Leadership

Michael is an entrepreneurial senior executive with over 35 years of experience with proven leadership credentials and success in achieving revenue, profit, and business growth objectives. He also has extensive early stage, rapid growth, and large CAP executive management experience. Michael began his career as a cancer research associate at Harvard Medical School conducting immunology and biochemistry research in the field of tumor-associated blocking factors in breast cancer. Transitioning to the burgeoning medical device field, he held executive level positions with industry leaders such as Abbott Diagnostics (Division of Abbott Labs), Imed Corporation, Spacelabs Medical, Smith & Nephew, Surgical Dynamics (division of TYCO) and Onux Medical.

Michael’s business expertise includes developing corporate mission & vision plans, executing the business plan, acquisitions & Integrations, strategic planning & analysis, and staff development/promotion. Michael is experienced in all areas of healthcare company operations, finance, manufacturing, sales and marketing management including recruitment and management of personnel, sales analysis, forecasting, product strategy and positioning, and P & L responsibility. Michael has guided dozens of medical products through the FDA and CE mark approval process including experience in clinical trial management and as a result has launching dozens of new products globally after approval.

Dr. Anna Moore is a Professor of Radiology and Physiology; Director, Precision Health Program and Assistant Dean, College of Human Medicine at Michigan State University. Prior to joining Michigan State University, Dr. Moore was Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School, and the Director of the Molecular Imaging Laboratory at the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Moore, a Co-Founder of TransCode, is recognized nationally and internationally for her groundbreaking research on targeted imaging and image-guided drug delivery in cancer. Her research in image-guided cancer therapy leads the field with significant advances in nucleic acid based theranostics, where technologies are developed to both diagnose and treat a variety of cancers. Dr. Moore was awarded multiple grants from the NIH and other funding agencies, and published results from these studies in the most prestigious scientific journals including Nature Medicine, Nature Protocols, Nature Photonics, Nature, Cancer Research, PNAS and others. Dr. Moore has received many awards and honors for her research, most recently a Distinguished Investigator Award from the Academy of Radiology Research in Washington, DC, and a Valkhof Visiting Professorship from Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, both in 2014. As one of the major contributors to the field of Molecular Imaging, she was elected to be a member of the Board of Trustees of the World Molecular Imaging Society (WMIS) and a member of the Executive Committee of WMIS. She is the current Regional (US) Editor for Molecular Imaging and Biology, the official journal of WMIS. Dr. Moore holds a PhD in Bioorganic Chemistry from the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia.

Zdravka Medarova, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School. She is a geneticist/cancer biologist by training and has an extensive background in molecular biology, genetics, and tumor biology and therapy. She developed the core nanodelivery platform and identified microRNA-10b as a promising therapeutic target in established metastases. Specifically, the focus of her research has been the development and testing of multi-functional imaging/delivery vehicles for combined cancer imaging and therapy. Her earliest work described, for the first time, the design and application of ultrasmall iron oxide nanoparticles as imaging-capable carriers of siRNA to tumors. This work generated substantial interest in the research community, since it illustrated the value of these nanoparticles for the delivery of small RNA therapy to challenging organ targets and also described an approach for the noninvasive monitoring of small RNA delivery. More recently, her lab developed magnetic nanoparticles as delivery vehicles of miRNA-targeted therapy to metastases. This work resulted in multiple publications in high-impact journals such as Cancer Research, Nature Medicine, Oncogene, and Scientific Reports, as well as grants from private foundations and the NIH. Dr. Medarova obtained a B.A. degree in pre-medicine from the University of Southern Maine (1998) and a Ph.D. in Genetics from the University of New Hampshire (2002).

Tom has over 30 years of accomplishments as both a CFO and an investment banker. Companies for which he has provided services or been CFO range from emerging growth to turnarounds to Fortune 500 in the life sciences, technology, financial and industrial sectors. In his most recent role as CFO of Velico Medical, Inc., he led the company’s turnaround after joining in 2006 when Velico had only six weeks of cash. Besides strengths in cash management, he is skilled in accounting, financial statement preparation, budgeting/analysis/planning, corporate governance, and contracts and other legal documents. His CFO positions have involved companies with multiple locations and divisions (in the U.S. and Europe) giving him valuable experience with the financial management of multi-unit international businesses. In addition, as an investment banker, Tom developed substantial experience with capital planning and sourcing, deal analysis and structuring (in both the public and private capital markets), valuations, and strategic transactions including mergers & acquisitions, partnerships, and licensing. From these activities, he has developed highly effective negotiating skills. He built extensive knowledge of the institutional investor and research analyst communities and has developed highly effective investor relations programs. Tom's most recent investment banking position was as founding Managing Director of the Corporate Finance/Investment Banking unit of Leerink Partners (f/k/a Leerink Swann & Company), a leading healthcare investment banking firm. After serving nearly four years in the U.S. Army (the last two as an airborne-qualified infantry officer), Tom received an A.B. in Economics with Honors from Stanford University and an M.B.A. from the Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration.

Dr. Calais has over 30 years of biotech and pharmaceutical industry experience both in North America and Europe, and for the past 6 years served as the president and chief executive officer of Isarna Therapeutics B.V. (“Isarna”), a developer of oligonucleotide therapeutics. Prior to Isarna Therapeutics, Dr. Calais was the President and CEO of Univalor, one of the largest technology transfer organizations in North America, located in Montreal, Canada, focusing on corporate strategic positioning, company deployment and sales optimization strategies. Dr. Calais has been a Director of CohBar, Inc. since June 06, 2018 and has been an Economic Advisor to the French government since 2013. Dr. Calais served as Chief Executive Officer, President and Director of Ambrilia Biopharma, Inc., from January 1, 2008 to July 2009. He served as President of BELLUS Health Inc. (Formerly Neurochem Inc.) from January 2003 to January 20, 2005 and served as its President of Global Business from January 20, 2005 to December 31, 2007. His management expertise, combined with extensive experience with large pharma companies such as ICI Pharmaceuticals and Roche, covers the full scope of the drug chain – from discovery to clinical development, commercialization as well as partnership and franchise strategic marketing for several therapeutic areas. He served as Chairman of the Board of Neurochem International, a wholly owned subsidiary of Neurochem. He was an Independent Director at Marina Biotech, Inc. from January 1, 2017 until May 2, 2018 and its Lead Independent Director since October 2, 2017. He serves as Director of Canada’s Research Based Pharmaceutical Companies and of the Cite des Biotechs de Laval. Dr. Calais received his bachelor’s degree in pharmacy and his doctorate in pharmacy from the Universite Francois-Rabelais in Tours, France, in 1985 and 1987, respectively.

Oliver is a research and development leader with extensive preclinical and clinical experience in product and solution creation especially through collaborations and alliances in the pharmaceutical, diagnostics and medical technology (imaging, IVD, therapy, IT) industry. He is committed to growth and success of a commercial-stage, clinically-oriented organization. His extensive career experience includes Drug (small-molecule/biologics/nucleic acid-based) and Biomarker Development; (Companion) Diagnostics (IVD, NGS, Imaging, Histopathology); Image-guided Therapy (planning, navigation, intervention)); Drug Delivery; Biochemistry, Molecular/Cell Biology and Analytics; Genomics, Epigenetics; Oncology, Cardiology, Inflammation, as well as Regulatory and Medical Affairs.

Since 2011, Oliver was the Senior Director of Clinical Research, Strategy and Innovation at Philips-University Hospitals Global Innovation Center, Cleveland, OH. Covering over 120 academic centers, commercial partners, international and national alliances and grant agencies in North America, Oliver led both strategy and operations. From 2006 - 2011 Dr. Steinbach was the Senior Director Bio‐Molecular Engineering at Philips Research in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. Oliver led various preclinical and clinical biomarker, in vitro and companion diagnostics, (digital) pathology, diagnostic & interventional imaging, drug delivery and biomedical materials programs in multiple clinical indications (esp. oncology).

Prior to Philips, Oliver was head of technology management at Altana Pharma AG) from 2005 - 2006 and director of functional screening at Altana Research Institute (ARI) in Waltham, MA from 2002 - 2005. Oliver co-founded ARI, and managed functional screening and started the bioinformatics, automation and biomarker discovery departments, built functional (siRNA) screening group to identify and validate drug targets. Oliver is the author of numerous publications in highly regarded scientific journals and book series and patents and is experienced as a conference chair and speaker.

Oliver received his PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Tübingen and Max‐Planck‐Institute of Development Biology, Germany.

Mr. Freidman has over 35 years of experience as a business leader with proven success as a sales and marketing executive within the technology and professional services markets. Alan has served in senior executive positions in multiple organizations to develop and commercialize technologies with an emphasis in emerging technologies. Alan is currently Vice President of strategic revenue for a leading energy consulting, engineering, and project development firm, Edison Energy, and is an advisor to a number of start-up companies in a variety of sectors including healthcare. In 2007 Alan co-founded Echobridge Capital, a hedge fund, raising over $100M in capital and also was the founder of Encon Systems, an energy services business, which was listed on the Nasdaq in early to mid 90's.

 

Corporate/Scientific Advisors

• Anna Moore, PhD, Co-Founder, Professor of Radiology and Physiology, Michigan State University
• Richard Peters, MD, PhD, President/CEO/Director, Merrimack Pharmaceuticals
• Jack Henneman, JD, Former CFO, NewLink Genetics
• Keith Flaherty, MD, Director of Termeer Center for Targeted Therapy, MGH Cancer Center
• Raghu Kalluri, MD, PhD, MD Anderson Cancer Center
• George Calin, MD, PhD, MD Anderson Cancer Center
• Carlo Croce, MD, Ohio State University Cancer Center
• Dmitry Samarsky, PhD, CTO, Sirnaomics
• Peter Ordentlich, PhD, CSO and Founder, Syndax
• Betsabeh Madani, MBA, Entrepreuneur in Residence, Innovation Boulevard