Melinda Thomas, Octave Bioscience

“We need to embrace this moment in history where we move beyond group classifiers like gender and race, and move toward understanding the power of personalization in areas like medicine and startups.”
Melinda Thomas

Melinda Thomas, COO & Co-Founder of Octave Bioscience, shared the story behind her title with us on August 14, 2022.

Melinda has over two decades of experience starting and leading health companies. Using her expertise, she wraps a company around a technical/scientific team so they can focus on meeting the company’s milestones. Melinda built CardioDx, a molecular diagnostics company specializing in cardiovascular genomics, and ParAllele, high-throughput sequencing and SNP discovery company from the foundation point. ParAllele was acquired by Affymetrix in what one investor said was their best investment of the decade. Previously, she served as the Inaugural Entrepreneur in Residence for New York City, solving problems for aspiring entrepreneurs, and as Chair of the Board for the Save the Redwoods League. Prior to ParAllele, she guided Molecular Dynamics Manufacturing, building it from an 8-person to 85-person manufacturing organization. Melinda holds an MBA from Harvard and a BS from UC Berkeley.

SUE SAYS

“Melinda Thomas’ life story and career journey was one of saying yes to opportunities that presented themselves to her. From the time she was 7 and said sure I’ll help the neighbor build that cinderblock grease pit to saying yes to the multiple opportunities to launch new companies. It’s always been a matter of following her gut and the desire to learn new things. Learn why she and her co-Founder decided to tackle the most complex neurological disease first when launching Octave.”