Ron Kraus ’94
Distinguished Alumni Award 2024
Ron Kraus ’94 graduated from UMass Amherst with a BS in mechanical engineering. He currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Syner-G BioPharma Group, a leading provider of integrated pharmaceutical sciences and regulatory services. Kraus has dedicated his 25+ year career to the life science industry and has a passion for building expert teams and businesses that provide unparalleled support in the development of life-saving therapies.
Prior to joining Syner-G, Kraus was the Chief Operating Officer at Cytel, the largest provider of statistical software and advanced analytics for clinical trial design and execution. During his tenure, the company grew 25% annually and successfully took on a Private Equity investment creating tremendous value for the shareholders while accelerating the company’s ability to further advance their services.
Kraus spent the majority of his career at Parexel, a leading global clinical research organization. During his time at Parexel he held numerous commercial and executive leadership roles. While leading the Consulting business, his team successfully developed and launched Parexel’s regulatory outsourcing service which captured several new partnerships in the initial 18 months representing $50M USD in new revenue. In addition, his team successfully made several acquisitions allowing Parexel to further differentiate its global product development services. In his time in Parexel’s Clinical Research Services Business, he oversaw Phase I thru Phase IV research globally and led the transformation of the function from a regional-based service to a global function while enhancing operational and financial controls. These enhanced controls delivered improved profitability and customer satisfaction, and in 2019 Parexel’s Clinical Research unit was ranked #1 among global CROs for leadership in Phase II-III services.
While at UMass, Kraus completed a co-op at Pratt & Whitney in Middelton, CT, and was a member of the Tau Beta Pi engineering honor society.