converting concept into product

Chris has 35 years of industry experience working in a variety of settings from large multi-national pharmaceutical companies to early-stage therapeutic start-ups.  His most recent experience includes CBO roles at Nocion and Respira Therapeutics.  Prior to Respira he had similar responsibilities at TARIS Biomedical where he negotiated several R&D collaborations as well as the sale of their lead asset to Allergan.  Chris spent 12 years at Inhale/Nektar in various business roles and lead the negotiations of multiple transactions including the acquisition of Shearwater Polymers.  Chris started his pharmaceutical career at Pfizer and spend 11 years in both technical and business roles.  He earned his M.B.A. from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and has a Doctor of Pharmacy and Bachelor of Science from the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy.

Ajit Gill is past CEO and President of Nektar Therapeutics, when the company grew from a private startup to a public company with 800 employees and a market cap of over $2 billion USD. Earlier, Mr. Gill was VP and General Manager of Kodak’s Interactive Systems, VP of Finance at TRW-Fujitsu and Director of business development at VisiCorp. He graduated from IIT Kanpur with a B. Tech degree in Electrical Engineering and earned an M.S from University of Nebraska and an MBA from University of Western Ontario, Canada. Mr. Gill is currently serving as an advisor for several health care companies in India.

Steve Morris is a board-certified internist (Univ. of Texas SW HSC) and medical oncologist (Yale University School of Medicine). Dr. Morris served on the staff at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital for 25 years. In addition to working as a clinician, Dr. Morris led a basic/translational research laboratory at St. Jude that discovered and characterized oncogenes that cause a variety of human cancers, most notably anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK).

Dr. Morris collaborated with Vysis in the development of the LSI® ALK Dual Color, Break Apart Rearrangement FISH Probe, marketed by Abbott Diagnostics and approved in 2011 by the FDA as the companion diagnostic for XALKORI® (the ALK small-molecule inhibitor, crizotinib, upon which the Morris lab collaborated with Pfizer during the compound’s preclinical development). There are now 5 FDA-approved ALK inhibitors, the development of which was based on Dr. Morris’ ground-breaking work.

Dr. Morris began transitioning from academia to industry in 2007, co-founding the molecular diagnostics company Insight Genetics (Nashville, TN; www.insightgenetics.com), followed by founding two additional diagnostics firms – HealthChart LLC (2012; Memphis, TN) and its Chinese sister company Jinlu Biotechnology (2015; Shaoxing, PRC; http://jinlubiotechnology.com/en/). Dr. Morris has also served as a consultant or CMO for a number of oncology-focused biotech startups since leaving academic medicine in 2012. He is a member of the medical honor society Alpha Omega Alpha (1977), an American Society of Clinical Oncology Young Investigator Award winner (1987), and an inductee into the American Society for Clinical Investigation (2001).

Dr. Weickert has been developing drugs and startup companies in biotech and pharmaceuticals for over 28 years. He is CEO of Pacylex and Executive Chairman of Chelation Partners and has been CEO of illumiSonics, Sonescence, and SEA Medical Systems, CBO of Strategent Life Sciences, Corium, and Therashock, COO of Ohm Oncology, VP of development at SciDose and Auspex, and Senior Program Executive or Manager at Nektar and Ligand. Key roles included raising capital, establishing and maintaining business partnerships, building teams, and developing new products. Michael has driven anti-infective and oncology product development including inhaled Amphotericin B through Phase II, Phase III/NDA for Targretin for Cutaneous T-cell Lymphoma, and business planning for drug delivery of the cancer drugs Leuprolide, Paclitaxel and Irinotecan. He obtained Orphan Drug and Fast Track designations in the US and EU. At startups, he raised Seed through Series C capital and established partnerships worth more than $180 Million. Prior to joining the pharmaceutical industry, he was at the National Cancer Institute at NIH. He received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin and holds 7 issued and 19 pending patents and has 24 publications.

Diane Marcou is an independent financial consultant who provides interim financial leadership to early stage companies. She has provided financial and strategic advisory services to a number of venture-backed technology and life sciences companies, including as CFO of Immunome, TARIS Biomedical, Cytrellis Biosystems, T2 Biosystems and Fractyl Laboratories. Prior to working as an independent financial consultant, Ms. Marcou was Chief Financial Officer and VP of Finance and Administration for Incentive Systems (dba Centive), a privately held venture-funded software company, and Chief Financial Officer at Workgroup Technology, a publicly traded software company with domestic and international operations. Ms. Marcou earned her CPA at PricewaterhouseCoopers (formerly Coopers & Lybrand) and a B.S. in Business Administration from Boston College.

Dr. Purnanand Sarma serves as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Immunome. Sarma has more than 25 years of experience in all aspects of pharmaceutical industry business across multiple R&D platforms, ranging from venture-backed biotechnology start-ups to large cap pharmaceutical companies. He was most recently the President & CEO of Taris Biomedical, which he built over the last nine years into a leader in therapeutic urology, focused on diseases such as bladder cancer and overactive bladder. In addition to raising more than $100M in equity capital, he also sold one of Taris’ products to Allergan (NYSE:AGN) in a deal worth up to $587M. Prior to Taris, Sarma was the VP and General Manager of World-wide Drug Delivery Technologies for Cephalon Corporation (NYSE:CEPH). Before joining Cephalon, he spent over 10 years in various capacities at Nektar Therapeutics (NASDAQ:NKTR), including VP of Drug Development & Program Management and built the entire green field operation of Nektar Therapeutics (India), serving as its first Managing Director. He started his career at SmithKline Beecham in King of Prussia, PA, after earning his PhD in Pharmaceutics from the University of Minnesota and B. Pharm from Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, India. Sarma also serves as an independent Board member at Ohm Oncology and Vaxess Technologies Inc.