Management
Steve Elms, CEO – Steven Elms currently serves as a Managing Director of Aisling Capital. Previously, he was a Principal in the Life Sciences Investment Banking Group of Hambrecht & Quist. At H&Q, Mr. Elms was involved in over 60 financing and M&A transactions, helping clients raise in excess of $3.3 billion in capital. Previously, he traded mortgage-backed securities at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. Earlier in his career, Mr. Elms worked as a pharmaceutical sales representative and as a consultant for The Wilkerson Group. Mr. Elms currently serves as a director of a number of life sciences companies. He received a B.A. from Stanford University and an M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
Radha Krishnan, PhD, Sr. Vice President, Development – Dr. Krishnan is a founder of Seachaid and has served as the Sr. VP of Pharmaceutical Development since the company’s inception. He worked on the inlicense of OratoninTM, helped secure an A round financing of 9.75M USD, and oversees Seachaid’s formulation, analytical, and manufacturing activities. Prior to Seachaid, Dr. Krishnan worked at Matrix Bioscience, Protein Delivery, and Nobex Corporation. While at Nobex Corporation, Dr. Krishnan held positions of increasing responsibility, bringing many innovations to API manufacturing and pharmaceutical development. Among his many accomplishments, he led the oral insulin program, designing the recombinant sequence as well as the dosage form for IN-105 (now in Phase 3 development by Biocon, Ltd.). Dr. Krishnan received his BS degree with honors in Applied Chemistry from Kingston University (UK) and MS and PhD degrees in Chemisty from the University of Florida. Prior to his work in pharmaceuticals, he conducted post-doctoral research at the Research Triangle Institute, NC. Dr. Krishnan is an author on more than 20 scientific publications and is an inventor on over 40 US patents approved or pending.
Ken James, PhD, Vice President, Discovery – Dr. James is a founder of Seachaid and has served as the VP of Discovery since the company’s inception. He worked on the inlicense of OratoninTM, helped secure an A round financing of 9.75M USD, and procured nearly 1M USD in government grants. He oversees Seachaid’s in house drug discovery programs. Prior to Seachaid, Dr. James worked at Protein Delivery and Nobex Corporation, where he held positions of increasing responsibility. Among his accomplishments at Nobex, he developed a synthetic route to the anti-cancer drug bicalutamide that cut the number of steps in half and greatly increased the yield over published methods. He also designed and synthesized IN-105, an orally absorbed derivative of insulin now in Phase 3 development by Biocon, Ltd. Dr. James received his BS degree magna cum laude in both Chemistry and Biology from Furman University and his PhD in Chemistry from Indiana University. During his graduate studies, he also worked at Albert-Ludwigs-Universitaet in Freiburg, Germany as a visiting scientist in a collaboration sponsored by NATO. He concluded his academic training with post-doctoral research at Duke University. Dr. James has authored over 30 scientific publications and is an inventor on over 20 US patents approved or pending.
Gerri Henwood – Ms. Henwood is the President/CEO of Recro Pharma and is President/Founder of Malvern Consulting Group. She was the President and CEO of Auxilium Pharmaceuticals, Inc (NASDAQ: AUXL), a company she founded in late 1999. She raised $90 million in private equity and was able to take the company public in August 2004. Ms. Henwood successfully shepherded this start-up company through the drug development stage to its current position with one drug on the market and several more in late stage development and trailing 12 month revenues exceeding $60 million. From 1985-1999, Ms. Henwood was the founder and CEO of IBAH, a contract research organization. IBAH reached a net revenue level of $150 million, as a NASDAQ traded company, before being acquired by Omnicare in 1998. Ms. Henwood began her career with Smith Kline & French, now part of Glaxo SmithKline PLC, in the pharmaceutical marketing department. She rose through the ranks at Smith Kline & French to be the head of Regulatory and Medical Affairs for the U.S. business and then to the position of Group Director – Marketing in the International Pharmaceutical Division.
