company

michael wilhelm

Michael K. Wilhelm, President, Chief Executive Officer and Director

Mr. Wilhelm has served as the company’s President and Chief Executive Officer and as a member of its Board of Directors since July 2003. He has also served as President and Chief Executive Officer of ImmuneRegen BioSciences, Inc. since December 2002 and as a member of its Board of Directors since November 2002. Mr. Wilhelm has been actively involved in the financial industry since 1990. After leaving the brokerage industry, Mr. Wilhelm founded Foresight Capital Corp. in July 1996, a company designed to identify early stage companies with above average growth potential and assist them in reaching the next stage of development. Mr. Wilhelm retains the title of Managing Director of Foresight Capital Partners but the company has had limited and insignificant business operations since December 2002.
mwilhelm@immuneregen.com

John N. Fermanis, Chief Financial Officer

Mr. Fermanis has served as the company’s Chief Financial Officer since December 2004. Prior to joining the company, Mr. Fermanis co-founded AMPS Wireless Data, Inc., a privately held Arizona corporation in 1998, where he served as Chief Financial Officer from May 2001 to October 2004. From 1997 to 2001, he held the position of Treasury Manager for Peter Piper, Inc., a national restaurant chain headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona. Mr. Fermanis has over 18 years of financial management experience with both the American Express Corporation and Citigroup in New York City. Mr. Fermanis holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the S.U.N.Y. at Stony Brook and attended Pace University's Graduate School of Management in New York City.
jfermanis@immuneregen.com

Hal N. Siegel, Ph.D., Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer

DDr. Siegel was appointed as Chief Scientific Officer and Vice President in January 2008 after serving as the Senior Director of Product Development and Regulatory Affairs and a continued member on the Board of Directors since June, 2006. Dr. Siegel first came to ImmuneRegen from Siegel Consultancy LLC, which has been providing strategic and tactical expertise to life-science companies, helping them meet FDA requirements from pre-clinical studies through the regulatory submission process and into the post-approval marketplace. Dr. Siegel has over a decade of experience delivering scientific, clinical and regulatory compliance assistance as well as FDA submission preparation and management services to life-science client companies developing drugs, therapeutic biologics, combination products, traditional devices, and in vitro diagnostic products. Dr. Siegel previously provided strategic and tactical management consulting services to a start-up software company making knowledge management and collaboration tools for regulated life science companies, as well as Sun Microsystem’s Global Life Science group, working with sales, marketing, business development, legal and professional services groups. Dr. Siegel holds degrees from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and SUNY Buffalo, where he earned his Ph.D., in Biochemical Pharmacology.
hsiegel@immuneregen.com

Theodore E. Staahl, M.D., Director

Dr. Staahl has served on the company’s Board of Directors since April 2003. Dr. Staahl is employed at the Cosmetic, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Center, a company which he founded in 1978. Dr. Staahl's professional training was received at the University of Illinois and the University of Wisconsin and is board certified by the American Board of Facial, Plastic and Reconstruction Surgeons, the Board of Cosmetic Surgeons and the American Board of Head and Neck Surgeons.

Robert J. Hariri, M.D., Ph.D., Director

Dr. Hariri, M.D. has served on the company’s Board of Directors since April 2007. Dr. Hariri has been CEO of a division of Celgene since 2005. Previously, he had been President of the division from 2002 to 2005. The division focuses on human stem and biomaterial solutions for a range of clinical indications. From 1998 to 2002, prior to joining Celgene, Dr. Hariri was Founder, Chairman and Chief Scientific Officer for Anthrogenesis Corp./LIFEBANK, Inc., a New Jersey-based privately held biomedical technology and service corporation involved in umbilical cord blood banking and its supporting technology platform. LIFEBANK is one of the largest cord blood bank companies and is recognized as a technological leader in the industry From 1987 to 1994, he was Co-founder, Vice Chairman and Chief Scientific Officer of Neuordynamics, a privately held medical device and technology corporation. While there, he led the design, testing and development of several medical device technologies. He also arranged and negotiated initial private seed investment and private placement with Johnson & Johnson, Inc. Dr. Hariri has held academic positions at Cornell University Medical College Cornell University Graduate School of Medical Sciences. He has also played a prominent medical role at Cornell University Medical College, The New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center and The Jamaica Hospital-Cornell Trauma Center. While at Cornell, he was the Director of The Center for Trauma Research. He received his Medical Degree and Ph.D from Cornell University and was awarded a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Columbia College.

Lance K. Gordon, Ph.D., Director

Dr. Gordon has served on the company’s Board of Directors since May 2007. He is an accomplished corporate executive with extensive experience leading biopharmaceutical companies focused on the development, manufacture and commercialization of biologic products for the prevention and treatment of human infectious disease. Dr. Gordon has served as President , Chief Executive Officer and as a Director of VaxGen, Inc. from 2001 to 2007 during which time, the Company generated over $250 million in income and $1 billion in contracts for biodefense vaccines. Prior to joining Vaxgen, Dr. Gordon was Executive Director of North America for Acambis plc. and a member of the Company’s Board of Directors from 1999 to 2001. Previously, he was President and CEO of OraVax, Inc. from 1990 to 1999, prior to its acquisition by Peptide Therapeutics to form Acambis. Before joining OraVax, he was the CEO of North American Vaccine from 1988 to 1990, prior to its acquisition by Baxter International. He has also held positions as Associate Director, Clinical Pharmacology at E. R. Squibb and Research Director, Viral and Bacterial Vaccines, at Connaught Laboratories. Among his many Professional Affiliations, Dr. Gordon is a member of the United States National Vaccines Advisory Committee (NVAC) since 2005, a member of the Sabin Vaccine Institute Board of Trustees since 2003 and a member of the Expert Panel of the Meningitis Vaccine Project, WHO and PATH since 1999. He received his Ph.D. in Biomedical Science, Immunology and Molecular Genetics from the University of Connecticut at Farmington and was awarded a Bachelor of Arts Degree from the University of California at Humboldt.

Jerome B. Zeldis, M.D., Ph.D.

Dr. Zeldis is Chief Medical Officer of Celgene Corporation, Warren, NJ. He is currently Professor of Clinical Medicine at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, New Jersey.  Prior to working at Celgene, Dr. Zeldis worked at Sandoz Research Institute and Janssen Research Institute in both clinical research and medical development.  He has been a board member of a few start-up biotechnology companies and is currently on the board of the Semorex Corporation, ImmuneRegen, the NJ Chapter of the Arthritis Foundation and the Castleman’s Disease Organization.  He currently has published 95 peer reviewed articles and 24 reviews, book chapters, and editorials.

 


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