Who We Are
Justin McLaughlin
CEO and FOUNDER
With leadership in medical writing and product development, Justin oversees Acumen’s services and software development.
Virginia Kelly
CMO and FOUNDER
A board-certified hematologist/oncologist, Virginia provides strategic medical and clinical development support.
Michael Claffey
Vice President
Having led medical writing teams for over a decade, Michael heads Acumen’s medical writing services.
Fernando Venegas
Head of Operations & Quality
Fernando has worked in biotech for 25 years and leads Acumen’s program management and quality control services.
Bruce Pierce
Director of Product Development
With over 20 years’ experience in software development, Bruce leads Acumen’s product development.
Tim Henion
Director of Medical Writing
A seasoned research scientist and nonclinical writer, Tim oversees Acumen’s nonclinical writing.
Colleen Mullen
Director of Narratives / Lead Medical Writer
With 25+years as a scientist and medical writer, Colleen has expertise in all phases of clinical writing, and leads Acumen’s narrative writing teams.
Kelly Danyow
Director of Editorial Services
With more that 12 years of experience editing and writing technical documents, Kelly oversees Acumen’s editorial services and document QC.
Elin Agoston
Managing Medical Writer
With a background as a research cancer biologist, Elin authors a wide range of nonclinical documents, both for regulatory and publications.
Paula Gauthier
Lead Medical Writer
Paula has led, written, and edited clinical, regulatory, and pharmacovigilance documents for more than 20 years with a strong focus on oncology.
Dayna Deuter
Lead Medical Writer - Contract
With 18 years of medical writing experience, Dayna has deep experience writing regulatory documents, with a focus on oncology, rare disease, and gene therapy submissions.
Dave Mee
Clinical Scientist / Lead Medical Writer
With over 30 years of industry experience, Dave has a deep understanding of clinical development, having built and led teams in this space.
Pat Nastase
Lead Medical Writer
Pat has 25 years of experience as a regulatory medical writer and has written a wide variety of clinical documents and contributed to many submissions.
Courtneay Parsons
Lead Medical Writer
In her nearly 20 years of experience as a medical writer, editor, and team leader, Courtneay has worked across multiple clinical document types and therapeutic areas.
Patrick Barry
Lead Medical Writer
Having worked in medical and scientific communications for 10+ years, Patrick has extensive experience of clinical content development across several therapeutic areas, with a focus in hematology/oncology and rare diseases.
Donna Curtis
Lead Medical Writer
Donna has been a medical writer for over 30 years with extensive experience across a range of therapeutic areas.
Mahin Arastu
Senior Medical Writer
As a neuroscience researcher with over 14 years of experience in industry, Mahin has authored a wide range of documents from publications to nonclinical regulatory submissions.
Mary Donoghue
Medical Writer
Mary is a clinical writer with an extensive scientific background and experience across multiple regulatory document types, including patient narratives.
Paul Guttry
Medical Writer
Paul is a medical writer with a focus on clinical manuscripts and publications, leveraging his extensive prior experience in academic publishing.
Alice Lim
Medical Writer
Alice is a medical writer with a cancer cell biology background who supports nonclinical publications and regulatory submissions.
Aaron Slyman
Medical Writer
Joining Acumen after completing his PharmD, Aaron contributes to the development of various clinical documents including submission filings.
Mary Claffey
Lead Editor
With over 20 years in academic publishing, medical writing, and technical communications, Mary provides in-depth quality reviews and editing.
Kim Green
Lead Editor / Clinical Trials Disclosure
Kim has 15 years of experience writing and reviewing clinical documents and managing global teams and has substantial expertise in clinical trial transparency and disclosure.
Lori Potraffke
Lead Editor
Lori has worked in the pharmaceutical industry for nearly 15 years, specializing in copy editing, data quality control review, formatting, template creation, and style guides.
Karen Dewar
Lead Biostatistician
Karen is a biostatistician with advanced statistical programming skills and over 30 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry.
Jennifer Hensel
With a background in immunology and cancer research, Jennifer has over 10 years of writing regulatory and clinical documents, with a focus on oncology. Photo: yes. Title: Lead Medical Writer
John Welle
Senior Graphic Designer
John has spent 20 years as a technical writer and graphic designer, leading Acumen’s graphical services for posters and publications.
Mary Jane Smith
Lead Medical Writer
Mary Jane is a lead medical writer with over 20 years of clinical regulatory writing experience and previous experience as an oncology nurse.
Dora Blake-McLaughlin
Finance Manager
Dora leads Acumen’s finance and human resources.
Jamie Spagnuolo
Editor / Associate Medical Writer
With 5 years’ experience editing medical content, Jamie supports both Acumen's editing and medical writing services.

Our Team
Acumen brings a host of talented individuals to serve our clients. Our network includes over 40 contributors to handle projects of any size and scope.