ILSE - Key Persons

Job Titles:

• Member of the Management Team
• VP, Project & Program Management

Biography Ajay Kumar is an accomplished professional with experience in various Life science organizations including Biotech/Pharma, CROs, and Large Chemical conglomerates. Over a period of many years he has managed multiple projects from Drug Discovery to Early and mid-stage clinical trials. Some of the major projects include Paclitaxel "Taxol" and its analogs. He has also managed other INDs, aNDAs and CTA/CTX for iv and oral drugs. The different stages of projects and programs managed have varied from early discovery all the way to late Phase II (proof of concept) clinical trials. Ajay also has the finance and business management education and training for creating and managing budgets, cost control, business plans, corporate finance, and corporate structure. Over the past few years, he has been successful in the areas of negotiation, in/out-licensing and contracting with the ability to package the license asset in a way to attract investors, but making sure that the scientific and medicinal goals are met or exceeded in those assets. Highly experienced in financial valuations (intrinsic or extrinsic) of various projects or firms using current financial tools, his valuations have been key in creating business plans for out-licensing or looking at value for in-licensing. Ajay has extensive experience in Mergers and Acquisitions and was the lead executive in the sale of one of his companies to a German holding corp. In addition, in the last 6 years Ajay has managed over 100 Due-Diligence efforts of varying complexity where teams have been assembled with scientific/technical, market analysis, Intellectual property and business/corporate/legal members. Ajay has a PhD in Life Sciences and an MBA in finance from Rutgers University.

Job Titles:

• Member of the Board of Trustees
• Chief Financial Officer at Kean University

Biography Andrew Brannen is currently the Chief Financial Officer at Kean University and has served in various administrative and finance roles at the University since 2017. In his current position he is responsible for managing the financial operations of the University including the annual budget process, debt management, and strategic investment decisions. Additionally, he oversees all campus information technology assets, as well as the departments of Student Accounting, Human Resources, and Procurement. Prior to coming to Kean, Mr. Brannen held leadership roles at municipalities in Nebraska, Illinois and New Jersey. He received a BA in Government from the University of Notre Dame, a Master's in Public Administration (MPA) from The Ohio State University, and Master's in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Illinois.

Job Titles:

• Member of the Management Team
• VP, R & D

Dr. McLaughlin has more than 15 years of experience in antibiotic research and development. He was formerly at AstraZeneca where his responsibilities encompassed target identification and validation and developing the bioinformatics pipeline, workflows, and databases to support the discovery activities of the Infectious Diseases Unit. He was also responsible for directing the Infectious Diseases next-generation sequencing facility supporting target identification, intrinsic and acquired antimicrobial resistance studies and epidemiology profiling for numerous AstraZeneca discovery and development projects and academic collaborations. He was involved in the pre-clinical development of several antibiotics, as well as the clinical development of Zavfcefta (ceftazidime/avibactam) and post-marketing surveillance activities of Zinforo (ceftaroline fosamil). Prior to joining AstraZeneca, Bob was the Director of Bioinformatics at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center (OUHSC) Laboratory of Genomics and Bioinformatics and an Assistant Professor in the OUHSC Department of Microbiology, with supported research projects in microbial physiology, pathogenesis, and genomics. Dr. McLaughlin received his Ph.D. in Microbiology from Clemson University, followed by postdoctoral research positions at State University of New York, Buffalo and University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center.

Job Titles:

• Contributor

Biography Dr. Bill Hanlon has been an active contributor to the development of innovative new medicines for more than 35 years, holding positions of increasing scientific, leadership and business responsibility. Trained as a biochemist/cell biologist, Dr. Hanlon spent the first part of his career in drug discovery identifying novel small molecules effective in targeting molecular mechanisms regulating inflammatory and immunological disease processes. For the last 20 years, Dr. Hanlon has focused his attention in early and late clinical development as a regulatory affairs expert and business leader. Currently, Dr. Hanlon is Senior Vice President, Head of Real-World Data Product Strategy at Labcorp in Princeton, NJ where he is responsible for developing real-world data related products, applications and analytical tools that can be used to generate insights related to patient disease and clinical trial-enabling services. In addition to his role at ILSE, Bill also represented the American Clinical Laboratory Association on the inaugural Governing Committee of the National Evaluation System for health Technology Coordinating Center (NESTcc) (2017-2021). Bill also served as a Board observer for MC-10, Inc. (2017-2020), a medical digital device company, invested in by LabCorp and currently is a Board Observer at BioSpectal, a European medical software as a device company, Prognos Health, a Real-World health data marketplace, and Circuit Clinical, an Integrated Research Organization, all invested in by Labcorp. Dr. Hanlon received his PhD in biochemistry and cell biology jointly conferred from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) and Rutgers Graduate School in Piscataway, NJ. He completed his post doctoral training at Merck Research Laboratories in Rahway, NJ. He is the author of 21 scientific publications, a book chapter on protein profiling and inventor of 2 patents.

Job Titles:

• Director of Finance
• Member of the Management Team

Biography Egda M. Veloz, brings almost two decades of diverse financial and business consulting experience to her role as a Certified Public Accountant. Egda gained extensive experience in accounting and auditing while working in the banking industry at Valley National Bank. She then transitioned to public accounting for Dorfman Abrams Music and was later hired at Students for Education Reform. Soon after specializing in non-profit education reform, Egda found her passion working with foundations and charter schools and founded Veloz Accounting Services. Veloz Accounting Services is specifically dedicated to helping non-profits achieve organizational, mission-driven success by establishing practical and sound financial and accounting processes. Egda earned her Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting degree from Montclair State University in Montclair, New Jersey. She is a member of the New Jersey Society of Certified Public Accountants and is licensed as a Certified Public Accountant in the State of New Jersey. Egda currently sits on two boards as the Treasurer - the PTA board for her daughter's elementary school (Clarendon School) and North Stars Association for Competitive Gymnastics.

Job Titles:

• CEO
• Member of the Board of Trustees
• Member of the Management Team
• Scientist

Biography Dr. Bostian is an entrepreneur scientist with a distinguished career in industry and academia. He is the Chief Executive Officer of ILSE as well as the Associate Provost of Science and Technology at Kean University where he also oversees the Office of Technology Transfer and several programs. Dr. Bostian has held senior executive positions in numerous life science companies. At Kemin Industries, he was President of a European pharma subsidiary, developing and launching a proprietary probiotic, Anaban™, in European markets. He also built one of India's leading preclinical CROs, Vanta Bioscience. He was a founder of Mpex Pharmaceuticals, a development-stage pharmaceutical company with discovery, preclinical and late clinical stage programs in the infectious disease arena, founder and CEO of Iconix Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a pioneer and leader in the emerging field of chemogenomics, and founder and COO of Microcide Pharmaceuticals, Inc. At Merck, he was Head of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, with responsibility for antimicrobial drug discovery as well as discovery of new leads from natural products for all of Merck's worldwide drug discovery programs. Dr. Bostian is an inventor on numerous patents in drug discovery and genomics and has led efforts resulting in numerous clinical candidates including a first-in-class new anti-fungal antibiotic CANCIDAS® and an aerosol fluoroquinolone Aeroquin® for cystic fibrosis infections, which is pending regulatory approval in the US and Europe. Dr. Bostian earned a doctorate in Biochemistry from the University of London. He is a fellow of the American Academy for Microbiology and was a member of the faculty at Brown University, and an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellow.

Job Titles:

• Leader
• Member of the Board of Trustees

Biography Pamela Demain is a senior pharmaceutical leader with 40+ years worldwide experience combining negotiation of complex transactions at all stages of development and commercialization; leading relationship development; strategic planning expertise; and global marketing/brand leadership. Ms. Demain runs her own consulting business and is currently Senior Vice President, Business Development at NImmune Biopharma, where she oversees business development functions. Previously, she served in a series of positions of increasing responsibility at Merck, starting in 1981 following an MBA Management training Program culminating as Executive Director, Corporate Licensing. For 18 years, she was responsible for negotiating transactions with companies, universities and institutions worldwide, including arrangements for compounds, research collaborations, patents, formulations and research platform technologies. Pam oversaw the relationship development area, which included responsibility for Merck's partnering outreach program, initiating new business development opportunities and building relationships with companies and universities worldwide. Since 2000, she provided leadership for Merck's strategic transformation to an outward-facing company focused on partnerships with companies and universities worldwide. Other experiences at Merck include leadership of the Business Information & Research Department in the Worldwide Human Health Marketing area of Merck, providing global strategic decision support for all of Merck's new and in-line products, and 13 years in Corporate Planning, Marketing Communications and Product Management, where she was responsible for the worldwide launch of PRIMAXIN/TIENAM. Ms. Demain's pharmaceutical career began in the natural products laboratory of Gruppo Lepetit, an Italian pharmaceutical company, which was then a subsidiary of the Dow Chemical Company. She is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and holds an M.B.A. in International Business from The American University in Washington, D.C. Pam is a Certified Licensing Professional (CLP), and the Past President of the Licensing Executives Society (LES) USA and Canada.

Job Titles:

• Officer
• Vice President
• Chief Innovation

Biography Sandra Powell Elliott is the Vice President; Chief Innovation and Commercialization Officer at Hackensack Meridian Health. Her role is not only to foster the internal development of an innovative culture but to bring innovative and transformative solutions from outside of the organization to the forefront of the organization's strategic planning efforts. The scope of internal and external innovation spans the breadth of precision medicine, new device development, new product and solution development, new business model development, as well as new, more efficient ways to operate the business units within an integrated health network. In addition, her responsibilities include overseeing the development of a genomic reference lab as well as ambulatory imaging joint ventures. Sandra is involved in some of the emerging research-based entities on the campus of Hackensack Meridian Health School of Medicine and the Center for Discovery and Innovation in Nutley, NJ. Sandra received the 2018 NJBIZ Vanguard Award and speaks at National Conferences, and has published many articles on developing opportunities for growing business in publications such as Trustee Magazine, Journal of Healthcare Financial Management, FutureAge, Hospitals, and Health Networks, and the Health Strategist.

Job Titles:

• Executive
• Member of the Management Team
• President

Biography Thomas Richardson is an entrepreneur and biotechnology executive integrating a broad background as a scientist, engineer, entrepreneur, and business development and strategy executive. Over the past 23 years, he has worked in a variety of roles from industry, academia, and non-profits. He was one of the first scientists at Momenta Pharmaceuticals (acq. by Johnson & Johnson) in Cambridge, MA and led a research team as the company went public and filed its first ANDA for Exonaparin. He moved to business development with Medarex (acq. by Bristol Myers Squibb) in Princeton where his focus was on licensing and establishing collaborations on OPDIVO® (nivolumab), the immuno-oncology drug. He was one of the first investors in Neothetics (acq. by Evofem Biosciences), an aesthetic product company initially founded on technology Thomas developed as a post-doc. He spent several years at Rutgers establishing industry collaborations and then moved to a strategy role with BioNJ, the biotechnology trade association where he focused on promoting venture capital and entrepreneurship. Thomas has worked with over 100 university research faculty, startup companies and entrepreneurs aiming to start their own biotech companies, develop business plans, raise venture capital funding, and solicit grants from organizations at the federal, state, corporate, and foundation levels. He has helped secure millions of dollars of investments in early-stage companies and has executed numerous licenses, gifts and grants, and sponsored research. He executed many licensing deals for targets, technologies and drugs and led numerous partnering initiatives, including the creation of a flavor and fragrance research center. Thomas has an MA and PhD in Biochemistry from Boston University School of Medicine and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Biologic and Materials Science and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Michigan. He also has an MBA from Babson College / Rider University.