CAPACE
LLC
capisco·capace·calmo
Fractional translational science for oncology and AI.
I make the science credible enough for pharma to bet on.
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The throughline

One thread, from the bench to the deal.

Most programs have strong scientists and separate business people. A great deal gets lost between them.

I work across that gap. I carry a mechanism from tissue-based proof through validation, clinical strategy, and the partnering conversation, and keep it rigorous the whole way. Spatial biology, biomarkers, drug development, and business development move as one motion instead of five handoffs. The science stays sound, the strategy stays grounded in it, and nothing gets lost in translation.

Where I work

Deep enough in each area to be trusted in the room.

Spatial biology & multiplex IF

Panel design and validation, multispectral imaging, and computational image analysis, with the consensus standards that make the data hold up.

Biomarker & patient selection

From discovery readout through companion diagnostic and regulatory alignment, built to survive a registrational program.

Translational & clinical lab build

CLIA-aligned operations and assay-of-record positioning inside the trials that decide a drug.

Digital pathology & AI

Computational pathology and foundation-model integration for tissue, with a working sense of what validates and what does not.

Drug development & partnering strategy

Target and competitive landscape, indication and patient-selection logic, and the narrative that makes the science legible to a pharma counterparty.

Selected work

What the throughline looks like in practice.

Three engagements, anonymized where the relationship is confidential. Each one starts in the science and ends in a decision a leadership team can act on.

Enterprise strategy

Mapping the science onto a pharma’s 2030 ambition

Built a five-pillar enterprise strategy that connected spatial and multiomic capability to AstraZeneca’s AI-2030 agenda, then translated it into the language a CEO and C-suite use to make portfolio bets. The hard part was not the science. It was making bench-level capability legible as a board-level transformation case.

Delivered: a CEO-ready strategy deck, five pillars tied to the enterprise AI program, and the partnering logic underneath each one.

Partnering positioning

Turning a platform into the assay of record

Reframed a digital-pathology AI company’s position around a single durable moat: becoming the locked assay-of-record inside registrational pharma programs, not a swappable analysis vendor. Built the target-account work behind the thesis across seven pharma programs in the ADC space, with the competitive landscape that justified it.

Delivered: target-account profiles for seven pharma programs, a competitive landscape, and a fractional leadership proposal to execute it.

Capability build

A translational lab from zero to registrational

Stood up a 14-person CLIA-aligned clinical translational lab and a multiplex immunofluorescence and spatial-biology program from scratch inside a top pharma, then embedded its readouts directly into oncology drug-development decisions. The same standards co-authored for the field were the standards the lab ran on.

Delivered: a validated multiplex and spatial program, a staffed CLIA-aligned lab, and tissue evidence trusted across programs.

How I get involved

Embedded, early, and across the lines.

When

I do my best work early, when a company has a real mechanism or platform and needs to turn it into evidence that holds up with pharma, clinicians, and regulators. That is usually before a partnership, before a trial, or at the validation inflection where the science has to become a decision.

How

As an embedded fractional lead, not an arms-length advisor. I sit in the lab conversation, the clinical translational meeting, and the partnering room, and I carry the thread through all three.

What you get

  • Translational and biomarker strategy
  • Assay validation and positioning plan
  • Patient-selection approach
  • Target and competitive landscape
  • The partnering narrative that turns science into a deal
Engagement & pricing

Retained by the day. Committed by the quarter.

Capace works on quarterly retainers in day increments: one day a week, two days a week, scaled to what a program needs and committed in three-month blocks. The deeper and longer the commitment, the lower the rate. Spot work without a retainer carries the standalone rate.

Without a retainer

Spot & project

$500 / hour

One-off reviews, a second opinion, a single problem worked end to end. No commitment, full standalone rate.

Quarterly retainer

$200 – $250 / hour

One day per week$250 / hr
Two days per week$225 / hr
Three or more days per week$200 / hr

Reserved capacity, committed in three-month blocks. Multi-quarter commitments earn a further discount.

Quarters do not have to align with the calendar. A day is a focused working day, and the retainer holds that capacity for you. Equity-inclusive arrangements are considered for the right early-stage fit.

Background

Fifteen years turning tissue into evidence.

I am a translational oncology scientist. I spent eight years at AstraZeneca and MedImmune building spatial biology, multiplex immunofluorescence, and clinical translational lab programs, then carried that work into scientific partnerships and enterprise strategy. I hold a PhD in molecular biology from Virginia Tech and an adjunct associate professorship in oncology at Georgetown Lombardi.

AstraZeneca & MedImmune

Eight years building multiplex immunofluorescence and spatial biology programs and a 14-person CLIA-aligned clinical translational lab from the ground up. Progressed from Scientist to Director of Translational Pathology.

BostonGene

VP Scientific Partnerships. Led pharma-partnership strategy and enterprise positioning across oncology, including the AI-2030 program work above.

JEDI Council, with Akoya

Co-founder of the spatial-biology council built around the platform now anchoring tissue strategy across the field.

SITC consensus standards

Co-author of the SITC best-practice standards for multiplex IHC and IF, 2020 and the 2025 update.

Georgetown Lombardi

Adjunct Associate Professor of Oncology, 2026. PhD, Molecular Biology, Virginia Tech.

Springer & the literature

Co-editor of Spatial Analysis of Multiplex Immunofluorescence Images. Published in Nature Immunology and Nature Communications. Invited speaker, Spatial Intelligence Summit, American Spatial Biology Congress, SITC.

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Tell me what your science
needs to prove.
mike@capacebio.org
540 915 3678   ·   New Market, Maryland   ·   linkedin.com/in/mikesurace