Rajiv Mahadevan
Rajiv Mahadevan is the CEO and President of Applied Immunology. He brings a broad general management background to the company with experience in sales, business development, strategic and operations planning, and complex program and alliance management. He was an early hire at the Google- and Genentech-funded startup 23andMe, where he led business development efforts to implement the company's genetics platform in research and clinical settings. Prior to this he was at the world's largest biotechnology company Amgen, holding various roles of increasing responsibility supporting the development, commercialization, product strategy and partnering of denosumab (Prolia® and XGEVA®), approved in 2010 by the FDA with expected peak annual sales of over $5 billion. He has held roles in licensing at the Danish pharmaceutical firm Novo Nordisk, sales at enterprise software company Aftermind and strategy consulting at Arthur D. Little. He has also served as a global health consultant to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He received an MBA degree from Stanford University and a BA in Molecular & Cell Biology (emphases in Genetics & Immunology) from the University of California at Berkeley.
Advisors:
Paul R. Billings, MD, PhD
Dr. Billings brings extensive experience as a physician, researcher, and entrepreneur, and is currently Chief Medical Officer of Life Technologies Corporation (NASDAQ: LIFE). Previously, he served as President, Chief Executive Officer and Director of Cellpoint Diagnostics (CPD), and as Director and Chief Scientific Officer of the Genomic Medicine Institute at El Camino Hospital. Dr. Billings is also Executive Chairman of Signature Genomics Laboratories, LLC, and serves on the Board of Directors of Cyntellect Inc., Lipomics, Inc., and several not-for-profit public interest organizations. Until September 2007, he was Senior Vice President and Senior Geneticist at Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings, Inc. He has been Professor of Anthropology (adjunct) at the University of California at Berkeley and has published extensively on topics in immunology, genetics and medicine. Dr. Billings, with an M.D from Harvard Medical School and Ph.D. in immunology from Harvard University, also has interest and expertise in diagnostics in medical care and genomic medicine.
Robert B. Chess
Rob is Chairman of Nektar Therapeutics, a public biotechnology company (NASDAQ:NKTR) and Chairman of OPX Biotechnologies, a private company in the renewable fuels and chemicals field. Rob joined Nektar as its first non-founder employee in 1991 and led the company as CEO through 1999 and as Chairman since then. Rob was previously the co-founder and president of Penederm, Inc., a publicly traded dermatological pharmaceutical company that was sold to Mylan Laboratories. He has held management positions at Intel Corporation and Metaphor Computer Systems (now part of IBM), and was a member of the first President Bush's White House staff. Rob is chairman of Bio Venture for Global Health and a member of the Board of Directors of Metabolex, and is on the Board of Trustees of the California Institute of Technology and the Committee for Economic Development. He is a member of the faculty of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he teaches courses in entrepreneurship and management of health care innovation, and is an adjunct fellow at Stanford's Center for Health Policy. Rob received his B.S. degree in engineering from the California Institute of Technology and an M.B.A. from Harvard.
David M. Essayan MD, FACP
Dr. Essayan serves as Executive Vice President for ONCORD, Inc. Prior to joining ONCORD, Dr. Essayan served as Executive Director of Regulatory Affairs at Amgen, Inc., where he held global responsibility for both pipeline and marketed products in the inflammation and general medicine therapeutic areas. Prior to Amgen, he was a Supervisory Medical Officer in the Office of Therapeutics Research and Review, Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and a Principle Investigator in the Laboratory of Tumor Molecular Biology, CBER/FDA. He received his B.S. in Chemistry from Yale University and his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He completed his Residency in Internal Medicine at Temple University Hospital and his Fellowship in Allergy and Clinical Immunology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he held a faculty appointment for 12 years. He is Board Certified in both Internal Medicine and Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
Kenneth J. Kelley
Mr. Kelley brings thirty years of experience in biotechnology (IntraBiotics, Integrated Genetics, PaxVax), venture capital (K2 BioVentures, Latterell Venture Partners, Institutional Venture Partners), and strategic management (McKinsey & Company). During his career, Mr. Kelley has funded over 36 early stage biotechnology and medical device companies of which 15 became public. As founder/CEO and Chairman of IntraBiotics Pharmaceuticals, Inc., he raised over $200M and took the company public in 2000 (NASDAQ: IBPI). Mr. Kelley co-founded PaxVax in early 2007 and currently serves as the Company•s Chief Executive Officer and Executive Chairman. Currently, Mr. Kelley also serves as Chairman of the Board for Halozyme (NASDAQ: HALO) and Fluxion Biosystems. Mr. Kelley earned an M.B.A. from Stanford University and a B.A. in Biochemical Sciences from Harvard University.
Clay B. Marsh, MD
Dr. Marsh is currently Professor of Medicine in the College of Medicine and Director of the Center for Critical Care; Director of the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine; and Vice Chair, Research, Department of Internal Medicine at The Ohio State University. He is a physician-scientist where his laboratory focuses on intracellular signaling in mononuclear phagocytes and their role in angiogenesis, organ injury, remodeling and repair and systems biology applications to human health and disease. He has a specific interest in the biology of prediction and prevention of human disease. Dr. Marsh trained in internal medicine and pulmonary and critical care medicine at The Ohio State University, where he remained as faculty. He serves as a member of the national advisory board for Battelle Industries in the area of lung disease research and is currently the Chair of the Board of the Sarnoff Foundation for Cardiovascular Research. He reviews grants for the NIH, ALA, and the Wellcome Foundation and past member of the NIH Lung Injury, Repair and Remodeling study section. Currently, his research focuses upon how innate inflammation is regulated in advanced lung disease and in applications of systems biology to preventive, predictive, and personalized health care.
Neil McDonnell, PharmD
Dr. McDonnell, is Senior Vice President, Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases Therapeutic Area at Takeda Pharmaceuticals. Prior to this he was Deputy Director of Strategy for Global Health at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, where he provided strategy and portfolio planning advice to the President of Global Health on a complex and diverse product development pipeline, an array of global health partnerships, and implementation projects in developing countries. Previously, he was Chief of Staff for Global Health at the foundation. He was formerly vice president of program management at the biotechnology firm ZymoGenetics, overseeing its portfolio of products in development. Prior to that, he spent 9 years in development and commercial operations at Immunex Corporation. He began his career in healthcare as a clinical pharmacist in hematology/oncology and gynecologic oncology at the University of Washington Medical Center. He has product development experience in a variety of therapeutic areas, including medical and surgical hemostasis, oncology, rheumatology, and asthma. Dr. McDonnell received both his Pharm.D and B.S. Pharm from the University of Washington. He completed a general residency in hospital pharmacy at the University of Washington and Harborview medical centers.