ANUMANTHA G. KANTHASAMY
President and Chief Executive Officer
Dr. Anumantha G. Kanthasamy has over 30 years of research experience in neuroscience, pharmacology, and toxicology. Dr. Kanthasamy is also Distinguished Professor and the Eugene and Linda Lloyd Endowed Chair of Neurotoxicology in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the College of Veterinary Medicine, Iowa State University. He is also the chair of the Interdepartmental Toxicology Graduate Program and is the founding director of the Iowa Center for Advanced Neurotoxicology (ICAN). Prior to joining ISU, he was a faculty member in the Department of Neurology, University of California, Irvine, CA, and was a researcher at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN. He has worked as a scientist in various pharmaceutical industries.
Currently, Dr. Kanthasamy’s research is focused primarily in the areas of neuropharmacology and neurotoxicology, His major study emphasis is on cellular and molecular mechanisms associated with oxidative cell death signaling pathways as they relate to the pathogenesis of Parkinson’s disease and other associated neurological disorders. In support of the neuronpharmacological and toxicological research being conducted at ISU, Dr. Kanthasamy has secured several million dollars in funding from the National Institute of Health and other funding agencies. Also, he has received contracts from many pharmaceutical/biotechnology companies including Merck KGaA and BoehringerIngelheimPharmaGmbH&Co KG., Biotherapeutix, and Hematech. Dr. Kanthasamy is a prolific author, with more than 100 published research papers and abstracts, and is a frequent invited lecturer at numerous conferences worldwide. At ISU, Dr. Kanthasamy teaches toxicology and pharmacology courses to graduate students and veterinary medical students. He regularly serves on a variety of prestigious panels including NIH study section review panels and other grant review committees.
Dr. Kanthasamy’s career is distinguished by a long list of awards, honors and recognitions he has received over the years. He also maintains memberships in many preeminent professional organizations including the Society of Toxicology, Society for Neuroscience, American Society of Pharmacology Experimental Therapeutics, and International Neurochemistry Society.
VELLAREDDY ANANTHARAM
Chief Scientific Officer and Chief Operating Officer
Dr. Vellareddy Anantharam has over 30 years of research experience in molecular neurobiology, pharmacology and toxicology in both the academic and corporate sectors. He has more than 180 published research papers to his credit. As a pharmacology faculty at the Univ. of Massachusetts Medical Center (1990-95) his major focus here was to study the effect of ethanol and local anesthetics on Neuronal ligand-gated and ion-gated channels. Subsequently, he joined the research team headed by Dr. Alan J Tobin, Director of Brain Research Institute, UCLA (1995-97). His team focused on engineering immortalized neuronal cell lines to express GAD65 and produce GABA for transplantation experiments in animal models of Epilepsy, Parkinson’s and Huntington disease.
In his position as a senior scientist (1997-99), Dr. Anantharam was instrumental in developing high-throughput pharmacological screening and cellular response measuring instruments at Axiom Biotechnologies Inc. (merged with Sequenom Inc.). In 1999 he won the employee of the year award. Since, 2000, he is an affiliate Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences in the College of Veterinary Medicine, Iowa State University. At ISU, Dr. Anantharam’s research focuses on areas of neurodegenerative diseases and neurotoxicology. In 2006, he co-founded PK Bio. In 2008, he received NIH SBIR phase I funding for development of Novel Therapeutic Agents for Parkinson’s’ disease. In 2008, he also received the Iowa Technological Commercialization Fellowship Award. In 2009 he also received funding from Grow Iowa Value Fund and Institute for Physical Research and Technology from the State of Iowa for syntheses and screening of novel drugs for PD. He was recently awarded two NIH/NINDS SBIR P1 grants in Fall 2018 and Spring 2019.
Dr. Anantharam began his post doctoral training at Johns Hopkins Medical School in the laboratory of Professor Pete C Maloney. He received Doctoral degrees in Molecular Biophysics from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.
RAVI KIRON
Chief Business Officer
Dr. Ravi Kiron is well versed in various aspects of the pharma and biotech R&D value chain across from early discovery, pre-clinical through late-stage clinical development, IP & regulatory strategy, corporate, product, technology & business development, marketing & launch – for well over 30 years.
He has held consulting operational business roles at various biotech’s (e.g. Aduro, Kinemed, Amarantus, Clasado), cofounded companies (C2N Diagnostics, Navya Biomedical Technologies, iRetainRx), was an EIR (Entrepreneur/Executive in Residence) at SRI International and ShangPharma Innovation. He consulted for many (>50clients/10years) global pharma, biotech’s, diagnostics, CRO’s, Private Equity, Hedge Funds and Universities for M&A due diligence, market assessment, valuation, fund-raising through global VC’s, HNWI, Foundations, BD and in/out licensing.
Dr. Kiron gained experiences at large pharma (Pfizer and J&J/ALZA) in various scientific, business, executive roles – Cardiovascular Drug Discovery, Oncology Drug Development, Business Development, Strategic Alliances, Project & Alliance Management, Drug Delivery Licensing and IP management. At Pfizer, he was primary architect of many global partnerships, was an acquisition/integration team member for Pfizer’s purchase of Warner Lambert ($95B) Pharmacia ($65B), and other biotech companies. Dr. Kiron was also exploratory drug development project champion at Pfizer resulting in IND filing of Tarceva® for the treatment of NSCLC and filed an IND for Clasado of a novel prebiotic to prevent Travelers Diarrhea – leveraging the human microbiome.
Earlier in academia, Dr. Kiron was a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Biochemistry & Medicine faculty (joint appointments) at Cornell University Medical Center (NY Hospital), New York and had an Adjunct appointment at University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI, USA. He serves on non-profit BOD’s. He holds BSc in Chemistry, MSc in Microbiology through colleges in Goa, India, under Bombay University, earned PhD in Biochemistry from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India and an MBA in Entrepreneurship from Rensselaer, New York, USA.
PADMAKUMAR NARAYANAN
Industry Consultant
Dr. Padma-Kumar “Padma” Narayanan received a BVSc (DVM equivalent) degree (1986) from College of Veterinary & Animal Sciences, Kerala, India; a Masters’ in Veterinary Surgery (1988), Madras Veterinary College, Tamil Nadu, India, and a Ph.D (1995) in Immunopharmacology from School of Veterinary Medicine, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN. He utilized analytical cytology tools, flow and image cytometry, to gain insights into mechanisms of neutrophil and endothelial pathophysiology on exposure to pro-oxidants and environmental toxins during his graduate training at Purdue University Cytometry Laboratories, West Lafayette, IN. He broadened the scope of this investigation during his post-doctoral fellowship (1995-1997) at Los Alamos National Laboratories, Los Alamos, NM, to understand the role of oxidative stress in radiation-induced DNA damage, cell cycle regulation, silicosis and chronic beryllium disease. Padma later joined SmithKline Beecham (SB), Philadelphia, PA (1997) to establish an analytical cytology core facility in Safety Assessment to support non-GLP and GLP toxicology studies for both large and small molecules.
During his tenure at SB and later GlaxoSmithKline, Padma integrated cytometric technologies and cellular pathophysiological endpoints for identification and characterization of drug-induced pharmacologic/toxicologic responses at various stages of development. In addition he was instrumental in designing investigative toxicology studies, general and genetic toxicology, and safety pharmacology studies in support of research and development compounds. Padma joined Amgen, Inc. in 2006 to establish an Investigative Toxicology group in Seattle and was Director of Cell Signaling and Immunotoxicology Group in Discovery Toxicology, until 2014. In this role at Amgen, Padma provided advice, strategic planning, study design, and effective management of issue resolution and predictive toxicology efforts to support selection and timely development of proteins, monoclonal antibodies, and small molecules. Padma is currently (Executive Director-Toxicology, Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Carlsbad, CA) involved in both Investigative Toxicology as well as development of antisense platform for neurodegenerative diseases.