Jeffrey Bacha, B.Sc., MBA, Chairman, President & CEO/cofounder
Mr. Bacha is a seasoned executive leader with nearly twenty years of life sciences experience in the areas of operations, strategy and finance. His background includes successful public and private company building from both a start-up and turn around perspective; establishing and leading thriving management and technical teams; and raising capital in both the public and private markets. Mr. Bacha serves as a Director of Sernova Corp. (TSX-V: SVA), was the founding CEO of Inimex Pharmaceuticals Inc and co-founder of XBiotech and Urigen Holdings Inc. He has also held positions as and Exec. VP Corporate Affairs & Chief Operating Officer at Clera Inc., VP Corporate Development at Inflazyme Pharmaceuticals Ltd. (TSE: IZP) and Senior Manager & Director at KPMG Health Ventures . Mr. Bacha has been recognized as a “Top 40 under 40” executive by Business in Vancouver magazine and is active in the community through volunteerism with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training program and as Chairman of the Board for Covenant House Vancouver, an organization dedicated to assisting at-risk and homeless youth to re-enter society . He received his MBA(honors) from the Goizueta Business School at Emory University and a B.Sc. in BioPhysics/Premed from the University of California, San Diego.
Dennis M. Brown, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer/cofounder
Dr. Brown has more than twenty years of drug discovery and development experience. He has served as Chairman of Mountain View Pharmaceutical’s Board of Directors since 2000 and is the President of Valent Technologies, LLC. In 1999 he founded ChemGenex Therapeutics, which merged with a publicly traded Australian company in 2004 to become ChemGenex Pharmaceuticals (ASX: CXS/NASDAQ: CXSP), of which he served as President and a Director until 2009. He was previously a co-founder of Matrix Pharmaceutical, Inc., where he served as Vice President (VP) of Scientific Affairs from 1985-1995 and as VP, Discovery Research, from 1995-1999. He also previously served as an Assistant Professor of Radiology at Harvard University Medical School and as a Research Associate in Radiology at Stanford University Medical School. He received his B.A. in Biology and Chemistry (1971), M.S. in Cell Biology (1975) and Ph.D. in Radiation and Cancer Biology (1979), all from New York University. Dr. Brown is an inventor on about 34 issued US patents and applications, many with foreign counterparts.
William J. Garner, M.D., MPH, cofounder
William J. Garner, M.D. is the founder of EGB Advisors, LLC, a pharmaceutical commercialization boutique, where he has worked on going-public transactions. He is currently Executive Chairman of Update Pharma, Inc. He is formerly (May 2013) CEO of Invion Limited (ASX:IVX), a clinical-stage drug development company focused on the development of treatments for major market opportunities in inflammatory diseases including chronic bronchitis and lupus, after the merger of Inverseon, Inc. in 2012. In 2007, he listed Urigen Pharmaceuticals (URGP.PK) via a reverse-merger as CEO and moved procedure-based drug from a university license to a successful phase II multi-centre clinical trial. Before this, Dr. Garner worked in medical affairs at Hoffmann LaRoche in oncology. Prior to Roche, Dr. Garner was in the venture capital department at Paramount Capital Investments in New York City. Dr. Garner has a Master of Public Health from Harvard and received his M.D. degree from New York Medical College. Dr. Garner did residency training in Anatomic Pathology at Columbia-Presbyterian and is currently a licensed physician in the State of New York.
John K. Bell, FCPA, FCA*
Mr. Bell is Chairman of Onbelay Capital Inc, a Canadian-based private equity Company with principal investments in Telematics and auto parts manufacturing (for past 5 years). Prior to that, from 1996 to 2005, Mr. Bell was CEO and owner of Polymer Technologies Inc., an automotive parts manufacturer. Prior to that, from 1977 to 1995, Mr. Bell was founder and owner of Shred-Tech Limited a global manufacturer and supplier of industrial shredders and mobile document shredders. Mr Bell served as interim CEO and director of ATS Automation Tooling Systems (TSX-ATA) in 2007. Mr. Bell is a director of BSM Wireless (TSX-GPS), Strongco Corporation (TSX-SQP), and the Royal Canadian Mint (TSX-MNT). Mr. Bell is National secretary and board member of The Crohns and Colitis Foundation of Canada. Mr. Bell is past Chairman of Waterloo Regional Police, Cambridge Memorial Hospital, Canada’s Technology Triangle accelerator network and The Region of Waterloo prosperity counsel. Mr. Bell is a graduate of Western University Ivey School of Business, a Fellow of the institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario, a graduate of the Institute of Directors Program of Canada and the owner’s president program at Harvard and International marketing program at Oxford.
Robert J. Toth, Jr.*
Mr. Toth is a seasoned executive and active biotechnology investor with more than sixteen years of experience in both the financial and biotechnology industries. From 2004-2005, Mr. Toth served as a consulting analyst to Narragansett Asset Management, a New York-based healthcare-focused hedge fund, where he advised the firm on biotechnology investments. From 2001-2003, he was the Senior Portfolio Manager for San Francisco-based EGM Capital’s Medical Technology hedge fund, where he was responsible for managing and maintaining a dedicated medical technology portfolio. Mr. Toth began his Wall Street career in 1996 as an Equity Research Associate for Vector Securities International, a healthcare-focused brokerage firm. From 1997–1999 he served as Senior Biotechnology Analyst. He joined Prudential Securities as Senior Vice President and Biotechnology Analyst where he served from 1999-2001 following Prudential’s acquisition of Vector. His responsibilities included the analysis of commercial, clinical and scientific fundamentals of oncology- and genomics-based biotechnology companies on behalf of institutional investors. Mr. Toth was named to the Wall Street Journal’s Allstar List for stock picking in 1999. From 1993-1996 he held both business development and research positions at Connectics Corporation. He assisted with intellectual property assessment and technology out-licensing while working at the University of Washington’s Office of Technology Transfer (1992-93). He served in a broad range of manufacturing, research, and clinical capacities while working at Genentech, Inc. (1987-91). Mr. Toth holds an MBA from the University of Washington and dual Bachelor of Science degrees in Biological Sciences and Biochemistry from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.
* Member of Audit Committee