed his undergraduate degree in Biomedical Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis.