Daniel M. Skovronsky , M.D., Ph.D., Founder and CEO
Dr. Skovronsky founded Avid Radiopharmaceuticals in late 2004. Dr. Skovronsky has more than 20 peer-reviewed publications and two NIH-funded grants on Alzheimer’s disease research. Prior to establishing Avid, Dr. Skovronsky served as Scientific Director of High Throughput Screening and Drug Discovery at the Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Skovronsky trained as a resident in Pathology and completed a fellowship in Neuropathology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Skovronsky received his M.D. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and did his undergraduate training in molecular biochemistry at Yale University. Dr. Skovronsky is the recipient of numerous scientific and business awards and was recently named by the Philadelphia Business Journal as one of their “Forty under Forty” business leaders in the region. Dr. Skovronsky recently received the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2009 Award in the Emerging Company category in Greater Philadelphia, which recognizes outstanding entrepreneurs who are building and leading dynamic, growing businesses.
Alan P. Carpenter, Jr., Ph.D., J.D., Vice President, Business Development, Legal & Regulatory Affairs
Dr. Carpenter has 25 years of experience in the medical imaging and pharmaceutical industry, including previous positions at Epix Pharmaceuticals, a developer of MRI imaging agents, and the medical imaging and radiopharmaceuticals divisions of E.I. DuPont, DuPont Merck Pharmaceuticals, and DuPont Pharmaceuticals. He has many years of management experience in leading R&D, clinical, project management, business development, strategic planning, and legal functions of medical imaging pharmaceutical businesses, including five years as Vice President of R&D for the Medical Imaging Division for DuPont Pharmaceuticals and a total of five years in Vice President roles for R&D and Legal Affairs & Government Affairs at Epix Pharmaceuticals. He has been a leader for several imaging agent business development transactions and R&D programs, including the development and approval of several imaging agents, including Cardiolite®, the leading myocardial perfusion imaging agent, Definity®, the leading ultrasound contrast imaging agent, Neurolite®, a radiopharmaceutical for imaging perfusion in the brain, and Vasovist®, an MRI contrast agent for magnetic resonance angiography. Dr. Carpenter is an inventor on several patents and patent applications relating to a variety of imaging agents. Dr. Carpenter received his Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1978 and his J.D. from the Massachusetts School of Law in 1995 and is a registered patent attorney with the USPTO.
Franz F. Hefti, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer
Dr. Hefti brings Avid nearly 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry and over a decade of experience in academia. He led the drug development efforts at Rinat Neuroscience Corporation as Executive Vice President of Drug Development for three years. During his tenure, three antibody drug candidates advanced from the discovery stage to preclinical and clinical development, and the success of these programs led to the acquisition of Rinat Neuroscience by Pfizer in 2006. Previously, Dr. Hefti was Senior Vice President of Neuroscience Research at Merck & Co., where he coordinated the company's neuroscience research worldwide, serving as site head for the neuroscience research centers in the U.K. and U.S. While working with Merck, small molecule drug candidates covering six drug targets in the neuroscience area were taken into development. Dr. Hefti was also Director of the Neuroscience Research Department at Genentech and previously spent more than a decade in academia as a Professor at the University of Southern California and Associate Professor at the University of Miami, where he carried out seminal research on therapeutic applications of neurotrophic factors. He has published over 250 papers on neurotrophic factors and topics in neuropharmacology and a recent textbook "Drug Discovery for Nervous System Diseases" (John Wiley & Sons). Dr. Hefti received a Ph.D. from the University of Zurich and did his postdoctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Max Planck Institute in Munich.
Michael J. Pontecorvo, Ph.D., Vice President, Clinical Development
Dr. Pontecorvo is a recognized expert in Alzheimer's disease research and led the U.S. development of the Alzheimer's disease medication REMINYL® (now known as RAZADYNE®). Dr. Pontecorvo brings Avid almost 25 years of pharmaceutical industry experience in both CNS discovery research and clinical development. Over the past 15 years, Dr. Pontecorvo has held increasingly responsible positions in clinical development as a project leader at Janssen Pharmaceutica and as Vice President for Clinical Research at Mitsubishi Pharma America and Dov Pharmaceuticals. Author of more than 30 publications, numerous invited presentations, and six patents, Dr. Pontecorvo graduated from Indiana University with a Ph.D. in Psychology and Neuroscience.
Paul Kennedy, Ph.D., Vice President, Manufacturing
Dr. Kennedy has over 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical field in the areas of formulation development, clinical and commercial drug manufacture, API development and manufacture, analytical methods development, and validation and regulatory support. Dr. Kennedy has held positions in government, the biotechnology industry, large pharma, and in several contract organizations. He has played a key role in the approval of 15 BLAs and NDAs with many of these drugs also receiving approval in the EU, Canada, and Japan. Several of these approvals have been break through therapies – Tacrine® for Alzheimer’s, Zidovudine® for AIDS, Ethyol® for cancer, Xygris® for sepsis and Visudyne® for macular degeneration. Dr. Kennedy has authored over 20 publications and is an inventor on five patents. Dr. Kennedy has served as a reviewer for the Pharmaceutical Resources Branch of the NCI, served on the Board of Revision at USP and as a reviewer for Pharmaceutical Research, Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences and American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy. Dr. Kennedy received his Ph.D. in physical organic chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh. This was followed by postdoctoral studies in Sickle Cell Anemia research at the University of Pittsburgh’s Department of Medicinal Chemistry sponsored by the Heart Blood Lung Institute of NIH. He undertook additional postdoctoral studies in the formulation of anticancer drugs at the University of Kansas’ Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry sponsored by the National Cancer Institute of the NIH.
Richard Baron, Chief Financial Officer
Mr. Baron joined Avid in June, 2008 as Vice President Finance, Chief Financial Officer. He has over 30 years of experience with health care and technology related companies. Prior to joining Avid, Mr. Baron was the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for eResearchTechnology, Inc (NASDAQ: ERES). In addition, he was the Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for Animas Corporation where he played a key role in helping the company through several rounds of financing, its initial public offering, and its eventual sale to Johnson & Johnson. Prior to Animas, Mr. Baron held CFO positions at GENEX Services and Marsam Pharmaceuticals. Previous to these organizations Mr. Baron worked for Coopers and Lybrand (the predecessor of Pricewaterhouse Coopers) in the Financial Advisory and Audit areas where he specialized in working with and growing middle-market companies. He is a CPA and a graduate of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Christopher J. Bunting, Vice President Marketing & Sales
Mr. Bunting joined Avid in September 2009 as Vice President, Marketing and Sales, bringing more than 20 years of marketing and sales experience to Avid.
He most recently served as Global Brand Director for Neurology at General Electric Healthcare, based in the U.K.
Prior to his work with GE, Mr. Bunting led commercialization efforts, both globally and regionally, at several pharmaceutical companies, including GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca.
He led the launch of several novel therapeutics and neuro-imaging agents, including a treatment for endometriosis, a hormone replacement therapy and a diagnostic agent for dementia and movement disorders.
Christopher M. Clark, M.D., Medical Director
Prior to joining Avid in July 2008, Dr. Clark, a board certified neurologist, was Associate Professor of Neurology and director of the recently initiated Center of Excellence for Research on Neurodegenerative Diseases at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a Fellow of the University of Pennsylvania's Institute on Aging and has been a faculty member since 1989.
Dr. Clark has spent most of his career studying Alzheimer's disease. He is the current Principal Investigator of a National Institute of Aging grant and an investigator for numerous other studies including the landmark Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI).
His research interests focus on Alzheimer's disease and the development of diagnostically specific markers, the identification and evaluation of new treatments, the development of new instruments to measure rates of change, and studies of the relationship between Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease.
John Lister-James, Ph.D., Vice President, Chemical Development and Manufacturing
Dr. Lister-James brings to Avid over 20 years of experience in research and development in the pharmaceutical industry, principally in the area of radiopharmaceuticals, having held management and senior management positions at Centocor, Diatide, Berlex/Schering AG, CIS-US and Xanthus.
Dr. Lister-James directed CMC Development leading to the regulatory approval of three diagnostic radiopharmaceutical products and played a key role in the R&D activities leading to the discovery and early development of multiple radiodiagnostic and radiotherapeutic products.
Most recently Dr. Lister-James held the position of Vice President, Development at Xanthus Pharmaceuticals, a specialty company, and he was previously responsible for Corporate CMC Development, Radiopharmaceuticals in Schering AG.
Dr. Lister-James received his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of London and did his post-doctoral work at MIT and Harvard Medical School on the chemistry of technetium and its application in medical imaging. He is a co-inventor of 60 U.S. patents and has co-authored over 35 peer-reviewed articles.
