Bill Checovich

Bill Checovich is an executive in the biotech industry – most recently the Vice President of Operations and Madison Site Leader for Illumina Corporation. Bill received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin – Madison and completed fellowships at the Institute of Pharmacology at the University of Milan and in the Department of Biomolecular Chemistry at Wisconsin.

Prior to Illumina, Dr. Checovich held senior positions with Invitrogen, botulinum detection company Biosentinel Inc., and with subsidiaries of Aurora Biosciences and Vertex Pharmaceutical.  He was also the President of two start-up biotech companies – Caden Biosciences and Elaion Biosciences, and has served on the Board of Directors for three other start-ups – Pan Genome Systems LLC, Neurogenomex Inc., and Cell Line Genetics Inc.

Between 2009 and 2012, Bill was the Director and Entrepreneur-in-Residence of the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation Medical Device Translational Research Incubator at the University of Wisconsin, where he was responsible for identifying promising medical device and biotechnologies at the University, advising faculty on closing pre-commercialization gaps, providing funding, and helping faculty and students start companies and attract investor funding. He currently also serves as an industry advisor for the NIGMS-funded Biotechnology Training Grant at the University of Wisconsin.