Daniel has more than 20 years of commercial and line management experience in big pharma companies and subsequently with early-stage biotech companies in board, strategic, product development, and business development roles. He was the founding CEO and President of DiObex, a company focused on metabolic diseases (such as Diabetes), and raised in excess of $30 million in venture financing while shepherding 2 products into advanced clinical development. He was Vice President of Business Development & Commercialization for ARYx Therapeutics, Inc. As Vice President West Customer Business Unit, he was on the Warner Lambert / Parke Davis Management Team (US), and led the rapid expansion of the Western organization to effectively launch leading brands such as Lipitor® (with Pfizer), Rezulin® (with Sankyo) and Celexa® (with Forest). He spent 9 previous years with Roche in a variety of global marketing, development and senior line management roles (in the US, Switzerland, and the Netherlands). Daniel graduated in 1984 with an MS (equivalent) in Human Physiology from the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He then moved to New Orleans where he obtained his MBA from the A.B. Freeman School of Business at TulaneUniversity. In 1995 he completed the PMD program at HarvardBusinessSchool.
Dick Rylander Jr., CEO and President
Dick has held a number of positions during his 30 plus years in the pharmaceutcial and biotech industries. He has participated in the launch of more than 16 drug entities. Positions if increasing responsibilities have included sales, sales management, training, marketing, incentive planning, managed care and operations. During the acquisition of Parke-Davis by Pfizer he joined Actelion Pharmaceuticals US as VP Operations and IT where he developed the systems, processes, and infrastructure for importation, sales and commercialization for Tracleer and Zavesca including specialty distribution, pricing, rebates, forecasting, market research and training. He holds BS degrees in Marketing and Finance as well as an MBA. He has started and owned several private companies and is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Portland, teaching in their Healthcare MBA Program. Dick is the co-founder of Enject.
Bruce Carlson CFO
Bruce has spent over 30 years as a financial professional in the
pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. His background includes
both Big Pharma and privately funded start-ups. He has extensive
experience in launching new products and businesses, in both the
prescription and consumer sectors. He was the CFO at DiObex since its
inception in 2003, CFO at NovaDermis International during its creation
and fund-raising efforts, and a consultant to ARYx Therapeutics during
its first two rounds of professional financing. He has been involved
with Enject since its formation. Prior to these experiences, Bruce
spent over 20 years at Warner-Lambert with financial responsibilities in
managed care, field sales, major consumer health franchises (Zantac,
Zovirax, Schick, Lubriderm) and the Parke-Davis prescription drug
business. Bruce has a B.S. in Industrial Engineering and an MBA in
Finance, both from the University
of Michigan.
Dr. Bernice Welles - Chief Medical Officer
In 2003-mid-2004 Dr.
Welles served as a Venture Partner at MPM Capital, a venture capital
fund focused exclusively on life sciences investing, where she evaluated
potential investments with an emphasis on product candidates in
discovery and development and worked closely with MPM’s portfolio
companies to build their pipelines. In
mid-2004, Dr. Welles joined DiObex as Vice President of Development to
spearhead development of DiObex’s clinical stage products. She currently
is working with Enject, Inc., as head of regulatory and clinical
overseeing the development of GlucaPen™. Dr. Welles is board
certified in both Internal Medicine and Endocrinology and Metabolism.
She received her MD degree from AlbanyMedicalCollege
and completed residency training at BethIsraelHospital
in Boston
and fellowship training at the University of California,
San Francisco
where she subsequently was awarded an NIH Clinical Scientist Development
Award and remained on as an Assistant Professor in the Department of
Medicine. She holds an M.B.A. degree from Wharton, an M.S. from TuftsUniversity
in Urban and Environmental Policy, and a B.A. in Music from BrandeisUniversity.From 1995 through
2003, Dr. Welles was at Genentech, Inc. where she held several key
positions ultimately serving as Vice President of Product Development,
with responsibility for all development projects, portfolio planning and
a drug development productivity initiative. During her tenure at
Genentech, she was instrumental in the development and commercialization
of several products, including Growth Hormone for Adult Growth Hormone
Deficiency, Nutropin Depot, a long acting formulation of Genentech’s
Growth Hormone, Raptiva for Psoriasis, and Lucentis for Age-Related
Macular Degeneration.
Solomon Tse, Ph.D - Chief of CMC and Development
Dr. Tse is an expert on formulation, drug delivery, delivery devices like pens and pumps, quality assurance, manufacturing and Product Development. He has over 20 years experience in cell culture fermentation, parenteral/injectable (small molecules, peptides and proteins), solid and semi solid dosage forms and packaging. He is currently a Pharmaceutical Consultant for product development, outsourcing and manufacturing. His last position was Senior Director of Manufacturer at Supergen in charge of development and commercial manufacturing of cancer drugs. As VP of Development and Manufacturing at Jenner, he was responsible for the development and manufacturing of cancer vaccine and liposomal products. He has also worked at Amylin, Ethicon of Johnson and Johnson and Penwalt with increasing responsibilities. He has developed and manufactured two products that have been approved by FDA (the wound healing product, Regranex, Platelet Derived Growth factor, for Johnson and Johnson and Symlin, a diabetic drug for Amylin). Dr. Tse, has also developed the pen delivery system for Amylin. He was an employee of DiObex where he oversaw the commercial development of glucagon for several projects. He holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Missouri.