Dr. Ramachandran brings to the company eighteen years of rich and distinguished executive experience in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry. Dr. Ramachandran was Head, R & D of AstraZeneca, Bangalore. He served as President of Astra Biochemicals Private Ltd and of the merged entity AstraZeneca India. During his tenure with Astra and AstraZeneca, he established state-of-the art R & D programs for discovering and developing novel therapies for the treatment of tuberculosis and antibiotic resistant infection.

In 1988, as Vice President of research at Neurex Corporation in Menlo Park, California, he spearheaded the development of highly selective neuronal calcium channel antagonists derived from the venoms of marine, fish-eating cone snails. SNX-111, a synthetic conopeptide with three disulfide bonds was shown to be highly effective in suppressing chronic intractable pain in cancer patients. Clinical trials including two pivotal phase III trials were completed successfully and SNX-111 received approvable status under the name Ziconotide in June 2000. Ten thousand times more potent than morphine, Ziconotide is the first and only non-opiate (non-addictive) drug produced for intractable pain. Elan Pharmaceuticals acquired Neurex Corporation in 1998 for seven hundred million dollars. Dr. Ramachandran started his career in the biotech industry at Genentech, Inc. where he pioneered the molecular cloning and expression of several important cell surface receptors (including the human insulin receptor), thus making these targets accessible for the development of novel therapies based on high throughput screening of combinatorial libraries. Prior to this, he was on the faculty of the University of California as a member of the Hormone Research Laboratory and the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics where he became Associate Professor (1972) and Professor (1978). Dr. Ramachandran has researched extensively on the structure and function of polypeptide hormones of the pituitary as well as the molecular basis of transmembrane signaling through cell surface receptors and ion channels.

Dr. Ramachandran is a member of the Indian Academy of Sciences (elected in 1988). He was a member of the Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee on Tropical Diseases Research for the World Health Organization (1990-92). During the past ten years, he has been actively involved in the development of novel strategies to combat infection. Dr. Ramachandran received his Ph.D.in Biochemistry from the University of California at Berkeley, holds an MS degree in Chemistry from De Paul University in Chicago and Bachelor of Science (Chemistry) with Honours from the University of Madras.

Dean Cash is Chairman and CEO of ATEL Capital Group, a San Francisco based international financial services company, founded in 1977. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Math followed by an MBA from Florida State University. Mr. Cash began his career in 1975 as a systems engineer with Electronic Data Systems (EDS). He then worked for General Electric Corporation in the medical systems division installing computer and patient records systems around North America. A transfer to GEISCO, General Electric’s information systems division selling computer time sharing followed. He joined ATEL in 1981 as Director of Marketing, became Executive Vice President in 1983, and a Director in 1984. In 2000 he purchased a majority interest in ATEL and became its Chairman and CEO.

Mr. Cash serves on the board of directors of the Gangagen Corporation, a biotech company researching new anti-bacterial treatments for “super bugs”. He also owns a controlling interest in Hawaiian Building Maintenance, the largest Honolulu based building services company with approximately 600 employees.

Mr. Cash is active within the nonprofit community in San Francisco and serves on the Board of Governors of the San Francisco Symphony. He and his wife Eliza established the ATEL Foundation, a private philanthropic organization dedicated to providing funding to organizations that seek to better the lives of citizens in their respective communities.

He has lived in San Francisco since 1977. Married to Eliza in 1985, they have two sons – Max, 25 years old who is a graduate of USC; and Sam, 22 years old and is currently a senior at USC.

Mr. Chiaranussati founded Real Estate Capital Asia Partners (RECAP), a series of Opportunistic Pan-Asian real estate private equity funds, in late 2004. RECAP I, II and III have a successful 10-year cumulative track record and $1.7 billion in invested capital. In July 2014, RECAP IV, with a target of $750 million, was launched with a first close in September of the same year. A final close of $850mm was achieved December 5, 2014.

Mr. Chiaranussati leads RECAP’s team of 23 professionals, and has provided key leadership and direction since its inception. Mr. Chiaranussati serves as Chairman of the Investment Committee and participates in acquisition, value enhancement and realization activities.

Before forming RECAP, he spent six years with Westbrook Partners and Westbrook Real Estate Partners (WREP). He opened WREP’s Asia office in Singapore in March 1999 and served as a Managing Director responsible for WREP’s Asian investment activities till late 2004.

Before joining WREP, Mr. Chiaranussati spent seven years at J.P. Morgan, based in Singapore and covering Southeast Asia, where he served as a Vice President in the Proprietary Investment and Investment Banking Groups, focusing on real estate and financial institutions. Prior to that, he worked with Temasek Holdings, an investment holding company of the Government of Singapore and the Central Bank of Thailand.

Mr. Chiaranussati received an Honors Degree in Economics in 1986 from the London School of Economics and a Masters of Science in Management Science in 1987 from Imperial College in London.

Mr. Farkas is Chairman and a General Partner of ICF Ventures. He was formerly Chairman and CEO of Alexander's Department Store (1984-1993) and was with the company for 30 years. Mr. Farkas has served on the boards of many companies in the United States and India, and he has also served in a number of prominent public service positions, including Chairman of the New York State Dormitory Authority (1995-1996).

Mr. Kwek is a private equity investor in the technology, biotechnology, and oil and gas space for companies in their early to growth stage phase of development. He has expertise in investments and financial analysis and is the CEO of Epitech International, a cancer screening company. He has worked for a number of government-linked organizations, NGOs, and for-profit corporations over the past 7 years. He holds a BS degree in business from the Wharton School of Business, concentrating in finance, together with a BA degree in international relations and psychology from U.Penn, and an MA degree in politics from Columbia University.He is one of the lead investors in GangaGen, representing the Series F preferred stock stockholders, and has been instrumental in allowing GangaGen to conduct its clinical trials in Singapore for the P128 as well as providing the leads for GangaGen’s collaboration with the biotechnology agencies in Singapore such as A-Star and ETC.

Dr. Balganesh has three decades of experience in the area of antibacterial drug discovery. As the Head of Research at AstraZeneca (AZ), Bangalore India, he led the unit to deliver AZ’s first anti-tuberculosis molecule for clinical development. Immediately before taking up his assignment at Gangagen, he was mentoring drug discovery programmes in different Indian National Laboratories under Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Government of India in the capacity of “Distinguished Scientist”.

Dr. Balganesh is trained as a Medical Microbiologist. His doctorate work was on ‘Drug resistance in Vibrio cholerae’ at University of Calcutta. He gained his post-doctoral experience at Brookhaven National Laboratory, New York, USA, and Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Berlin, Germany.

His research experience is mainly in the area of infectious diseases. He led the ‘Diarrhoeal Diseases’ and ‘Broad-Spectrum anti-bacterial project’ teams at AstraZeneca, Bangalore. He then went on to lead the anti-tuberculosis programme at AstraZeneca, which delivered the compound currently in Phase 2 of clinical development. The group at AZ, Bangalore that Dr. Balganesh led was globally acknowledged as one of the leading groups in this area and had several collaborative programmes with organisations like the Global Alliance for TB and was a partner in global consortia like the EU FW6/7 programme towards finding new medicines for the treatment of tuberculosis. He was also responsible for initiating the anti-malarial drug discovery programme at AZ, India, which was a highly successful project that worked closely with Medicines for Malaria Venture. He has ~ 30 publications and ~10 patents to his credit.

Dr. Balganesh was awarded Honorary Doctorate from University of Uppsala in recognition of his work in tuberculosis and malaria. He is on the review panel of drug discovery programmes like ‘Innovative Medicines Initiative’; a European Union (EU) programme to find novel treatments for Gram-negative bacterial pathogens. He continues to guide research programmes in several National Laboratories in India.

Mr. Vinod Jadhav is Managing Director of SAVA Medica Limited. He founded SAVA Group (www.savaglobal.com) in 2003. It has grown to a full fledged pharmaceutical organisation with facets like Contract Research and Manufacturing (CRAM), Domestic and International Marketing and has presence in 30 countries through various SAVA Group companies. Mr. Vinod Jadhav started his professional career in 1990 after completing Mechanical Engineering from Cusrow Wadia Institute of Technology,Pune. His 21 years of experience includes Marketing, Sales, Supply Chain Management, Regulatory and Corporate Affairs in various capacities.

Dr. Kumar obtained the Ph.D degree (1963) in Biochemistry from the Indian Institute of Science and received post doctoral training (1963-1966) at Tufts University Medical School, Boston and the Scripps Clinic & Research Foundation, LaJolla, Calif. He worked as a Senior Research Fellow (1967-1971) at the Indian Institute of Science, Guest Scientist (1971-1972) at Roche Institute of Molecular Biology Nutley NJ, Asstt Professor at the City University of New York (1972- 1978) and later (1978-1988) as Senior Research Scientist for the New York State Department of Health in Albany, New York. He held a joint appointment initially as Associate Professor and later as Professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the Graduate School of Public Health Sciences, State University of New York (SUNY) Albany, NY. He also served as Adjunct Professor in the Department of Chemistry at SUNY, Albany. NY. He has been associated with AstraZeneca (formerly Astra) since 1988. Dr. Kumar is a founding member of several Foundations and Companies in India and abroad. To name a few, MIHR- Management of Intellectual Property for Health Resources, a non-Profit Trust in Oxford UK and also of AstraZeneca Research Foundation India-a non profit society endowed by AstraZeneca. Companies founded include Syngene International, Bangalore Genei, and Gangagen Biotechnologies (all in Bangalore).

Dr. Kumar has served on several Committees which include; the Medical Biotechnology Task Force, the Indo-US Vaccine Action Programme Apex Committee (both of the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India),. The Research Advisory Committee of the P.D.Hinduja National Medical Research Institute, Mumbai, India and on the Expert Committee for Biologics, Biotechnology, Proteins and Polysaccharides of the Unites States Pharmacopoeia.