Gregory Lucier

Gregory T. Lucier is a veteran life-sciences and medical-device executive who has parlayed a series of large operating successes into a role as an active angel investor and board leader. He began his career at General Electric, including GE Healthcare, holding a variety of corporate officer and executive leadership roles. He holds a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from Pennsylvania State University (1986) and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

From 2003 to 2014, Lucier served as Chairman and CEO of Invitrogen, which he grew from a mid-size enterprise into a life-sciences powerhouse with over $4 billion in sales, renaming it Life Technologies. He oversaw the company's sale to Thermo Fisher Scientific in 2014 for more than $15 billion. From 2015 to 2021 he was Chairman and CEO of NuVasive, a leader in minimally invasive spine and orthopedic surgery technology (later merged with Globus Medical in 2023).

Lucier subsequently founded Corza Health / Corza Medical in partnership with private equity firm GTCR, combining his 30+ years of life-sciences leadership with GTCR's capital. He serves on numerous public and private boards, including Maravai LifeSciences, Dentsply Sirona (which he has chaired), Catalent, Antylia Scientific, Avantor (appointed 2025), and Pleno, Inc. He has also chaired the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (La Jolla) and the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.

Because he received more than $100 million combined from compensation, options, and exit proceeds over his career, Lucier became one of a wave of San Diego life-sciences executives who reinvest their wealth into local biotech and medtech startups — acting as an angel investor, board director, and mentor to next-generation companies.

• Invests primarily in life sciences, genomics/sequencing, diagnostics, and surgical/medical-device startups — sectors matching his deep operating experience at Life Technologies and NuVasive.
• Typically comes in at the seed / early stage as an angel and takes an active role, often joining or chairing the board rather than making passive checks.
• Part of a San Diego "reinvest culture" of cashed-out executives who redeploy personal wealth into the regional life-sciences ecosystem.
• Adds value through operating expertise, scaling know-how, and M&A/exit experience (a $15B+ Thermo Fisher sale, a $100M Illumina acquisition of a portfolio company) rather than capital alone.