About Us

Mr. Todd Binder is Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board of Directors of NEUVOGEN, and leads the company’s overall strategy to serve patients through the development of treatments for cancer. Prior to NEUVOGEN, he served as Chief Financial Officer of ZetaRx, a CAR T-Cell company where he gained a deep understanding of the promise of cellular immunotherapies. While at ZetaRx, he and the management team developed the lead program that Juno, now Bristol-Myers Squibb, is taking to market. Previously, Mr. Binder spent decades advising and investing in preclinical and clinical stage biotechnology companies. Mr. Binder learned the key value drivers for successful investments and companies in biotech while working as a Principal at Coastview Capital LLC. He has served as an Officer in the US Army, and as a consultant at McKinsey and Company, and has served in a number of line management positions. Mr. Binder holds an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business, and dual BA degrees in Economics and History from Pomona College. Mr. Binder also serves as a Board Member of Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope.

Dr. Mark Bagarazzi is Chief Medical Officer at NEUVOGEN where he is responsible for providing leadership and setting the overall strategic direction for the research and clinical development programs as well as managing regulatory advancement of the lead assets and pipeline. He has served as advisor to top biopharmaceutical companies on clinical development and regulatory affairs. Prior to NEUVOGEN, Dr. Bagarazzi was Chief Medical Officer of Inovio Pharmaceuticals, and oversaw the clinical development and regulatory advancement of their novel biologic and medical device platforms from preclinical to pivotal Phase III trials. Previously, Dr. Bagarazzi was Director of Worldwide Regulatory Affairs for Vaccines/Biologics at Merck Research Laboratories where he was responsible for the licensure of RotaTeq^® and lead the development team for Merck’s vaccine for the prevention of herpes zoster, ZOSTAVAX^®. Prior to joining industry, Dr. Bagarazzi was an assistant professor of pediatrics at Drexel College of Medicine where he served as director of the Pediatric HIV/AIDS program at St Christopher’s Hospital for Children where he trained in pediatrics. He subsequently completed a fellowship in pediatric infectious diseases at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Dr. Bagarazzi received his medical degree with honors from New Jersey Medical School and holds a BS in electrical engineering magna cum laude from New Jersey Institute of Technology. He has authored or co-authored dozens of scientific papers, with a focus on the subject of vaccines. Dr. Bagarazzi currently reviews Gene Therapy protocols for Castle IRB and is on the Gene Therapy Advisory Board for the WIRB Copernicus Group.

Dr. Sarah Korman is General Counsel and Secretary of the Board of Directors at NEUVOGEN where she is responsible for all legal aspects of the company. She has over 15 years of strategic legal and intellectual property (IP) experience within the biotechnology, pharmaceutical and medical device industries. Prior to joining NEUVOGEN, Dr. Korman was at Amgen Inc. where she directed IP-based life-cycle management strategy and managed the IP licensing and contracting team. Under her supervision, Amgen meaningfully expanded their patent estate to encompass multiple new combination products, including Enbrel^® Mini with AutoTouch^® and Neulasta^® Onpro^®. Previously, Dr. Korman held increasingly senior legal positions at Onyx Pharmaceuticals, where she counseled on IP, partnership and commercial matters and participated in the Amgen acquisition. Dr. Korman was also employed as a litigator and patent professional at Am-Law 100 law firms, foreign legal consultant at a patent boutique in Brazil and at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Coordination Office at the United Nations. Dr. Korman received dual undergraduate degrees from the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology (SDSM&T) (Chemistry, Materials Engineering), her PhD from the Pennsylvania State University (Materials Engineering/Nanotechnology), and her JD from DePaul University College of Law. Dr. Korman is a National Science Foundation Fellow and is an inventor on various patents directed to nano-enabled therapeutics. Her graduate research led to the formation of Keystone Nano, a nanotechnology-based drug delivery company offering technology currently the subject of clinical trials.

Dr. Cyrus Arman is Vice President of Corporate Development and Strategy at NEUVOGEN. He is responsible for corporate development, licensing, partnerships, alliance management, and corporate strategy functions. Previously, he was a Director in Amgen’s Corporate Strategy group and was responsible for assessing Amgen’s business development initiatives for licensing and acquisition, as well as clinical and commercial development initiatives for therapeutic area strategy and portfolio valuation. Prior to that role, he rebuilt and ran Amgen’s Global Competitive Intelligence and Strategy unit, which focused on competitive landscaping and product prioritization activities. Dr. Arman previously served as a Principal and Head of West Coast Operations for Deallus Consulting, a boutique life sciences strategy firm. He is also the Co-Founder and Managing Director of BioVega Capital, an event-driven life sciences hedge fund. Dr. Arman has an MBA from the University of California Los Angeles, a PhD in Neuroscience and an MS in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Southern California, and BS in Biopsychology from the University of California San Diego.

Mr. David Baker serves as Vice President of Manufacturing at NEUVOGEN and is responsible for leading bioprocess development, scale-up, technical transfer, and manufacturing operations. He has 30 years of progressive experience in the biotechnology industry, most recently as Senior Director, Process Engineering at F1 Oncology, now EXUMA Biotech, where he successfully developed and performed technical transfer of CAR-T lentiviral vector production and purification processes to a GMP manufacturing facility. Mr. Baker was previously Vice President of Manufacturing at Lubris Biopharma, leading product development and manufacturing efforts for the Recombinant Human Lubricin program. Prior to Lubris, Mr. Baker was the Director of Manufacturing for Halozyme Therapeutics, working for over 10 years at increasing levels of responsibility in the development and commercialization of large- scale production processes for the Recombinant Human Hyaluronidase product platform. Mr. Baker has also spent several years as a biopharmaceutical consultant, and began his scientific career with IDEC Pharmaceuticals Corporation, now Biogen, where he was employed for over 8 years as a supervisor of rituximab cell culture manufacturing operations. Mr. Baker holds a BS degree in Psychobiology with an emphasis in Business Administration from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Mr. Keith Pelton serves as Treasurer and Controller at NEUVOGEN where he is responsible for financial reporting and supporting Operations. Mr. Pelton is a finance professional with over 20 years of experience including mergers and acquisitions, public accounting, and healthcare finance, and has held positions at Deloitte, Goldman Sachs, and United Healthcare. Mr. Pelton also led finance and accounting at Coastview Capital, a Los Angeles-based biotechnology venture capital firm, for more than seven years. Mr. Pelton received a BA degree in Business Economics from the University of California Los Angeles.

Mr. Dan Shawler serves as Vice President of Operations at NEUVOGEN and is responsible for facilities and other operations. He is an immunologist and cellular biologist with over 40 years of experience in laboratory research, including over 35 years of experience in clinical investigation research and has managed multiple Phase I, II, III clinical trials. Prior to NEUVOGEN, he served as Senior Vice President of Operations at NovaRx and was a co-developer of the vaccine technology used for clinical development programs. An accomplished researcher, he was a member of the gene therapy team at the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center in La Jolla, California that performed the first immune gene therapy of brain cancer, and conducted clinical research for the Scripps Research Institute, the University of California San Diego (UCSD), GenStar Inc., and Biotherapeutics, Inc. Mr. Shawler has published over 50 scientific papers, including 47 in the fields of preclinical and clinical cancer research and 15 in the field of cancer gene therapy. He is a member of the American Association for Cancer Research and the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy and is a past member of the American Association of Immunologists and the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. Mr. Shawler received a BA in Biology from the University of California San Diego.

Dr. Bernadette Ferraro serves as the Head of Immunoncology at NEUVOGEN and is responsible for leading a multidisciplinary team of scientists developing cutting edge immunoassays that support the company’s immunoncology clinical development programs. Prior to NEUVOGEN, she led the Preclinical Immunoncology team at Inovio Pharmaceuticals, where she oversaw the preclinical development of several cancer immunotherapies and played a key role in supporting research efforts enabling partnerships. Previously, she spent more than a decade developing prophylactic and therapeutic products for several different disease targets with a strong focus on immunotherapies designed to activate the adaptive immune response for the treatment of cancer. She also is a co-inventor on several patents directed to infectious disease and cancer immunotherapy products. Dr. Ferraro holds a BS degree in Microbiology from the University of South Florida, an MPH in Epidemiology, and a PhD in Molecular Medicine from the University of South Florida College of Medicine. She completed her post-doctoral training in the laboratory of David B. Weiner at the University of Pennsylvania Pearlman School of Medicine.

Dr. Jian Yan is Head of Innovation and Design at NEUVOGEN. She brings more than 15 years of experience in leading preclinical research programs for the development of novel immunotherapies. Prior to NEUVOGEN, she led a cross-functional team at Inovio Pharmaceuticals that provided strategic insights into the prioritization and down-selection of therapeutic indications for DNA-based vaccine programs. She also provided leadership in novel therapeutic vaccine target evaluation, discovery, and design. Dr. Yan began her career as a postdoctoral researcher at University of Pennsylvania where she created and established a novel vaccine design strategy and designed and developed multiple therapeutic vaccines. Many of the immunotherapies that she has invented have been licensed and are currently in clinical development. She has authored over 80 peer-reviewed publications in the area of novel synthetic nucleic immunotherapy, and is co-inventor of more than 60 patents to innovative vaccine and antibody claims. She was selected as one of the “Top 20 Translational Researchers” for the years of 2016 and 2018 by Nature Biotechnology. Dr. Yan received her PhD in Molecular Biology and Genetics from Fudan University through a co-training program between Fudan University and Yale University.

Dr. Nicolas Schrantz serves as the Head of Product Development at NEUVOGEN, and is responsible for supporting new target identification, design implementation, validation, process development, scale-up and commercialization. Dr. Schrantz has extensive experience in immunology research and monoclonal antibody development and brings more than a decade of product development leadership. Prior to joining NEUVOGEN, he headed the Monoclonal Antibody Development and Validation team at Thermo Fisher Scientific. Prior, he served as Director of Product Development at Affymetrix, and Director of Specificity Development at eBioscience. Earlier in his academic career, Dr. Schrantz was a Postdoctoral fellow at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California and focused on how lipid adjuvants can be used to activate Natural Killer T cells and break immune tolerance. He has authored or co-authored numerous scientific papers published in prestigious journals including Science. Dr. Schrantz received his PhD with honors in Immunology from Rene Descartes University and his BS degree with honors in Biochemistry from Pierre & Marie Curie University.

Mr. Gordon Binder is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of NEUVOGEN. He was Chief Executive Officer of Amgen, Inc. the world’s largest biotech company, from 1988 through 2000. During Mr. Binder’s tenure as CEO, the company grew from 400 employees to 7,000 to rank within the top 20 pharmaceutical companies in worldwide revenues, the top 15 in U.S. sales, and the top 10 in market capitalization. He joined Amgen in 1982 as CFO, having previously served as CFO of System Development Corporation, a computer system and software company primarily serving the federal government, and in financial management positions at Litton Industries and Ford Motor Company. Mr. Binder served as Chairman of BIO, the biotechnology industry trade association and as Chairman of PHRMA, the pharmaceutical industry trade association. He also served as a member of the Board of Directors of MIT, Caltech, AEI (the American Enterprise Institute) and Pepperdine University. After retiring from Amgen, Mr. Binder founded Coastview Capital LLC, a biotech venture capital firm. He is a graduate of Purdue University and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Mr. Binder is the author of Science Lessons: What the Business of Biotech Taught Me About Management.

Mr. Todd Binder is Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board of Directors of NEUVOGEN, and leads the company’s overall strategy to serve patients through the development of treatments for cancer. Prior to NEUVOGEN, he served as Chief Financial Officer of ZetaRx, a CAR T-Cell company where he gained a deep understanding of the promise of cellular immunotherapies. While at ZetaRx, he and the management team developed the lead program that Juno, now Bristol-Myers Squibb, is taking to market. Previously, Mr. Binder spent decades advising and investing in preclinical and clinical stage biotechnology companies. Mr. Binder learned the key value drivers for successful investments and companies in biotech while working as a Principal at Coastview Capital LLC. He has served as an Officer in the US Army, and as a consultant at McKinsey and Company, and has served in a number of line management positions. Mr. Binder holds an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business, and dual BA degrees in Economics and History from Pomona College. Mr. Binder also serves as a Board Member of Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope.

Mr. Denny Lanfear is a member of the Board of Directors at NEUVOGEN. He serves as Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Coherus BioSciences, the world’s largest biosimilar company. He is a biosimilar pioneer and biopharmaceutical leader with a proven track record of successful entrepreneurial vision and achievement. In 2010, after decades working in the biopharmaceutical industry, Mr. Lanfear founded Coherus BioSciences with the vision of improving the public’s access to high-quality, life-changing medicines. Under his leadership, Coherus BioSciences was transformed from an unfunded startup into the industry’s leading pure play biosimilar company, with over $1.25 billion in funding being raised since its inception. Coherus has experienced outstanding success with the launch of its first drug, UDENYCA® (pegfilgrastim-cbqv). A dedicated entrepreneur, Mr. Lanfear founded and served as CEO at two other companies before Coherus: Saronyx, Inc., a drug development software services company, and the biopharmaceutical company InteKrin Therapeutics. Mr. Lanfear has held various senior leadership roles at Amgen Inc., serving as Vice President of Process Development and Vice President of Market Development. During his 13-year tenure at Amgen he also acquired substantial operations experience, and was tasked with integrating more than 2,500 operations and staff worldwide after the company’s explosive growth. Mr. Lanfear’s product development experience includes various leadership positions with multiple product development programs including growth factors, somatotrophins, and neurotrophins, having directed efforts from preclinical studies to Phase 3 clinical trials. Mr. Lanfear holds BS degrees in Chemical Engineering and Biochemistry from Michigan State University and an MBA from the Anderson School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Dr. Kendall M. Mohler serves as NEUVOGEN’s science advisor and operational board member. Dr. Mohler is Chief Development Officer at Accelerator Life Science Partners, bringing more than three decades of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry, including several years of leading scientific research and development teams in the areas of autoimmune disease, inflammation, and oncology. He works closely with all Accelerator Life Science Partner I portfolio companies, where he provides oversight over key scientific research and product development activities. Prior to joining Accelerator, Dr. Mohler served as Senior Vice President of Research and Chief Scientific Officer of Juno Therapeutics Inc.. He also served as Chief Science Officer at ZetaRx, a predecessor company that was acquired by Juno. Prior to Juno, Dr. Mohler co-founded Trubion Pharmaceuticals Inc.and and served as their Chief Scientific Officer and Senior Vice President, overseeing the development of several first-in-class product candidates and supporting several partnerships with global pharmaceutical companies. Prior to Trubion, Dr. Mohler he served as Vice President of Biological Sciences of Immunex Corporation , where he led research and development activities in the areas of transplantation, autoimmunity & inflammation. He was the preclinical lead for Enbrel’s® (etanercept) research and development activities and successfully shepherded the product from inception of the development program through BLA approval. Dr. Mohler has published more than 35 manuscripts and is a named inventor on multiple issued patents and pending patent applications. He received a PhD in Immunology from the University of Texas Health Science Center and a BS from the University of Kansas.