Chad Robins
Chief Executive Officer, Co-founder, Chairman of the BoardChad Robins is the chief executive officer and co-founder of Adaptive Biotechnologies (Nasdaq: ADPT), a commercial stage biotechnology company that aims to translate the genetics of the adaptive immune system into clinical products to diagnose and treat disease.
Since its founding in 2009, Chad has led Adaptive in building a proprietary immune medicine platform that fuels businesses across life sciences research, clinical diagnostics, and drug discovery. In 2019, Chad guided the company through its initial public offering, which was one of the year’s most successful biotech IPOs. Under his leadership, Adaptive has successfully launched the clinical diagnostic clonoSEQ®, the first and only FDA-authorized NGS-based test to detect and monitor minimal residual disease in certain B-cell cancers.
Chad has also propelled Adaptive into the burgeoning health tech space, forging a partnership with tech giant Microsoft, and bringing cloud computing and machine learning together with Adaptive’s technology to map the immune response of many diseases. This work fuels a pipeline of diagnostic tests across cancer, autoimmune disorders, and infectious disease. Adaptive is also working to discover potent neutralizing antibodies to potentially prevent and treat COVID-19.
Chad is routinely recognized for excellence and innovation. In 2019 and 2020, he was included in the Puget Sound Business Journal’s Power 100, and Chad has been named a Goldman Sachs Most Intriguing Entrepreneur each year since 2015. He also received the 2016 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year® – The Pacific Northwest Region Award. Adaptive was awarded Seattle Business Magazine’s Leaders in Health Care 2020 – Achievement in Medical Technology, as well as the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 each year since 2016. In addition, under Chad’s leadership, Adaptive has consistently been voted Best Places to Work by the Puget Sound Business Journal.
Chad is actively engaged in the biotech and health policy communities, serving on the executive board of Life Science Washington and the steering committee of the Coalition for 21st Century Medicine. In addition to serving as Chairman of the Board for Adaptive, he also holds board positions with AltPep, AdvaMedDx, and HeadLight.
Chad graduated with honors from Cornell University and obtained his MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to Adaptive, Chad held executive-level positions in real estate, investment banking, private equity, and medical technology.