Board of Directors
Jack DeFranco
President and CEO
Jack DeFranco, President and Chief Executive Officer, was previously President and Chief Operating Officer of Alliance Pharmaceutical Corp., a publically traded company developing an oxygen therapeutic to be used as a temporary oxygen carrier in major surgeries. Prior to re-joining Alliance in October, 2005, Mr. DeFranco was Senior Vice President and COO of IMCOR Pharmaceutical Co., a specialty diagnostic imaging company. Mr. DeFranco held the position of Vice President, Business Development and Marketing with Alliance Pharmaceutical Corp. from 1990 to 2003. In 1986 he co-founded Orthoconcept, a medical device company, which was eventually sold. He has held various management positions in business development, marketing and sales with Smith & Nephew and Johnson and Johnson. Mr. DeFranco holds a BS in Biology from Stephen F. Austin University and an MBA and a Masters in Finance from Fairleigh Dickenson University.
Theodore D. Roth
Ted Roth is President of Roth Capital Partners, LLC, an independent full-service investment bank focusing on emerging growth publicly traded companies. The firm is headquartered in Newport Beach, CA, with offices in San Diego, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Seattle, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. Prior to joining Roth Capital in 2003, he spent 15 years in management positions with Alliance Pharmaceutical Corp. Mr. Roth currently serves on the Boards of Directors of BioMed Realty Trust, Inc (a real estate investment trust) and the San Diego Padres Baseball Club. He is also a Board member of business organizations BIOCOM, CONNECT, and the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce (2002 Chairman), and is on the Board of Trustees of Iowa Wesleyan College. He is a member of the Board of Junior Seau Foundation and the San Diego Sports Commission (2005 Chairman). He graduated from Iowa Wesleyan College in 1973, and has a J.D. from Washburn University and an LL.M. from University of Missouri at Kansas City. Mr. Roth and his wife, Jeanne, currently live in Carlsbad, CA. They have a daughter and son-in-law living in New York, a son in San Diego, a son in Albany, NY, and a son Nick in Miami.
Alan Watson, PhD
Executive In Residence Oxford Bioscience Partners
Alan Watson, PhD. Board Member is currently an Affiliate Entrepreneur at Oxford Bioscience Partners and sits on several Boards. He was Elixir Pharmaceuticals’ Executive Vice President and Chief Business Officer from 2002 through 2008. Previously, from 1999, Dr. Watson served as Senior Vice President, Corporate Development at Cubist Pharmaceuticals, Inc., where he oversaw the expansion of the Company’s anti-infective pipeline through a number of strategic intellectual property, drug development and licensing initiatives. He has held a number of senior management positions at Nycomed Amersham plc. and one of its predecessors Salutar, Inc. a diagnostic imaging and life sciences company now a division of GE Healthcare. Dr. Watson received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the Australia National University and his MBA from Northeastern University.
Michael Martino
Mike Martino is Senior Vice President of Innovation, Business Development and Strategy for CareFusion,a global corporation serving the health care industry with products and services that help hospitals measurably improve the safety and quality of care. The company develops market-leading technologies including Alaris® IV pumps, Pyxis® automated dispensing and patient identification systems, AVEA®, AirLife™ and LTV® series ventilation and respiratory products, ChloraPrep® products, MedMined™ services for infection surveillance, NeuroCare neurological monitoring and diagnostic products, V. Mueller® surgical instruments, and an extensive line of products that support interventional medicine. Prior to joining CareFusion, Mike served as president and CEO of Arzeda Corp. and before that he was president and CEO of Sonus Pharmaceuticals from 1999 to 2008. During his tenure at Sonus, he helped lead the company's transformation from a developer of diagnostic ultrasound contrast agents to a developer of therapeutic cancer drugs. Previously, Mike held leadership roles of increasing responsibility at Mallinckrodt Medical, Inc. from 1983 - 1998, including serving as vice president of strategic planning and corporate development and vice president and general manager of the nuclear medicine division. Through this experience, he completed multiple mergers and acquisitions, product development and licensing agreements. Mike holds a bachelor's of business degree from Roanoke College and an MBA from Virginia Tech.
Klaus Ley, MD
Co-Founder
Klaus Ley, MD, Cofounder, Board Member and Chairman of Scientific Advisory Board, is director of the Division of Inflammation Biology at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology in La Jolla, CA. Dr. Ley holds an MD from Ludwig Maximilians University of Wurzburg in Germany and completed postdoctoral training in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. From 1994-2007, he was professor at the University of Virginia (UVa), becoming director of the Cardiovascular Research Center in 2001 before moving to La Jolla in 2007. Dr. Ley is also a biomedical engineer with 20 years of experience studying the biomechanics and molecular properties of adhesion molecules, and is an international expert on inflammatory diseases. He serves on the editorial boards of the prestigious Journal of Clinical Investigation and the Journal of Experimental Medicine. He has over 200 original publications in high impact journals (Nature, Science, Nature Medicine) and has been awarded the highest achievement awards from the Society for Leukocyte Biology (Bonazinga Award) in 2008 and the European Society for Microcirculation (Malpighi Award) in 2010.