Rick Johnston, Ph.D.

Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Rick Johnston is Founder and CEO of Bioproduction Group. In this role, he manages Bio-G’s technical team and their engagement with some of the world’s largest biopharmaceutical organizations.

Dr. Johnston is an established expert in the field of biopharmaceutical operations and economics, and is regularly invited to speak at national and international conferences including recent engagements at Biopharmaceutical Process International (BPI), EuroBIO, Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing Development (BMD) Summit and Bioinnovation Leaders Summit where he has provided thought leadership in a number of areas including risk, uncertainty, simulation modeling, and analysis. He also regularly appears in trade journals such as Biopharm International, Bioprocess International and Pharma Focus Asia.  

Dr. Johnston takes an active role in furthering education in biopharmaceutical operations. He is currently the Executive Co-director of the University of California at Berkeley’s Center for Biopharmaceutical Operations and an Adjunct Professor at the Keck Graduate Institute in Claremont, California. Dr. Johnston holds a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering and Bioinformatics from the University of California at Berkeley, a Master of Science in Operations Research from Stanford University, and Bachelors’ degrees in Engineering and Liberal Arts from the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

Professor Lee Schruben, Ph.D.

Honorary Chief Scientific Officer

Professor Lee Schruben is Honorary CSO of Bioproduction Group, a role reflecting his wealth of experience in Operations Research and simulation modeling.

Professor Schruben is a Professor at the University of California at Berkeley and is considered one of the world's foremost experts on simulation. His interests lie in optimization and design of experiments for complex systems, as well as optimization of hi-tech production and operations.

Professor Schruben has published dozens of papers on high speed simulation modeling, and invented a general paradigm for simulation modeling called 'event graphs' that enjoys widespread use throughout the simulation modeling community. He is regularly a keynote speaker at simulation conferences both in the U.S. and abroad. He was the youngest of the 13 people world-wide to be elected to the first class of Fellows in the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science and the only person to win the Institute's Outstanding Publication award twice with single author papers.

Professor Schruben also has an extensive history improving industrial operations, including research and consulting work with over a forty companies, many in the hi-tech biopharmaceutical and semiconductor manufacturing industries.

Professor Schruben holds a Ph.D. in Operations Research in Statistics from Cornell University, a Master of Science in Statistics from the University of North Carolina and a Bachelor's degree from Cornell University. He is also author of the simulation language 'Sigma', used for academic education and research as well as commercial high-speed simulation applications. Sigma was selected as one of the 101 all-time educational software success stories by Educom.

David Zhang

Chief Financial Officer

David Zhang is Founder and CFO of Bioproduction Group, leading Bio-G's operational team and their execution of projects delivering millions of dollars in savings to biopharmaceutical manufacturers.

David Zhang is considered an expert in biopharmaceutical process modeling, having lead the development of dozens of models covering nearly every aspect of biomanufacturing. His past experience includes work in cell culture (both batch-based and perfusion-based), batch and continuous recovery operations, disposables technologies, fill / finish and packaging operations, risk modeling, failure modes and effects analysis, de-bottlenecking, facility fit, process development and statistical analysis.

Mr Zhang has also been extensively involved in healthcare economics outcomes research, providing robust statistical analysis to pharmaceutical companies in trial selection and drug screening.

Mr Zhang brings a detailed technical understanding of statistics to Bioproduction Group, with a Bachelor's degree in Engineering Mathematics and Statistics from the University of California at Berkeley.