Team
CEO and Founder
Nikita Obidin
President and CDO
Dean Carson
VP of Regulatory Affairs
Gary Riordan
Chief of Staff
Jaclyn Chau
Head of Strategy and Ops
Serena Lim-Strutt
QA Partner
Juan Gonzalez
CMC Consultant
Bharat Mehta
Strategic Advisor
Quintin Frerichs
Strategic Advisor
Jamie Heywood
Strategic Advisor
Sarah Sclarsic
Scientific Advisor
Boris Heifets
Scientific Advisor
Graham Pechenik
Strategic advisor
Josh Hardman
CEO and Founder
Nikita Obidin
Nikita Obidin is the founder and CEO of Arcadia Medicine. While studying chemical engineering as an undergraduate, he first picked up a copy of Alexander Shulgin’s PIHKAL, which sparked a lifetime fascination with the chemistry and neuroscience of psychedelics. He did his graduate studies in Ed Boyden’s group at MIT, where he worked on expansion microscopy and long-read sequencing.
President and Chief Development Officer
Dean Carson
Dean Carson is President and Chief Development Officer at Arcadia. He completed his PhD in neuroscience and neuropharmacology at the University of Sydney and postdoctoral training in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University. He has published over 30 peer-reviewed articles in top-tier scientific and medical journals and holds multiple issued patents. Dean has held various leadership roles, including VP of Scientific Affairs at Saniona and CEO of two Atai Life Sciences subsidiary companies.
Vice President of Regulatory Affairs
Gary Riordan
Gary Riordan is the Vice President of Regulatory at Arcadia. Mr. Riordan is a regulatory industry veteran with over 30 years of commercialization/regulatory/quality experience. Gary has extensive global regulatory and quality experience, including serving as a primary reviewer at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and has held executive positions as Sr. V.P. and V.P. of Quality and Regulatory Affairs developed regulatory strategies (for IND’s, PLA’s, PMA’s and 510(k)’s). Gary has also initiated and advanced compliant quality systems and has served as the company lead for many successful FDA and ISO audits at multiple companies.
Chief of Staff
Jaclyn Chau
Jaclyn is the Chief of Staff at Arcadia Medicine. She has over 16+ years of experience across Sales, HR, Administrative Operations, and Investor Relations. She has extensive experience working at various startups and financial institutions prior to joining the psychedelic space.
Head of Strategy and Operations
Serena Lim-Strutt
Serena has a background in management consulting at McKinsey & Company, where she served healthcare, decarbonization, and startup clients. Prior to this, Serena studied Neuroscience and Philosophy at Duke University. She has a long-time passion for the psychedelics space, previously volunteering at MAPS and completing her thesis on the cognitive and personality associations of classical psychedelics.
QA Partner
Juan Gonzalez
Quality/Engineering professional with a total of over 40 years’ experience; 14 years in military/defense and 30 years in biopharmaceuticals covering all phases of drug product development thru commercial launch and distribution.
CMC Consultant
Bharat Mehta, Ph.D.
Dr. Mehta has a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Rutgers University and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Bombay University, India. Bharat has over 40 years of professional experience spanning the pharmaceutical industry and plastics industry serving the development and manufacturing of healthcare products.
