Claire Thuning-Roberson, PhD
President & CEO
Claire brings extended cross-functional experience in all aspects of biologics and NCE clinical development with focus on chemistry, manufacturing, and controls. Over the course of 40 years she has held multi-disciplinary positions in clinical and non-clinical development with specific expertise in mammalian cell production. As Director of the Goodwin Institute for Cancer Research, she spun off Goodwin Biotechnology, a contract manufacturing organization that, under her direction as President and CEO, assisted sponsors in advancing over 30 drug candidates into Phase I and II clinical trials. As head of Product Development at Sunol Molecular Corporation and Thallion Pharmaceuticals, she interfaced with regulatory agencies worldwide in advancing multiple products into clinical trials.
Chantal Miklosi, MBA
CFO
Chantal is a financial executive with over 26 years of experience, including over 7 years as a public company CFO in Canada and in the U.S. focused on corporate development, M&A and capital raising. As an investment banker, she was instrumental in executing over 20 business transactions. As a public company CFO, she has built and managed finance and accounting teams and implemented the SOX and IFRS requirements. Chantal spent 3 years as CFO of DiagnoCure, a publicly traded cancer molecular diagnostic test company. Prior to DiagnoCure, she was Managing Director and CFO of JMP Securities/JMP Asset Management, a publicly traded full service investment bank and asset management firm. She holds a BBA in finance from HEC Montreal and a MBA from the University of Western Ontario, Ivey School of Business.
Nasir Khan
Co-Founder
Nasir has 25 years of technical, operations and strategic management experience in the bio-pharmaceutical industry involving setting CMC strategy, development and technology transfer and clinical-grade manufacturing of bioprocess derived products. His most recent experience was at AVEO Oncology as Associate Director of Biologics Outsourcing/CMC & Drug Development, where he was responsible for the company’s IND enabling activities, CMC activities and external development of a potential first-in-class Biologic GDF-15 inhibitor for treatment of cancer cachexia. He oversaw activities from cell line development to clinical GMP manufacturing achieving titers greater then the industry average and fast cDNA to large scale GMP timelines. Prior to this, Nasir was at Thallion Pharmaceuticals where he managed and spearheaded all aspects of development related to CMC and large scale GMP manufacturing of ShigaMabs, Thallion Pharmaceutical’s two lead Orphan Drug antibody drug candidates. Nasir played a key role in the recommendation and implementation of CMC strategy for early to later phase clinical development. Prior to Thallion, he was at DSM Biologics, a GMP contract manufacturer where he worked on multiple antibody programs leading a team of 30 manufacturing associates in the downstream operations group. He also performed numerous successful international technology transfers which involved working with multiple companies in France, Netherlands and the UK. Nasir started his career in the industry in 1998 at Alexion Pharmaceuticals where he was part of the GMP, downstream Purification group. He holds a B.S in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of Connecticut, Storrs.
Rasheed Tijani, MS
Co-Founder
Rasheed is an experienced biotechnology professional and entrepreneur with over 20 years’ experience in the food, manufacturing, and biotechnology industry. As a founding partner and vice president at ProteoCell biotechnologies in Montreal Canada, Rasheed played an integral role in the setting up, funding and successful development of ProteoCell. In addition to his management and financial responsibilities at the company, he was also responsible for leading the development of a host of difficult to express recombinant proteins, biologics (including monoclonal antibodies) and viral vaccines. Rasheed’s previous employments in various capacities include DSM Biologics, Lonza Biologics, Momenta Pharmaceuticals and Sarepta. Rasheed has also successfully led international technology transfer programs that included Japan, Paris, and Brussels. Throughout his career, Rasheed has continued to refine his expertise in experimental science in the biopharmaceutics industry including in small business management, logistics, team building and operations. Rasheed is an alumnus of University of Lagos, Nigeria, and McGill University Montreal Canada.