Nicolas Roelofs

Nicolas ("Nick") Roelofs is a life-sciences tools and diagnostics executive with roughly 35–40 years of operating and advisory experience. He earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry, biology, and German from Simpson College, a master's in organic chemistry from Iowa State University, and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Nevada, Reno. Over his operating career he held roles spanning R&D, business development, sales, marketing, manufacturing, and general management at major life-science companies including Baxter Healthcare, Applied Biosystems, Stratagene, Bio-Rad, and Agilent Technologies.

His most senior operating role was Senior Vice President and President of the Life Sciences Group at Agilent Technologies (approximately 2009–2013), where he led a multibillion-dollar global business (reported as $3–4 billion) and oversaw acquisitions such as Halo Genomics. Earlier he served as Group Operations Officer for the Life Sciences Division of Bio-Rad and as Chief Operating Officer of Stratagene, giving him hands-on experience scaling both public multinationals and venture-backed startups.

Since leaving full-time operating roles, Roelofs has become a prolific board director and investor. He is Chairman of Boreal Genomics (a Vancouver-based circulating-tumor-DNA / liquid-biopsy company whose OnTarget platform performs sensitive mutation detection from cell-free DNA) and has chaired or sat on the boards of numerous private companies including Sengenics, One BioMed, and ScaleBio. He has served on the board of Olink Holding AB since December 2020 and joined Seer, Inc.'s board in August 2024, alongside roles with Velsera, LGC Group, The Binding Site, and Axion BioSystems.

In parallel he advises private-equity and venture firms: Advising/Thematic Partner at Summa Equity (since ~2019), Industrial Advisor at Nordic Capital (since ~2014), and Venture Partner at Sweden's Sciety. He is widely credited with helping guide Olink's growth and its eventual sale to Thermo Fisher Scientific for roughly 34 billion SEK.

• Invests in and advises life-sciences tools, genomics, proteomics, and molecular diagnostics companies — the domains where he spent his operating career.
• Operates across the full lifecycle: angel/seed and early-stage startups through growth-stage private companies and public boards.
• Backs companies built on differentiated, defensible technology platforms (e.g., padlock probes / rolling-circle amplification at Rarity Bioscience, ctDNA detection at Boreal, single-cell/library prep at ScaleBio, proteomics at Olink and Seer).
• Values inventive science with a clear path to commercial scale-up — his own words on Rarity: *"I have been impressed over the years by the prolific and elegant inventions which have come from Ulf Landegren's laboratories at Uppsala University."*
• Brings an operator-investor lens: sales, marketing, manufacturing, and business-development experience, not just capital.
• Geographically active in both North America and the Nordics/Europe, reflecting his Summa Equity, Nordic Capital, Sciety, and Olink ties.