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Team
Ann H. Cornell-Bell, Ph.D.
Ann H. Cornell-Bell, Ph.D., Co-Founder and Chief
Scientific Officer
of Lesanne Life
Sciences, has
experience as
both a life sciences
entrepreneur and as an academic
research scientist
at Yale University,
where she was
a Senior Associate
in the Howard
Hughes Medical
Institute. As
a senior researcher
in the life sciences industry she was Senior Director, Research
Operations of HistoRx, Inc.; Founder and Chief Scientific
Officer of Hepaticus Inc.; Director of Drug Discovery at Cognetix
Inc.; President and Chief Scientific
Officer of Viatech
Imaging Inc.; and President and Chief Scientific Officer of
Lion Imaging, LLC. She has more than 20 years experience in
applying fluorescence-based high through-put detection systems
in commercial
and academic research environments and is an inventor on the
patent held by Lesanne covering the use of PKC gamma as a
diagnostic for ischemic injury.
Prior to working in the life sciences industry, Dr. Cornell-Bell was a faculty member at Yale University School of Medicine, where she held appointments in the Neuro-Oncology Unit and the Inter-Departmental Neuroscience Program. At Yale, she also was Director of the Center for Confocal Imaging and Associate Professor of Research, and Associate Research Scientist in the department of Neurology.
Dr. Cornell-Bell is the recipient of numerous grants and research awards, including: several Phase I and Phase II SBIR grants from the NIDDK, NIH, and NIEHS; an NSF Goali Award; and a BRSG Research Grant. She has been a study section reviewer of NIH and other granting agencies and is an inventor of three patent families. She is an author of over 50 peer-reviewed publications and is the lead author in over one-third of these publications.
Dr. Cornell-Bell earned a B.S. in Biology from The University of Miami, an M.S. and Ph.D. in Cell Biology/Biology from Northeastern University. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School.
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Leslie A. Riblet, Ph.D.
Leslie A. Riblet, Ph.D., Co-Founder and Chief
Operating Officer
of Lesanne Life
Sciences, is a pharmaceutical company executive with more
than ten years of small company experience. Prior to pursuing
a series of entrepreneurial opportunities with Dr. Cornell-Bell
in the life science arena, Dr. Riblet was Vice President of
Research Operations, and Vice president of Preclinical CNS
Research, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute.
Dr. Riblet earlier held a series of positions including Section
Manager, Principal Research Associate, and Senior Research
Associate at the Department of Biologic Research, Pharmaceutical
Research Division; and Senior Investigator and Senior Scientist
at the Department of Pharmacology, Mead Johnson Research Center.
Dr. Riblet was a significant contributor to 14 INDs and four NDAs, including Desyrel, a treatment for depression, BuSpar, a treatment for anxiety, Stadol Nasal Spray, an analgesic, and Serzone, a treatment for depression. He is an inventor on five patent families, including the core patent within Lesanne. In addition, he was a Senior Investigator on two SBIR Phase I and Phase II grants.
Active in community affairs, Dr. Riblet is Treasurer of Killingworth Land Conservation Trust and a Member of the Board of Trustees of Ashland University. He previously was Chairman of the Board of Finance of Killingworth, Connecticut.
Dr. Riblet earned a B.S. in Chemistry/Biology from Ashland University, a B.S. in Pharmacy (R. Ph.) and an M.S. in Pharmacology from the University of Missouri, and a Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the University of Iowa College of Medicine.
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Robert J. Beckman
Robert J. Beckman, Co-Founder of Lesanne Life
Sciences and
Managing Partner and Co-Founder of The
Channel Group, was previously a Co-Founder
and immediate past CEO of Intergen Company. He founded Intergen through a management
buyout of Armour Pharmaceutical Co.'s biochemical business from Rorer GroupInc.
Under Mr. Beckman's guidance, Intergen became a global leader focused on providing
technology and biologicals to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and clinical
diagnostic industries. Mr.Beckman led the company through its profitable history
during which time Intergen acquired five companies, created business units
in Canada, Europe, and Japan, established significant manufacturing capacities,
and developed an extensive portfolio of technology that it sold and licensed
for use in cancer research, pharmaceutical discovery, and genomics.
Mr. Beckman first served as Vice President, Marketing Services, at Revlon Health Care Group (which included USV Pharmaceutical Corp. and Armour Pharmaceutical Co.), and then was appointed Vice President and General Manager of the Biochemical and Diagnostic Division of Revlon Healthcare Group. Upon the sale of Revlon's pharmaceutical businesses to Rorer, Mr.Beckman continued in that position until he co-founded Intergen.
During his tenure at Intergen, Mr. Beckman served on the Board of Directors
of two public companies, Editek, Inc. and Medtox Laboratories, Inc., and was
instrumental in the formation of two of the leading biotechnology associations
in the United States, the Biotechnology Industry Organization ("BIO")
and the New York Biotechnology Association ("NYBA"). At BIO, Mr.
Beckman served as a founding Board Member, member of the Executive Committee,
and Chairman of the Emerging Company Board of Governors. Mr. Beckman was a
Founding Board Member of NYBA and served as Chairman of the Association. He
testified before the Ways and Means Committee of the United States House of
Representatives several times, addressing issues of health care reform and
tax policy supporting entrepreneurial ventures.
Mr. Beckman's extensive global business experience includes the completion
of numerous corporate transactions on four continents. He has traveled extensively
and has developed business, technical, and financial networks in the life sciences
industries in Western Europe, Israel, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, China, Korea,
Australia, and New Zealand. At Intergen, Mr. Beckman established a significant
portion of its commercial business through the company's international presence
in Canada, United Kingdom, and Japan. Through his positions at BIO and NYBA,
he also has represented the biotechnology industry by participating in industry
and U.S. government trade missions throughout Asia.
Mr. Beckman also served on the New York City Executive Committee of the Council for Biomedical Research, on Mayor Giuliani's Task Force on Biomedical Research and Biotechnology, and as Co-Chair of the Biomedical Section of the Regional Planning Association's New York Regional Plan. He has contributed to numerous articles on the biotechnology industry and has been interviewed on this area and related topics on many occasions. Mr. Beckman has addressed professional associations and organizations globally on biotechnology, entrepreneurial management, and the growth of technology companies. Mr.Beckman holds a B.S.Degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Columbia University.
Mr. Beckman currently serves on the Executive Committee and is Chairman of the Corporate Governance Committee of the Board of Directors of E-Z-EM,
Inc. (NasdaqGS: EZEM), a medical products company, and was previously a Trustee of New York Medical College. He is also on the Board of Directors of LCT BioPharma Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of Living Cell Technologies Limited (ASX: LCT), and of Lesanne Life Sciences, LLC.
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Allan R. Goldberg, Ph.D.
Dr. Allan R. Goldberg, Co-Founder of Lesanne
Life
Sciences and
Managing Partner
and Co-Founder
of The
Channel Group, previously
co-founded PrimeTech
Partners in 1999,
a venture management
partnership whose purpose was to create, finance, and develop
companies engaged in biomedicine. PrimeTech was involved in
the development of three companies in which the partners played
active roles.
Prior to founding PrimeTech Partners, Dr. Goldberg was Co-Founder of Innovir
Laboratories, Inc. (1989-1997), a public biotechnology company that engaged
in developing technologies based on harnessing the natural ribozyme RNase P
for pharmaceutical and genomic research and the treatment and prevention of
disease. He brought together key persons --- Dr. Hugh Robertson and Dr. Sidney
Altman (Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1989 for his discovery of the ribozyme
RNase P) --- and key patents and licenses to attract financing to Innovir.
Dr. Goldberg assembled a high-level Science Advisory Board and played a primary
role in the growth of the company, including corporate management and administration
of research and development.
During his tenure at Innovir, he raised more than $35 million and was involved in the completion of an initial public offering. Dr. Goldberg was at various times the Chief Scientific Officer, Chairman, and CEO. Following a merger of Innovir with VimRx Pharmaceuticals, Inc., he managed as CEO of Innovir two additional facilities in Cambridge, England, and Gottingen, Germany.
Dr. Goldberg has been a consultant to several pharmaceutical companies and to several private and public academic institutions. He has served on the Board of Directors of the New York Biotechnology Association.
Dr. Goldberg was a professor of virology and the Richard King Mellon Foundation Fellow at The Rockefeller University (1971-1989) prior to founding Innovir. During that time he contributed to the field of viral oncology through his studies on transformation, authored more than 160 publications, and presented widely at academic conferences. He is co-author on 18 patents and patent applications, most of which concern novel human biotherapeutics. His academic honors include Special Fellow of the Leukemia Society of America, American Cancer Society Post-doctoral Fellowship, and an NIH Research Career Development Award. He is a Fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences and member of several professional societies, including the American Society for Biological Chemists and Molecular Biologists, the American Society for Virology, Sigma Xi, The Harvey Society, American Society of Microbiology, and American Association of Immunologists. Dr.Goldberg was an editor of the Journal of Experimental Medicine for twelve years, and during his tenure at The Rockefeller University also was ad hoc reviewer for numerous other journals. He served on the Biology Department Visiting Committee for the University of Pennsylvania, the Corporate Advisory Council of Hunter College of the City University of New York, and was Chairman of the Microbiology Council of the New York Academy of Sciences, where he still is a Board member. He is currently on the Corporate Advisory Board of The Irvington Institute and the Business Advisory Board of Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation.
Dr. Goldberg is a Founder and Member of the Board of Directors of ZyStor
Therapeutics, Inc., a biotechnology company that is developing targeted
protein therapeutics for the treatment of lysosomal storage diseases. He is
on the Board of Directors and Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board of SuperGen,Inc. (NasdaqGM:
SUPG), a pharmaceutical company dedicated to the discovery, development, and
commercialization of therapeutics for solid tumors and hematological malignancies.
He is also on the Board of Directors of LCT BioPharma Inc., the U.S. subsidiary
of Living Cell Technologies
Limited (ASX: LCT), and of Lesanne Life Sciences, LLC.
Dr. Goldberg earned a B.A. in English and Mathematics from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry/Biology from Princeton University. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
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Philip N. Sussman
Philip N. Susman, Co-Founder of Lesanne Life Sciences and Managing Partner
of The Channel Group,
served as a member of senior management (Head of Business Development, CFO,
and CEO) of several public and private biotechnology companies, including Perlegen
Sciences, Inc., Memory Pharmaceuticals Corp. (NasdaqGM:
MEMY), and Cadus Pharmaceutical Corp. (OTC BB: KDUS.OB). In these positions
he established collaborations with major pharmaceutical companies, including
AstraZeneca AB, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., Eli Lilly & Co., GlaxoSmithKline
plc, Pfizer Inc., Solvay Pharmaceuticals B.V., and Unilever plc that provided
in aggregate more than $100 million in research funding and equity investments.
His deal sheet lists 27 significant life sciences transactions, including an
IPO led by Hambrecht & Quist and a strategic equity investment in Axiom
Biotechnologies Inc. (now part of Sequenom, Inc. (NasdaqGM: SQNM), where he
served as a member of the Board of Directors. He also initiated and was responsible
for in-licensing of late-stage clinical and pre-clinical drug candidates. Prior
to his joining the biotechnology industry, he was Director of Strategy & Business
Development at Ciba-Geigy Corp.'s Pharmaceuticals Division (now Novartis AG).
He currently is an advisor to PsychoGenics
Inc., Glyconix Corp.,
and SCIUS
Capital Group LLC. He is also on the Board of Directors of LCT BioPharma
Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of Living
Cell Technologies Limited (ASX: LCT), Thar
Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and
of Lesanne Life Sciences, LLC.
Mr. Sussman is the author of articles in Current Drug Discovery, The Journal of Commercial Biotechnology (special issue on the financing of biotechnology companies), Scrip Magazine, The Journal of BioLaw and Business, The Journal of Business Strategy, Computerworld, and Datamation; he is currently on the Editorial Board of The Journal of Commercial Biotechnology. In addition to presentations at life sciences investor conferences, he is a frequent speaker at biotechnology industry meetings including the annual meetings of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (co-chairman of the Translational Research Forum for BIO 2007 and chairman of session in the Finance Track at BIO 2004) and the New York Biotechnology Association. He was guest speaker before the Drug Discovery Technology 2003 Conference, Association of Biotechnology Financial Officers, Licensing Executives Society, Association of University Technology Managers, New York State Bar Association Annual Meeting, and The MIT Enterprise Forum of New York, among others. He was the subject of a cover story in BioPeople Magazine and has been interviewed for articles focusing on biotechnology in San Francisco Business Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, BioCentury, and BioWorld, among others.
For over ten years he was a member of the review panel for the Innovative Technology Research Grant and Collaborative Postdoctoral Scientist Grant programs sponsored by the Center for Biotechnology, New York State Science and Technology Foundation. He held part-time faculty positions at the graduate engineering schools of Columbia University and the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He has a B.S. in Physics from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Master of Science in Biotechnology from Manhattan College, and an S.M. in Management with a concentration in Finance from the Sloan School of Management, MIT.
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Advisors
Howard M. Fillit, M.D.
Executive Director
Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation
Kieran Murphy, M.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Radiology
Director of Interventional Neuroradiology
Johns Hopkins Medical Institute
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