Mort Collins, Chairman, Hepregen Corporation; General Partner, Battelle Ventures and Innovation Valley Partners
Bernadette C. Fendrock (Bonnie), President and CEO, Hepregen Corporation
Joshua S. Phillips, General Partner, Catalyst Health Ventures
Leslie Williams, Founder, President & CEO, ImmusanT, Inc.
Vincent R. Zurawski, Jr., Ph.D., Chairman and CEO, Avraham Pharmaceuticals Ltd., Chairman and President, Avraham Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Executive Chairman and CEO, Varinel LDC, Inc., and President, Varinel, Inc.
Mort Collins, Chairman, Hepregen CorporationGeneral Partner, Battelle Ventures and Innovation Valley Partners
Mr. Collins is founder and general partner of Battelle Ventures. For four decades, he has demonstrated major successes in the fields of life sciences, electronic materials, communications and software. In 1968, Mr. Collins founded Data Science Ventures (DSV), a pioneering venture-capital firm that had offices in Princeton, NJ and Newport Beach, CA. From October 1968, to June 1974, he was the founder and chief executive officer of Data Science Ventures, Inc. (DSV I). He was a founder of DSV Associates (DSV II); DSV Partners III (DSV III); DSV Partners IV (DSV IV) and was the managing partner of each since their formation in 1974, 1981 and 1985 respectively. In July of 1997, Mr. Collins became a special limited partner of Cardinal Partners, the successor to the DSV series of partnerships. For 30 years as a managing partner in DSV partnerships, Mr. Collins was involved in providing venture capital and management assistance to early stage companies including Datapoint, General Automation, Tandem Computers, Datacom Systems, The Liposome Company, Apollon and Alkermes. Mr. Collins serves as a director of Inovio Biomedical Corporation (AMEX); Kopin Corporation (NASDAQ); Pharos LLC; PD-LD Inc.(Chairman) and CDI Bioscience, Inc.(Chairman). Mr. Collins is chairman of the Advisory Council to the Chemical Engineering Department at the University of Delaware; a member of the Graduate School Advisory Council at Princeton University; a member of the Leadership Council of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Princeton University and a member of the Systems Biology Advisory Council at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, N.J. Mr. Collins served on the New Jersey Governor's Commission on Science and Technology; the New Jersey Governor’s Superconductivity Roundtable and is a member of the Research Roundtable of the National Academy of Sciences. He chaired President Reagan’s Task Force on Innovation and Entrepreneurship and served as a technology policy advisor to President George H. W. Bush. He is a former president, director and chairman of the National Venture Capital Association. Mr. Collins was the recipient of the 1989 University of Delaware Medal of Distinction; the recipient of the 1990 New York Venture Forum Award and he received the Delaware Valley Venture Group Award in 1992. Mr. Collins earned his B.S. degree in engineering from the University of Delaware, and his M.A. degree and doctorate in engineering from Princeton University.
Bernadette C. Fendrock (Bonnie)President and CEO, Hepregen Corporation
Ms. Fendrock is co-founder, president and CEO of Hepregen. Ms. Fendrock comes to Hepregen with more than twenty years of commercial experience in the life sciences industry. As vice president at Genzyme Corporation, Ms. Fendrock was responsible for the commercial planning and market launch of biosurgical products to treat post operative adhesions. Prior to Genzyme, Ms. Fendrock held positions as director of business development, Somatix, Inc., a start-up gene therapy company, and project manager, Genetics Institute (now Wyeth). Ms. Fendrock also has been a business consultant for the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology and the Biomedical Enterprise Program (a collaboration with The Sloan School at MIT) and Acusphere, Inc. Ms. Fendrock holds a B.A. degree with a major in molecular biology from Wellesley College, a S.M. degree from MIT in interdisciplinary science and an M.B.A. from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Joshua S. PhillipsGeneral Partner, Catalyst Health Ventures
Mr. Phillips has led Catalyst's investments in Allegro Diagnostics, Vortex Medical, Hepregen, Novazyme Pharmaceuticals, Inc., BioTrove, Inc., Castel, Inc., and Akula Software, Inc. He is chairman of BioTrove, Inc. and Castel, is a director of Vortex and Allegro, was past chairman of Akula and observer to Novazyme. Mr. Phillips has been a general partner at Catalyst since 2000. Prior to joining Catalyst, he was a manager at the Lucas Group, a boutique strategy consulting firm, where he led engagements in health care, life science and technology-based companies. In 1990, Mr. Phillips co-founded, managed and built a new business unit at Russ Electric, and previously held management duties at Pratt & Whitney. Mr. Phillips received a B.E. degree in electrical engineering and mathematics from Vanderbilt University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
Leslie WilliamsFounder, President & CEO, ImmusanT, Inc.
Recognized in 2006 as one of the top 100 leaders in life sciences by PharmaVOICE magazine, Leslie Williams has more than 20 years of industry experience in healthcare, management, commercial product development and marketing. In 2010 Ms. Williams founded ImmusanT, Inc. which is focused on development of immunotherapies and diagnostics initially in Celiac Disease. Prior to this Ms. Williams was president and chief executive officer of Ventaira Pharmaceuticals. Ms. Williams joined the specialty pharmaceutical company in 2003 in the dual roles of vice president of business and commercial development, and chief operating officer. She became president and chief operation officer in 2004 and under her leadership, the company became a significant player in the pulmonary-drug-delivery market and the company was sold the end of 2007. Prior to Ventaira, Ms. Williams was director of marketing for INO Therapeutics, Inc., where she played a significant role in the NDA submission for INOmax (nitric oxide) for inhalation, a drug for treating pulmonary hypertension. Among her many accomplishments she helped orchestrate the New Drug Application submission to the FDA for INOmax for inhalation. Responsible for the commercial aspects of INOmax's U.S. market introduction, from setting objectives and strategy to developing key constituency groups and expert advisory boards, as well as representing INO Therapeutics on Capitol Hill, Williams also assisted with expansion of the INO-therapy platform into the European marketplace. (The company was acquired by Ikaria Holdings in 2007 for some $670 million.) Ms. Williams’s prior pharmaceutical industry experience includes commercial positions at Merck and GlaxoSmithKline, and drug-delivery and -monitoring experience at Datex-Ohmeda (formerly Ohmeda, Inc.). She was a venture partner at Battelle Ventures where she sourced and evaluated deals and assisted early-stage technology companies with strategy, management, business development and M&A. She currently serves on the Boards of Hepregen Corporation, CDI Bioscience and The Capital Network (TCN) and is on the Editorial Advisory Board of Life Science Leader. She serves as a mentor in the Boston University Kindle Program as well as Propel Careers. Ms. Williams holds an MBA from Washington University, John Olin School of Business, and a B.S. degree with honors in nursing from the University of Iowa. Before entering industry, she was a critical-care nurse at Duke University, Medical College of Virginia and at the University of Iowa.
Vincent R. Zurawski, Jr., Ph.D.Chairman and CEO, Avraham Pharmaceuticals Ltd., Chairman and President, Avraham Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Executive Chairman and CEO, Varinel LDC, Inc., and President, Varinel, Inc.
Dr. Zurawski brings decades of experience in direct management of development and commercialization of successful diagnostic, pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical products, including products used to diagnose and treat infections with HIV, hepatitis B and C virus (“HBV” and “HCV”), and herpes simplex virus (“HSV”). Dr. Zurawski was a co-founder of Centocor, Inc. and its chief scientific officer for 14 years. He was founder, president and chief executive officer of Apollon, Inc., and chief executive officer of Compugen, Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of Compugen Ltd. He also recently completed a three-year term as a member of the Board of Directors of Ricerca Biosciences LLC, an Ohio-based contract research organization (“CRO”). Dr. Zurawski is also the founding president and member of the Board of Directors of Varinel, Inc., a company developing drugs directed against central nervous system disorders, particularly neurodegenerative diseases. He is also co-founder and chairman of the board of Avraham Pharmaceuticals Ltd., an Israeli company, and chairman and president of its U.S. affiliate, Avraham Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Avraham is developing an anti-Alzheimer’s-disease drug, which is in Phase II clinical trials in Europe. Dr. Zurawski is also a member of the Board of DiagnoCure, Inc., a Canadian diagnostics company specializing in development of cancer diagnostic products, which is traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Dr. Zurawski received his Ph.D. in 1973 from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana and completed a post-doctoral research fellowship at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School before embarking on his business career.