Bruce N. Barron is a principal and co-founder of Origin Ventures. He is a member of the Boards of Directors of GrubHub, ifbyphone, CityScan and ClaimForce. In addition, he serves on the boards of the Illinois Venture Capital Association, the Chicago Baseball Cancer Charities and Israel Cancer Research Fund Chicago.
Since 1985, Bruce has been involved in the management of several start-up medical technology companies. From 1995 – 2007 he had served as a member of the board of directors of Applied NeuroSolutions, Inc., (OTC BB: APNS) a biotechnology company developing a diagnostic to detect, and therapeutics to treat, Alzheimer’s disease. He also served as CEO of APNS from 1995-2004, and as Chairman of the Board from 1999-2006. From 1988 to 2001 Bruce also served on the board of directors of Trimedyne Inc., a public company, which is a leading manufacturer of surgical lasers used to treat diseases and other medical conditions.
He has served as President/Chairman CEO and/or CFO, from time to time, of the following companies: Gynex Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (sold to what is now known as Savient Pharmaceuticals in 1993), Pharmatec Inc. (merged with Pharmos Corp. in 1992) and Xtramedics, Inc. (merged with Athena Medical Corp. in 1994). Bruce assisted in guiding these entrepreneurial, public companies through their early stages to their ultimate sales or mergers with larger companies.
Bruce received a B.S. degree in Accounting from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1977. He earned his C.P.A. certificate and worked as an accountant in the Chicago office of Touche Ross (the predecessor of Deloitte & Touche) and other medium-size public accounting firms. He left the practice of public accounting in 1985 to begin his entrepreneurial career.