Our Leadership Team
Robert J. Beckman was a founder and for 14 years CEO of Intergen Company, a private company that supplied a wide array of biological products and innovative technologies to the life sciences industry. Intergen was profitable for nearly every year of its existence from its inception as a management acquisition until its sale. Mr. Beckman previously served as Vice President, Marketing Services, at Revlon Health Care Group (which included USV Pharmaceutical Corp. and Armour Pharmaceutical Co.) until he 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 this position until he co-founded Intergen. Mr. Beckman grew Intergen through internal product development and also through the acquisition of five companies; created business units in Canada, Europe, and Japan; established significant manufacturing capacities; and developed an extensive portfolio of medical technology that Intergen sold and licensed.
Mr. Beckman served on the Executive Committee and was Chairman of the Corporate Governance Committee of the Board of E-Z-EM, Inc. (NasdaqGS: EZEM), a provider of medical imaging products, prior to its acquisition in April 2008 by Bracco Diagnostics Inc., the U.S.-based subsidiary of Bracco Imaging SpA and part of the Bracco Group. He currently serves on the Board of Directors at Innovea Medical Ltd, a diagnostic imaging company based in Israel, and is on the Board of Lesanne Life Sciences, LLC, a company co-founded by The Channel Group. In addition, he previously served as a member of the Board of Directors and management of Phage Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a specialty biopharmaceutical manufacturer and developer of therapeutic proteins, and served on the Board of Directors of LCT BioPharma Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of Living Cell Technologies Limited (ASX:LCT). Mr. Beckman holds a B.S. Pharm degree from Columbia University and is a co-founder and Managing Partner of The Channel Group.
Allan R. Goldberg, Ph.D. has been instrumental in the formation and development of a number of start-up companies. He held various senior management positions including chairman and chief executive officer and chief scientific officer at Innovir Laboratories, Inc., a NASDAQ-listed biotechnology company he co-founded. Dr. Goldberg was a co-founder and director of ZyStor Therapeutics, Inc., a Milwaukee-based biotechnology company that developed a protein manufacturing and delivery platform technology for the treatment of various lysosomal storage diseases, including an enzyme-based protein therapeutic for Pompe disease that is currently in a Phase I clinical trial. BioMarin Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NasdaqNM: BMRND) acquired ZyStor in August, 2010.
Dr. Goldberg currently serves on the Board of SuperGen, Inc. (NasdaqNM: SUPG) and also is Chairman of its Scientific Advisory Board. In addition, he has been on the Board of Directors of LCT BioPharma Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of Living Cell Technologies Limited (ASX:LCT), and on the Board of Lesanne Life Sciences, LLC, a company co-founded by The Channel Group. In addition, he previously served as a member of the Board of Directors and management of Phage Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a specialty biopharmaceutical manufacturer and developer of therapeutic proteins.
Prior to involvement with Innovir, Dr. Goldberg was a professor of virology and a Richard King Mellon Foundation Fellow at The Rockefeller University from 1971 to 1989. Dr. Goldberg has served as a consultant to several large pharmaceutical companies as well as numerous private and public academic institutions. He earned a B.A. from Cornell University and a Ph.D. from Princeton University, and was a postdoctoral fellow at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He is a co-founder and Managing Partner of The Channel Group.
Philip N. Sussman 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., and Cadus Pharmaceutical Corp. 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 on NASDAQ. He also initiated and was responsible for in-licensing of late-stage clinical and pre-clinical drug candidates. Prior to those positions, he was Director of Strategy & Business Development at Ciba-Geigy Corp.'s (now Novartis) Pharmaceuticals Division.
Mr. Sussman is on the Board of Thar Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and a founder and member of the Board of Lesanne Life Sciences, LLC, a company co-founded by The Channel Group. He was a member of the Board of LCT BioPharma Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of Living Cell Technologies Limited (LCT: ASX). In addition, he previously served as a member of the Board of Directors and management of Phage Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a specialty biopharmaceutical manufacturer and developer of therapeutic proteins. Mr. Sussman has a B.S. in Physics from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, a 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. He is a Managing Partner of The Channel Group.
Vijay Aggarwal, Ph.D. has more than 30 years of senior executive experience in both pharmaceutical services and clinical diagnostics. Currently, Dr. Aggarwal is a Partner of The Channel Group and part time CEO of VaxiGenix, Inc., an early-stage therapeutic vaccine company developing treatments for colorectal cancer. Dr. Aggarwal was President and CEO of Aureon Laboratories, Inc., a venture capital-backed predictive pathology company offering advanced tissue analysis services to practicing physicians and the pharmaceutical industry. Previously, he was President of AAI Development Services, Inc., a contract research and development services company serving the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. Prior to that appointment, he was President of Quest Diagnostic Ventures, where he had responsibility for new technology, new business models, clinical trials testing, and direct-to-consumer strategies.
Earlier in his career, Dr. Aggarwal held many positions within SmithKline Beecham Clinical Laboratories ("SBCL"), the clinical laboratory operations of SmithKline Beecham plc, including direct responsibility for all of SBCL's U.S.-based laboratories as Executive Vice President of Laboratories and responsibility for all reimbursement contracting as Vice President of Managed Care. Dr. Aggarwal currently serves on the boards of several private diagnostic companies, including: Genisphere LLC; Hycor Biomedical, Inc.; Mitomics Inc.; Targeted Diagnostics and Therapeutics, Inc.; and Viracor-IBT Laboratories; and serves as Chairman of Lesanne Life Sciences, LLC. He earned a Ph.D. in Pharmacology/Toxicology from the Medical College of Virginia.
Shmuel Einav, Ph.D. is an Advisory Partner at The Channel Group. Dr. Einav has made seminal contributions to the field of biomedical engineering through his studies on the cardiovascular circulatory system. He is currently Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Director, Medical Technologies Division, Center of Excellence for Wireless and Information Technologies at Stony Brook University. As Director of Ramot-University Authority for Applied Research and Industrial Development Ltd., the technology transfer organization of Tel Aviv University, he initiated more than 15 start-up companies and managed $30 million in assets and 90 employees.
Dr. Einav also was a founder or advisor to several medical device companies, including: NiCast, Ltd., a developer and marketer of bio-impedance based cardiac monitors; Florence Medical Ltd., a stent and cardiovascular diagnostic technology company; IntelliDX Inc. (formerly Glucon, Inc.), a developer and marketer of a blood glucose testing system for monitoring hospital patients who have abnormally elevated sugar levels; and, Ventor Technologies Ltd., a developer of trans-catheter heart valve technologies that was acquired by Medtronic, Inc. for $325 million in 2009. He was also a member of the advisory board of several venture capital funds, including Veritas Venture Partners, InnoMed Fund of Jerusalem Global Ventures, and Ramot Medical Fund. Dr. Einav is Emeritus Professor and Incumbent of the Herman Berman Chair for Vascular Bioengineering at Tel Aviv University. He earned a B.Sc. and a M.Sc. in Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering from the Technion (Israel), and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Stony Brook University.
David E. Jackson was most recently VP of Operations Planning at Phage Pharmaceuticals, Inc., where he was responsible for oversight of the company's cGMP-certified therapeutic protein manufacturing facility in San Diego. Prior to that position, Mr. Jackson was the VP of Process Development and Manufacturing at VaxInnate Corp., where he was responsible for creating Development, QA/QC, and Regulatory teams, and as well as for building the company's infrastructure and overseeing capital projects. He previously was VP of U.S. Operations and later VP of Global Biologics Manufacturing at Lonza Biologics Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Lonza Group Ltd. (Switzerland), where he was responsible for greenfield site construction and other capital projects, as well as technology transfer and GMP contract manufacturing. He also served as VP of Manufacturing at BioReliance Corp. and VP of Manufacturing and Pharmaceutical Support at EntreMed, Inc.
The therapeutic proteins that Mr. Jackson has taken from the bench into pre-clinical, clinical, and marketed supply include: Hu Factor VIII, Hu Factor XI, Albumin, IgG, Alpha-1 Antitrypsin, Anti Thrombin III, Activated Protein C, Thrombin, Plasminogen/ Plasmin, Growth Hormone, and FSH. The vaccine projects that he has taken from the bench into pre-clinical, clinical, and manufacturing include: influenza subunit vaccines for Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, a universal influenza vaccine against M2, Vietnamese (H5N1), other HA and B strains of influenza, West Nile, Liposomal FGF, Small Pox, Japanese Encephalitis, and HIV. Mr. Jackson served honorably in the United States Marine Corps and received a B.A. in Chemistry from Olivet Nazarene University.