Team
CEO and Founder
Nikita Obidin
VP of Regulatory Affairs
Gary Riordan
Chief of Staff
Jaclyn Chau
Head of Strategy and Ops
Serena Lim-Strutt
Core CMC Partner
Joan Connolly
Scientific Advisor
Boris Heifets
Scientific Advisor
Graham Pechenik
Strategic advisor
Josh Hardman
Strategic Advisor
Jamie Heywood
Strategic Advisor
Quentin Frerichs
Strategic Advisor
Sarah Sclarsic
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.
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.
Core CMC Partner
Joan Connolly
Joan Connolly is a 30-year biopharma veteran with a proven record of developing and launching new products. Joan has deep experience in pharmaceutical development, regulatory submissions, manufacturing and supply, quality operations and team building. At Arcadia, she is focused on process development and clinical manufacturing for our early-stage assets, with a long-term goal to deliver a cost-effective and reliable product manufacturing infrastructure and efficient operations for sustainable growth.
