Pioneering precision neurology

Octave develops blood-based biomarker tests that illuminate the path forward for patients with neurodegenerative diseases. We started with multiple sclerosis. Our ambitions span Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and beyond.

The only certain thing in neurology is uncertainty.

Is the disease advancing?

Is my current fatigue a side effect or disease progression?

Can I have children on this med?

Should I try a different therapy?

Is the treatment working?

That’s why Octave exists.
To give an answer from a blood draw.
To make the invisible measurable. The uncertain, clear.
A score between 1 and 10. That’s it.
Precision medicine for neurology.

That’s Octave.

Our journey

2022

Multiple Sclerosis Disease Activity (MSDA) Test
commercially launched

Sometime 2023

MSDA Test clinical validation published
in Clinical Immunology

2025

Reception of Michael J. Fox Foundation grant
advances Parkinson's program

2025

Valhalla Foundation grant advances
Multiple Sclerosis Disease Progression (MSDP) Test

2025

New York State CLEP approval achieved

2025

MSDA Test real-world utility published in
Multiple Sclerosis Journal – Experimental, Translational and Clinical

2025

Quest Diagnostics partnership expands
MSDA Test access nationwide

Leadership team

Doug Biehn

President, Chief Executive Officer

Doug is an accomplished leader with over 20 years of healthcare experience building and scaling growth businesses, leading and inspiring world class teams and establishing innovative new standards of care.

Prior to joining Octave, Doug held executive leadership roles in such category creating and industry leading companies as iRhythm Technologies, McKesson, AliveCor, Blue Shield of California and most recently, Cala Health.

Additionally, he is a Board Advisor for a number of early-stage digital health companies and mentors graduate students in the Stanford Business School Lean Launchpad program. Doug holds an MBA from the University of San Francisco and a BS from San Francisco State University.

Marcel Konrad

Chief Financial Officer

Marcel is a results-driven financial executive with over 20 years of healthcare experience with a proven track record of enhancing teams and leading successful transformations for sustained growth. Prior to joining Octave, Marcel held senior executive leadership roles with Medexus Pharmaceuticals, CareDx, Santen Pharmaceuticals and Novartis both in the US and Switzerland. Marcel was an Auditor with KPMG. He holds an International MBA from the University of San Diego and has a BS and Masters from Haute Ecole Commerciale (HEC) Lausanne, Switzerland. Marcel is an active US CPA.

Debbie Ledet

Chief Access Officer

Debbie is a Market Access Leader with over 20+ years in laboratory diagnostics and the health care AI industry with demonstrated success in securing CPT codes, medical policy coverage and reimbursement within governmental and commercial health plans. Prior to joining Octave, Debbie held executive leadership roles in various companies with disruptive technologies that have changed the standard of care and improved patient outcomes in oncology, women’s health, maternal and fetal medicine, cardiology, AI and radiology. Companies that have benefited from her subject matter expertise include NeoGenomics Laboratory, Perspectum DX, Biotheranostics, Natera, LipoScience, CYTYC Corp. and Johnson & Johnson. Debbie is currently a Board Advisor and Investor partner in several early-stage start-up companies; and an active member the of Women Business Leaders of the U.S. Health Care Industry Foundation (WBL). Debbie participates in several national reimbursement workgroups & coalitions and holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Memphis.

Kirk Stockwood

Senior Vice President, Commercial

Kirk has over 20 years of experience building and leading high-performing commercial teams within specialty diagnostics and life sciences. Kirk has a strong track record of revenue growth across diverse product portfolios including proteomics and genomics, expanding market share, and driving adoption of innovative solutions. Prior to joining Octave, he held senior commercial roles with industry-leading companies including Quanterix, 10X Genomics, Natera, and Color Health. Kirk is a results-driven executive with a passion for developing and mentoring people and holds a BS from Merrimack College.

Terrie Livingston

Vice President, Medical Affairs

Terrie is a medical affairs leader with over 24 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, including more than 18 years focused on clinical research, real-world evidence, patient-reported outcomes, and health economics and outcomes research. She has held leadership roles at Pharmacia, Novartis, Biogen, and most recently, EMD Serono. Terrie is recognized for her commitment to advancing health equity and has led research addressing racial disparities and social determinants of health. She has served in several influential roles, including Chair of the Industry Advisory Board for NARCRMS, member of the international Charcot PROMS Working Group, and reviewer for PCORI and the Journal of Managed Care Pharmacy. She remains an active advocate for patients living with multiple sclerosis. Terrie earned her Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of California, San Francisco.

David Brazel

Vice President, Data Science

David is a scientific leader and computational biologist with over 15 years of experience in multi-disciplinary research across industry, government, and academia, including positions at Color Health and Sandia National Laboratories. At Octave, he drives evidence generation and platform improvements for MSDA and the discovery and development of novel biomarkers for neurodegenerative diseases. David holds a BA from Colby College, a PhD from the University of Colorado Boulder, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Oxford.

Zachary Fernandes

Vice President, Business Development

Zac is a life sciences executive with more than 10 years of experience across commercial diagnostics, strategic partnerships, and growth-stage company building. He joins Octave from Quanterix, where he spent over four years as VP of Simoa Diagnostics and General Manager of Lucent Diagnostics, leading LDT partnership development and commercialization of blood biomarker tests for Alzheimer's Disease. Prior to Quanterix, Zac held leadership roles in business development and corporate development at Veritas Genetics and Mission Bio.

Zac holds a Bachelor's in Biology from the University of Southern Maine and an MBA from Van Loan Graduate School at Endicott College.

Erika B. Ortiz

Director of People Operations

Erika is a strategic People Operations leader with over 20 years of experience in early and mid-stage startups. Erika has deep expertise in building and scaling the HR function from the ground up and supporting companies through every stage of growth. Erika is passionate about creating high touch employee experiences and building high-trust and high-impact organizations. She is a culture ambassador, relationship builder, and champion for change. Prior to joining Octave, Erika held leadership roles at Simple Things, Rivian, Nauto, and Essential Products. Erika holds both a Master’s and Bachelor’s degree in Communication Studies from San Jose State University.

Medical directors

World-class expertise guiding our clinical and scientific direction

Jennifer Graves

Senior Medical Director

Dr. Jennifer Graves serves as a consultant Senior Medical Director for Octave. She is Professor of Neurosciences and Vice Chair of Human Clinical Research at UC San Diego. As Division Chief of Neuroimmunology, she directs the multiple sclerosis clinics at UCSD, the San Diego VA Hospital and the Rady Children’s Hospital. She completed an MD and PhD in Biophysics at the University of Texas Southwestern. She trained in neurology at the University of Pennsylvania receiving the Arthur K Asbury Award for Clinical Excellence. She completed two fellowships in Neuro-ophthalmology at the University of Pennsylvania and in Multiple Sclerosis and Clinical Research Methods at the University of California, San Francisco. She was author of the protocol and lead investigator for MOVING-MS, a pilot trial of the Octave solutions platform designed to demonstrate clinical and fiscal utility. Her current independent research focuses on the role of biological age on disease expression, including protein and DNA biomarkers, and the development of wearable sensors to instrument the physical assessment of people with neurological disease. Her past work has included the study of genetic, environmental and sex-related factors on MS disease course and the application of visual outcome measures in neuroimmunological diseases. She is currently the North American Editor for the Multiple Sclerosis Journal.

Darin Okuda

Senior Medical Advisor

Dr. Darin Okuda is a professor of neurology at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, specializing in multiple sclerosis and related disorders. He serves as Director of the Neuroinnovation Program and the Multiple Sclerosis and Neuroimmunology Imaging Program, with a focus on advancing diagnostic accuracy, treatment optimization, and clinical surveillance. Dr. Okuda is internationally recognized for his pioneering work on radiologically isolated syndrome (RIS), which played a key role in shaping the newly updated 2024 McDonald Criteria for MS diagnosis. As an innovator, he has developed novel platforms aimed at expanding access to care and reducing healthcare costs. Dr. Okuda received his BS and MS degrees from the University of Hawaii and earned his medical degree from the University of Hawaii, John A. Burns School of Medicine. He completed his neurology residency at the Barrow Neurological Institute and a fellowship in neuroimmunology at the University of California, San Francisco. He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, a Fellow of both the American Academy of Neurology and the American Neurological Association, and a member of the AAN Committees on Neuroimaging and Ethics.

Board of directors

Octave is backed by seasoned and passionate healthcare leaders

William Hagstrom

Chairman of the Board

Bill Hagstrom is the Founder and Chairman of Octave Bioscience and former CEO of the Company. He has over 30 years of start-up experience in a broad range of medical specialties integrating new science and technology to improve patient lives and outcomes. Prior to Octave, he served as CEO of Crescendo Bioscience which created novel quantitative biomarkers and tracking software in the field of rheumatology. Previous to this he was President of Alpha BioPartners, a strategic consulting firm focused on advising scientists and entrepreneurs on launching new life sciences ventures. While at Alpha, Bill created the business plan for Crescendo as well as co-founded Biolytx Pharmaceuticals and Altheus Therapeutics. Prior to these experiences he was the initial CEO of Selexys Pharmaceuticals and interim CEO of Inoveon in ophthalmology. In the 1990’s Bill was CEO and Chairman of Urocor, a urology diagnostics company which he scaled from start-up through IPO. Earlier in his career, he was Vice President of Baxter International’s $1.0Bil Scientific Products Division and held management positions at American Hospital Supply and Becton Dickinson. He currently is on the Boards of CareDx in transplantation and CoFactor in oncology. Previously he served on the Board of Prometheus and numerous other companies. Bill holds a BS in Business Management from Bob Jones University.

Doug Biehn

President and CEO, Octave

Doug Biehn is an accomplished leader with over 20 years of healthcare experience building and scaling growth businesses, leading and inspiring world class teams and establishing innovative new standards of care. Prior to joining Octave, Doug held executive leadership roles in such category creating and industry leading companies as iRhythm Technologies, McKesson, AliveCor, Blue Shield of California and most recently, Cala Health. Additionally, he is a Board Advisor for a number of early-stage digital health companies and mentors graduate students in the Stanford Business School Lean Launchpad program. Doug holds an MBA from the University of San Francisco and a BS from San Francisco State University.

Brook Byers

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

Brook Byers is a founding member of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. A venture capital investor since 1972, Brook has been closely involved with more than 60 new technology-based ventures, many of which have become public companies. He formed the first life sciences practice group in the venture capital profession in 1984 and led KPCB to become a premier venture capital firm in the medical, healthcare and biotechnology sectors. KPCB has invested in and helped build more than 110 life sciences companies that have developed hundreds of products to treat underserved medical needs for many millions of patients. Brook was the founding president and then chairman of four biotechnology companies that were incubated in KPCB’s offices and went on to become public companies with an aggregate market value of more than US $8 billion.

Tom Hawes

Managing Director, Healthcare, Sandbox Industries

Tom Hawes is a member of the BlueCross BlueShield Fund Management team at Sandbox Industries and serves on the Sandbox Management Committee. He is the Board Chairman for Patientco, serves on the Board of Directors of HeartFlow, BehaveCare, Healthify, Oncology Analytics, and AbleTo and is a board observer of Phreesia, Lumiata, and WellspringHealthcare. Before joining Sandbox, Tom matched at Yale School of Medicine for residency and completed his first year of medical training at Greenwich Hospital. During his medical training, he worked on clinical studies at the ISK Institute for Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine and on outcomes research at the National Cancer Institute and NYMC’s Cardiothoracic Surgery Department. Tom holds a BA from Brigham Young University, an M.D. from New York Medical College and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He is also a Kauffman Fellow.

Grant Heidrich III

Independent VC & PE Professional

Grant Heidrich III has innate skill at anticipating emerging technology and market trends coupled with an ability to coalesce teams of people around a shared vision. He has been in the venture capital industry for over 30 years. During his tenure, Grant co-managed Mayfield’s health care initiative and helped establish its renowned franchise in health care. Prior to joining the firm, he was a Vice President at Wood River Capital. During his venture career, Grant has been on the Boards of more than 20 public and private companies.He was the President of the Western Association of Venture Capital and a former Member of the Board of Directors of the National Venture Capital Association. In 2009, Grant received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Venture Capital Association. He holds an MBA from Columbia University and a BA in Human Biology from Stanford University. Grant continues his active role in venture capital as an angel investor.

Lucy Coassin

Northpond Ventures

Lucy Coassin is a Principal at Northpond Ventures. She is a board director at Hawthorne Effect, Octave, SimBioSys, Story Health, and Vital Biosciences, and a board observer at Inflammatix and Vizgen. Previously, Lucy was Head of Pharma at Current Health (a Northpond portfolio company, acquired by Best Buy). She has 15 years of experience commercializing technology from product launch to widespread adoption. Lucy has held business development and commercial roles at digital health and life science tool companies including Science 37 (NASDAQ: SNCE), Farcast Biosciences, Genentech, and Life Technologies (Acquired by ThermoFisher, NYSE: TMO). Lucy received her MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a B.S. with distinction in Chemistry from Duke University.

Michael Pellini

Foundation Medicine, Section 32

Dr. Michael Pellini is a Managing Partner at Section 32 and Chairman of Foundation Medicine. He previously served as the Chief Executive Officer at Foundation Medicine from 2011 until February 2017. Prior to this he served as Chief Operating Officer at PLUS Diagnostics and was President and Chief Operating Officer at Clarient. He also served as Vice President of Life Sciences at Safeguard Scientifics, Inc. Michael serves as Director and Scientific Advisory Board Member at Cira Discovery Sciences, Chairman of Foundation Medicine and is currently on the boards of Veneti, Adaptive Biotechnologies, Tango Therapeutics and Singular Genomics and The Personalized Medicine Coalition. Michael holds a Medical Degree from Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, an MBA Degree from Drexel University in Philadelphia and a BA in Economics from Boston College in Massachusetts.

George Scangos

Former CEO Vir, Biogen, Exelixis

George Scangos, Ph.D., is the chief executive officer and a member of the Board of Directors of Vir. Previously, he was the chief executive officer and a member of the board of directors of Biogen since July 2010. From 1996 to July 2010, George served as the president and chief executive officer of Exelixis, Inc., a drug discovery and development company, where he continues to serve on the board. From 1993 to 1996, George served as president of Bayer Biotechnology, where he was responsible for research, business development, process development, manufacturing, engineering and quality assurance of Bayer’s biological products. Before joining Bayer in 1987, George was a professor of biology at Johns Hopkins University, where he is still an adjunct professor. He served as non-executive chairman of Anadys Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company, from 2005 to July 2010 and was a director of the company from 2003 to July 2010. He currently serves on the Boards of Directors of Agilent, Exelixis, and Decibel Therapeutics. George served as the Chair of PhRMA from March of 2016 to January of 2017. He also served as the chair of the California Healthcare Institute in 2010 and was a member of the board of the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development until 2010. He is a member of the boards of trustees of the Boston Museum of Science and the Biomedical Science Careers Program, and a member of the National Board of Visitors of the University of California, Davis School of Medicine.

What we’re building

Pioneering precision neurology across multiple neurodegenerative diseases

In Development

In Market

Multiple Sclerosis

The MSDA Test: our clinically validated, commercially available blood test delivering actionable insights for MS patients and their clinicians.

In Development

In Market

MS Disease progression

Advancing biomarkers that can fundamentally reshape how MS progression is measured, supported by a grant from the Valhalla Foundation.

In Development

In Market

Parkinson’s Disease

Developing the world’s first blood-based, multi-protein assay for Parkinson’s disease in partnership with the Michael J. Fox Foundation.

Partner with us

We've built a rich longitudinal dataset in neurology, multi‑biomarker profiles paired with clinical context, designed to deepen understanding of disease over time. We welcome collaboration with those working to advance neurological care.

Backed by

Join the team

Interested in building the future of precision neurology?