ASTROCYTE PHARMACEUTICALS - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
Ms. Gallagher joined Astrocyte Pharmaceuticals' Board of Directors in November 2021, bringing over 30 years of experience as an investment banker focused on the life sciences industry. She is currently Managing Director, Equity Capital Markets at Truist Securities (formerly SunTrust Robinson Humphrey) where she is directly responsible for leading the planning, structuring and execution of equity capital raises for public and private companies. Ms. Gallagher has been an advisor to numerous boards and management teams on a wide range of corporate finance solutions and her healthcare investment banking experience includes the execution of over 150 M&A, advisory and financing transactions raising over $35 billion of capital and advisory work valued at over $20 billion.
Prior to joining Truist, Ms. Gallagher was the Head of the Life Sciences Investment Banking team at BMO Capital Markets, a Partner and Head of Healthcare at C.E. Unterberg, Towbin, and served in a variety of roles over many years at JP Morgan (formerly Chase Securities) including Managing Director, Healthcare Group and Head of Healthcare M&A. Ms. Gallagher received her M.B.A. in Finance from New York University's Stern School of Business and a B.A. in Biology from Colgate University. She is a trustee emeritus at Colgate University.
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- Member of the Clinical and Scientific Advisors Team
Dr. Wright joined Astrocyte Pharmaceutical's Scientific Advisory Board in October of 2015. He is the Chair and Professor of emergency medicine, and Director of Emergency Neurosciences, at Emory University's School of Medicine, where he is dedicated to finding novel therapies for the treatment of rapidly evolving neurological conditions, including traumatic brain injury and stroke. Dr. Wright is a board certified emergency medicine physician practicing at Emory affiliated hospitals and Grady Memorial Hospital, Atlanta's primary Level 1 Trauma Center. He is an international clinical leader in traumatic brain injury research, and is actively involved in both the preclinical and clinical assessments of traumatic brain injury, stroke and other acute neurological conditions. He was the Principal Investigator for the large multicenter clinical trial ProTECT III (Progesterone for Traumatic Brain Injury), and has been one of the top 3 NIH funded emergency medicine researchers in the United States.
Dr. Wright graduated from Samford University with a degree in Biology and Chemistry, obtained his medical degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine, and completed his primary residency in Emergency Medicine at the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Wright is an esteemed Howard Hughes Fellow, a member of the prestigious Alpha Omega Alpha medical honors society, and was the recipient of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine Young Investigator Award.
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- Member of the Clinical and Scientific Advisors Team
- Director of the Stanford Stroke Center
Dr. Albers joined Astrocyte Pharmaceutical's Scientific Advisory Board in April of 2019. Dr. Gregory W. Albers is the director of the Stanford Stroke Center, a position he has held since co-founding the center in 1992. Dr. Albers' primary research focus is the diagnosis, management, and prevention of ischemic stroke. Dr. Albers and his team use advanced imaging technology to expand the treatment window for ischemic stroke. He has been the principal investigator of all 3 DEFUSE studies, which were NIH-funded research projects that clarified the evolution of brain ischemia and led to extending the treatment window for stroke to 24 hours in 2018. Dr. Albers has authored more than 450 articles on topics related to cerebrovascular disease in peer-reviewed journals, and is the Chairman of the Stroke Treatment Academic Industry Roundtable (STAIR). He was instrumental in the development of RAPID, a software platform that interprets brain scans and helps clinicians decide on appropriate treatments for ischemic stroke; studies that selected patients with RAPID have reported the highest recovery rates ever achieved.
Dr. Gregory W. Albers graduated from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and completed his medical training with an internship (internal medicine), residency (neurology), and fellowship (cerebrovascular disease) at the Stanford University Medical Center. Dr. Albers joined the Stanford University faculty in 1989. In 2011, Dr. Albers received the American Heart Association's prestigious David G. Sherman Award for Outstanding Contributions to Stroke Research.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
Dr. Streeter joined Astrocyte Pharmaceutical's Board of Directors in November of 2020. He is the Managing Director of the UF Innovate venture fund and a Venture Partner at DeepWork Capital. Before joining UF Innovate, he was the CEO and executive director of the Florida Technology Seed Capital Fund, a seed-stage venture fund investing in companies commercializing technologies developed at Florida universities, colleges, or research institutes. Dr. Streeter has extensive experience leading companies developing diagnostics/therapeutics for both traumatic brain injury and ischemic stroke. He was the CEO of Banyan Biomarkers for eight years, commercializing the first-ever blood test for traumatic brain injury that received FDA clearance in early 2018. Dr. Streeter also founded and served as CEO for PhotoThera, Inc., where over thirteen years he raised more than $120M in private capital and designed and managed five U.S. and international clinical trials for the treatment of stroke. He also co-founded American Veterinary Laser, which was acquired in a private transaction. He is the inventor of more than 20 patented technologies and the author on multiple scientific publications.
Dr. Streeter earned his B.S. degree in biology from the University of Nevada Reno and his M.D. from the University of Nevada School of Medicine. He served as an officer in the U.S. Navy, completing a general surgery internship at Naval Regional Medical Center in Portsmouth, Virginia, and then primary flight school at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola. During his military service, he was the first naval flight surgeon selected as a Top Gun staff instructor, served on several overseas deployments, and was awarded the Navy Achievement Medal and the Navy Commendation Medal.
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- Co - Founder
- Member of the Clinical and Scientific Advisors Team
- Member of the Management Team
- Member of the Biophysical Society
Dr. Lechleiter is the Co-Founder and an Advisor of Astrocyte Pharmaceuticals, and he is currently a Professor of Cellular and Structural Biology at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. His research investigates the molecular and cellular mechanisms of protection during ischemic stress, acute brain injury and aging. His major focus has been to understand the role of astrocyte mitochondrial ATP production in these processes. He has extensive experience with imaging technology, its application towards current problems in cell biology and he is the director of the institution's Optical Imaging facility. Academically, he is a member of the executive committee of the Center for Biomedical Neuroscience.
Dr. Lechleiter is a member of the Biophysical Society, the Society for Neuroscience and he was an associate member of the editorial review board of the Journal of Biological Chemistry. Scientifically, he is widely recognized for his seminal work in the field of Ca2+ signaling where he made the initial discovery of intracellular spiral Ca2+ waves.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
Dr. Ives joined Astrocyte Pharmaceutical's Board of Directors in December of 2014. He has over 30 years of senior scientific leadership experience in the development of novel therapeutics, with an emphasis on drugs for central nervous system diseases. Dr. Ives is a Venture Partner at New Leaf Venture Partners, a leader in healthcare technology venture investing and which currently manages $1.1 billion in assets.
Prior to New Leaf Venture Partners, Dr. Ives was a Principal for NeuroPharma Advisors, LLC, a Boston area advisory group dedicated to assisting companies developing therapeutics for central nervous system diseases. He was formerly CEO of Satori Pharmaceuticals, which was a leading company in the development of gamma-secretase modulators for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. Before Satori, Dr. Ives held numerous senior management and scientific leadership positions at Pfizer including Senior Vice President of Pharmacokinetics, Dynamics and Metabolism, Vice President of Central Nervous System Research, and Executive Director of Central Nervous System Medicinal Chemistry. Dr. Ives earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Yale University and his Bachelor's degree in Chemistry from Colgate University.
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- Member of the Clinical and Scientific Advisors Team
Dr. Saver joined Astrocyte Pharmaceutical's Scientific Advisory Board in December of 2018, and Chairs Astrocyte's Clinical Advisory Board. He has been the Director of the UCLA Stroke Unit since its inception in 1995, and he is Professor and SA Vice-Chair of Neurology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He is a global leader in cerebrovascular research and clinical care. Dr. Saver has been the global or site principal investigator for more than 50 clinical research studies including the groundbreaking studies FAST-MAG, SWIFT-PRIME, and DAWN. He also Co-Chairs the Acute Stroke Trial Working Group for the NIH-NINDS StrokeNet National Stroke Trials Network.
Dr. Saver's research focuses on stroke prevention, stroke diagnosis, acute stroke treatment, and neurocognitive and neurobehavioral consequences of stroke. He has published more than 500 original articles, more than 30 book chapters, and two edited volumes. Dr. Saver also served as Chair of the American Heart Association Stroke Council. He currently is Associate Editor at JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and Editorial Board Member at the journal Circulation. Dr. Saver received his medical degree from Harvard Medical School, did his internship at Brigham & Women's Hospital and his residency at Brigham & Women's Hospital, and is a graduate of the Harvard-Longwood Neurology Training Program, the University of Iowa Fellowship Program in Behavioral Neurology and Cognitive Neuroscience, and the Brown University Fellowship Program in Vascular Neurology.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
Mr. Arnold joined Astrocyte Pharmaceuticals' Board of Directors in March 2017. He has 45 years of experience in the life science industry, including as the CEO of 4 companies and an angel investor in 7 companies with successful exits. He is currently the President of Arnold Strategies, LLC, which advises CEO's with their growth and execution strategies, and Executive Chairman of First Light Biosciences. Since 2006, Mr. Arnold has been an angel investor with Boston Harbor Angels and Mass Medical Angels. He is a guest lecturer at the MIT Sloan School and a mentor to startup companies through the MIT Venture Mentoring Society and MIT Deshpande Center.
Previously, Mr. Arnold was Chairman of Corbus Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: CRBP), which has a phase II drug for orphan fibrotic diseases, and the CEO of CardioFocus, which has an endoscopic catheter for treating atrial fibrillation. He founded Cambridge Heart, Inc. and took the company public in 1996. He was also CEO of Molecular Simulations, Inc., a $200 MM supplier of software for drug design later called Accelrys. Early in his career Mr. Arnold held senior R&D and marketing positions for Becton Dickinson and Datascope Corp. Mr. Arnold graduated from MIT with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering.
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- Member of the Clinical and Scientific Advisors Team
- Principal Investigator for Two NIH
Dr. Sheth joined Astrocyte Pharmaceutical's Scientific Advisory Board in February of 2019. He is the founding Chief of the Division of Neurocritical Care & Emergency Neurology at the Yale School of Medicine. Dr. Sheth focuses on the advancement of therapies for acute brain injury such as stroke and brain hemorrhage, and is recognized for his leadership in prevention, acute treatment, and recovery. In pioneering the development of new strategies to treat brain swelling, his work has changed the fundamental approach to brain injury in the ICU, and his team at Yale has served as a national model for academic critical care neurology units.
Dr. Sheth is currently the principal investigator for two NIH neuroscience networks, NeuroNEXT and StrokeNet. He has served as Principal Investigator (PI) or co-PI for 8 multicenter clinical trials in stroke, as well as chair for clinical endpoint and data safety monitoring committees for several pivotal studies. He is a winner of the prestigious Robert Siekert Award from the American Heart Association (AHA), the Derek Denny Brown Award from the American Neurological Association and an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI). Dr. Sheth is the author of over 250 publications and is an Associate Editor at Neurology and on the editorial boards for Stroke and Neurosurgery.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Management Team
- Astrocyte 's Vice - President of Clinical Development Operations
- Vice - President of Clinical Development Operations
Lisa Manna is Astrocyte's Vice-President of Clinical Development Operations and brings over 20 years of experience in clinical and development operations. She has leadership experience that spans across academic, CRO, pharma and biotech domains. Most recently, she was the Vice-President of Clinical Operations for SQZ Biotech where she worked within a complex environment building a clinical operations team responsible for the planning and execution of the company's clinical trials. Entrepreneurial by nature, for the past 18 years she led her company as President of Manna Clinical Consulting, working most recently with Deciphera Pharmaceuticals for the planning and execution of the company's Phase 1 normal healthy volunteer program.
Her extensive research experience has included work in the Central Nervous System, Immunotherapy, Oncology, and Cardiovascular realms. A clinician by training, Lisa has worked in Critical Care at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and coordinated clinical research trials in sepsis, septic shock, and ARDS within the Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care at the University of Colorado Health Science Center. Lisa received a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Boston College and an MBA from Suffolk University in Boston.
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- Member of the Clinical and Scientific Advisors Team
- Professor of Neurology
Dr. Nogueira is a Professor of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Radiology at the Emory University School of Medicine and the Director of the Neuroendovascular Service at Grady Memorial Hospital (GMH). He is the Immediate Past President of the Society of Vascular and Interventional Neurology (SVIN) and the former Editor-In-Chief of the Interventional Neurology journal. He has had a leadership role in many stroke thrombectomy studies including Principal Investigator in the TREVO-2 Trial, Penumbra 3D Separator Trial, DAWN Trial, BEST Trial, RESILIENT Trial, ENDOLOW Trial, PROST Trial, and EXCELLENT Registry as well as Steering Committee of the SWIFT Trial, SWIFT Prime Trial, ARISE-II Trial, and Trevo Registry.
Dr. Nogueira completed his Neurology Residency at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Brigham and Women's Hospital/ Harvard Medical School (HMS) in 2002. He then concluded Fellowships in Vascular and Critical Care Neurology as well as Diagnostic Neuroradiology and Neurointerventional Surgery at the MGH/HMS, finalizing all his training in 2005. He was a faculty at MGH/HMS until September 2010 when he moved to Atlanta to start the Marcus Stroke & Neuroscience Center at the Grady Memorial Hospital (GMH)/ Emory University. Dr. Nogueira has published over 250 manuscripts including first-author articles in the NEJM and the Lancet.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Management Team
- Head of Chemistry and Manufacturing Controls ( CMC )
- Head of CMC
- Managing Member of Birch Biopharmaceutical Consultants
Dr. Poe is the Head of CMC at Astrocyte Pharmaceuticals. He has 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry with 14 years of CMC experience at Pfizer. Significant roles included leading the early phase CMC teams for 65 assets in neuropharmacology, cardiovascular and metabolic disease and dermatology. Additionally, while at Pfizer, he managed the Stability and Release Group which conducted cGMP stability testing on investigational API and drug products and release testing for cGMP radio-labeled clinical API used in ADME studies. He was the lead analyst for the API and drug product responsible for the successful NDA CMC submission for Geodon IM, a technically complex parenteral product with a novel proprietary modified β cyclodextrin excipient.
Dr. Poe is the managing member of Birch Biopharmaceutical Consultants since 2009 providing services for biopharmaceutical clients in early phase development and IND submissions, vendor management, late phase initial NDA filings, multivariate optimization and chemometrics. He currently serves on the advisory board for Molecular Isotope Technologies and Nature's Fingerprint™, a pharmaceutical technology company using stable label isotopes for product and process authentication and infringement. He served on the scientific advisory board for Livwel Therapeutics with a developmental candidate in the area of asthma and uveitis. His research interests include analytical chemistry, experimental design, applied statistics and chemometrics.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Management Team
- Astrocyte Pharmaceuticals' Head of Non - Clinical Safety Assessment
- Head of Non - Clinical Safety Assessment
Dr. Roberts is Astrocyte Pharmaceuticals' Head of Non-Clinical Safety Assessment, and he has over 30 years of experience in scientific and management positions in large (Sandoz, Abbott & Pfizer) and small (CovX) pharmaceutical companies. His executive management duties have included being the Global Director for Preclinical ADME/PK (Abbott) and VP of Preclinical Drug Development (CovX). Dr. Roberts has also held a variety of scientific and leadership positions in toxicology organizations. Dr. Roberts has planned/conducted/interpreted/reported all types of drug development plans and studies for toxicology and ADME/PK. Accomplishments include authoring over 400 internal company final reports, major contributions to numerous successful regulatory documents/strategies/submissions (white papers, IND, NDA and BLA). Dr. Roberts has also conducted problem solving research to evaluate the human relevance of animal toxicities as well as improving the quality of new drug candidate ADME/PK characteristics. Dr. Roberts has wide and deep experience in numerous disease targets including neuroscience and pain diseases using small molecules, peptides, biotherapeutics
Dr. Roberts is experienced with in-/out-licensing activities, managing and representing multidisciplinary teams and has presented to the FDA on numerous occasions. He has extensive experience in numerous committees and special projects for PhRMA and BIO. Dr. Roberts has a BS (Animal Science), MS and PhD (Pharmacology & Toxicology) from Purdue University and post-doctoral fellowship in Molecular Toxicology (Medical University of South Carolina).
Job Titles:
- Member of the Management Team
- Vice - President of Research
Dr. Liston is the Vice-President of Research at Astrocyte Pharmaceuticals. He has a 28-year record of research and innovation in the pharmaceutical industry, including senior research roles at Pfizer as Vice-President of Pharmacokinetics, Dynamics and Metabolism (PDM), and as Vice-President of Global ADME Technology. His pharmaceutical discovery and development experience in research, drug metabolism and PK/PD spans from early discovery projects to marketed products, and from laboratory operations to technology development. Dr. Liston managed the PDM efforts of groups in neuroscience and cardiovascular-metabolic disease, and has contributed to the preclinical and clinical advancement of >100 candidates across a broad range of therapeutic areas, including neuroscience, cardiovascular, infectious disease, inflammation, immunology, arthritis, allergy-respiratory and oncology. Additionally, Dr. Liston was the leader or key member in several scientific initiatives that transformed industrial pharmaceutical discovery and development, including the incorporation of high-throughput ADME/Toxicity screening, computational ADME, and prediction of human pharmacokinetics from preclinical in vitro and in vivo data.
Dr. Liston received his Ph.D. in Pharmacology from Vanderbilt University, where he focused on the structural elucidation and biological activity of novel human arachidonic acid metabolites and their role in physiology and disease.
Job Titles:
- Chief Executive Officer
- Co - Founder
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Member of the Management Team
- Astrocyte Pharmaceuticals' CEO
Dr. Korinek is Astrocyte Pharmaceuticals' CEO and Co-Founded the company in 2014. Previously, he was at Pfizer for almost 10 years in a number of strategic and operational R&D positions, most recently serving as the Vice President of Worldwide R&D Business Operations. Dr. Korinek and his organization managed the Worldwide R&D annual operating plan process, including coordination of annual investment business plans from all of Pfizer's Research Units and functional Partner Lines and the setting of annual investment and budget targets. He has broad experience from early discovery through full development, small and large therapeutic modalities, and many disease areas. At Pfizer, he championed and secured $24M in capital for a long term Project and Resource Planning productivity program that was successfully implemented over 2011-2014. Dr. Korinek also managed Pfizer's R&D Program Management Office (PMO) for the Pfizer-Wyeth integration, and the PMO for Pfizer WRD's 2011 "Engine for Sustainable Innovation" strategic restructuring involving the reduction of Pfizer's overall R&D 2012 spend from $8.0-8.5B to $6.5-7.0B.
Dr. Korinek previously worked as an Engagement Manager at the strategy consulting firm L.E.K. Consulting, where he worked with 40 life sciences companies ranging from biotech startups to large pharmaceutical companies on issues such as strategic planning, portfolio prioritization, and M&A due diligence. He earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University's Molecular and Cellular Biology Department, where he researched the molecular linkages of cell polarity signals to the cytoskeleton and published in leading journals including Science.