Our management team is comprised of experienced executives with long track records of success in the development of pharmaceuticals, biotechnology drugs and medical affairs.
Mr. Barach recently retired from Doubleline Capital, a $150 billion money management firm, where he was President and Co founder. He has over 43 years of experience in money management and finance in both the private and public sectors. He specialized in fixed income and his career spanned the highest and lowest interest rates in U.S. history.
Mr. Barach has substantial board experience. He served as vice chairman for Doubleline Funds since its inception in 2010 as well as Chief Executive Officer and vice chairman of Apex Mortgage Capital (AXM, NYSE).
Prior to founding Doubleline Mr. Barach spent 20 years at Trust Company of the West (TCW) where he was group managing director and CIO. He also was principal investment officer for the California Public Employees Retirement System ( PERS).
Mr. Barach is currently Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Vista Investment Group, a privately held real estate investment firm.
Mr. Bayat is Senior Vice President, Project Management at Equilibre Biopharmaceutical Corp. Prior to joining Equilibre, Mr. Bayat had leading roles in developing new drugs for treatment of hard-to-treat diseases, including planning and execution of development programs for Cyramza (ImClone / Eli Lilly), Sutent (Pfizer) and Rezurock (Kadmon), through regulatory filings, approvals and life-cycle-management, and development of INOpulse drug-device combination (Bellerophon). Mr. Bayat started his career as a Process Engineer and was responsible for the development, scale-up and commercial scale introduction of new chemical entities’ manufacturing processes as well as technology transfer to manufacturing sites in US, Europe and Mexico.
Mr. Bayat has a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Istanbul, a MS in Chemical Engineering from Louisiana Tech University, and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
Mr. Gordon is Équilibre BioPharmaceuticals Corp.’s Chief Operating Officer; Chief Legal and Compliance Officer; and Corporate Secretary. Prior to joining Équilibre, Mr. Gordon co-founded Kadmon Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: KDMN) and served as its Executive Vice President; General Counsel; Chief Administrative, Legal and Compliance Officer; and Corporate Secretary.
Mr. Gordon worked as an Assistant District Attorney for the City of New York (Bronx County) before working at several NYC law firms and founding his own firm, which handled complex litigation for a broad spectrum of individual and corporate clients.
Mr. Gordon earned his B.A. in Economics and Business Administration from Bar Ilan University, and his J.D. from Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center. He is admitted to practice law before the state bars of New York and New Jersey, the District of Columbia, the United States Supreme Court and the United States District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York.
Debra L. Maierhofer is Vice President of Pharmacovigilance and Medical Affairs at Équilibre Biopharmaceutical Corp. Prior to joining Équilibre, Ms. Maierhofer founded, built and developed the Pharmacovigilance and Medical Affairs departments for Kadmon Corporation, LLC.
In addition to leading the Pharmacovigilance and Medical Affairs departments, at Équilibre, Ms. Maierhofer collaborates with management to develop the leading quality management systems, including the development of vendor qualification, procedural documents and the implementation of validated quality systems.
Ms. Maierhofer graduated from Gannon University which she earned her B.S.B.A.; Management and Marketing. She later continued her education to pursue a career as a Registered Nurse, advancing into Management. Ms. Maierhofer has been working in the field of Pharmacovigilance for over 20 years for pharmacovigilance organizations (GlaxoSmithKline and Kadmon Corporation) and Clinical Research Organization, PPD.
Dr. Mandel-Portnoy is Senior Vice President of Clinical Operations and Data Management at Équilibre Biopharmaceuticals Corp. Prior to this role, Dr. Mandel-Portnoy founded Cardea Sciences, a Mount Sinai company, that developed novel technologies to risk-stratify Atrial Fibrillation patients and served as aspecial forces paramedic in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for four years.
Dr. Mandel-Portnoy is an expert in Cardiac Physiology and Electrophysiology with research interest and vast experience in Heart Rate Variability, Heart Rate Volatility and other cardiac-related physiological phenomenon to risk stratify cardiac patients. Presently, Dr. Mandel-Portnoy holds a faculty appointment and serves as adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Dr. Mandel-Portnoy holds a Ph.D. degree from the Clinical Research Ph.D. program at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, a Master’s degree in Physiology and Biophysics from the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology and a B.A. in Emergency Medicine from Ben-Gurion University.
Mr. McCracken is the Senior Vice President of CMC (Chemistry, Manufacturing and Controls) and is responsible for development, manufacturing and commercialization of Equilibre drug candidates. Mr. McCracken brings to Equilibre over 25 years of experience in biopharmaceutical and pharmaceutical drug development with roles in Analytical, Quality/Compliance, Validation, Manufacturing, Regulatory and Supply Chain. Mr. McCracken possesses depth of experience with small molecule, monoclonal antibodies, vaccines, blood-derived products as well as solid oral, oral liquid and sterile dose formulations. Mr. McCracken has been responsible for the advancement of clinical to commercial products with extensive experience in drug development strategy and interaction with regulatory agencies. Prior to joining Equilibre Mr. McCracken was the Chief Operating Officer for Noveome Biotherapeutics, overseeing manufacturing, clinical, quality, project management and regulatory operations. Prior to Noveome, Mr. McCracken worked for Kadmon, Acambis and MedImmune.
Mr. McCracken graduated from The University of Pittsburgh with a B.S. in Microbiology and holds an MBA from Frostburg University.
Ms. Seiffert is the Senior Vice President, Manufacturing and Compliance at Équilibre Biopharmaceutical Corp. Prior to joining Équilibre, Ms. Seiffert held Quality, Manufacturing, and Compliance roles at Kadmon Corporation. This included the development of GxP compliant processes that controlled the quality of manufacturing and clinical trial activities and implementing information systems. She has expertise in both clinical and commercial quality and product development and was involved in the inspection and approval of REZUROCK by the FDA, as well as the subsequent acquisition by Sanofi. Prior to this, she spent 12 years at GlaxoSmithKline.
Ms. Seiffert holds a Master of Business Administration and Bachelor of Science degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Pittsburgh.
Mr. Thorn is Chief Financial Officer of Équilibre Biopharmaceuticals Corp where he leads the company’s financial reporting, accounting, and related internal controls functions. Prior to Équilibre, Mr. Thorn served as Corporate Controller for Dragados USA Inc., a leading construction brand of the ACS Group. Previously, Mr. Thorn served as Controller of Turing Pharmaceuticals and Vice-President and Controller of Kadmon, both biopharmaceutical organizations with commercial and research operations. Mr. Thorn began his career with KPMG in the audit practice, serving clients in the consumer and industrial markets.
Mr. Thorn received a Bachelor of Science in Accounting and a Master’s of Business Administration in Public Accounting from St. John’s University and is a certified public accountant in the State of New York.
Mr. Tu is Deputy General Counsel and Senior Vice President, Legal, at Equilibre Biopharmaceutical Corp. Prior to joining Equilibre, Mr. Tu served as General Counsel and Chief Legal Officer at Signum Biosciences, a privately held specialty pharmaceutical company. Mr. Tu has over 25 years of experience as in-house counsel in the pharmaceutical industry, as well as experience in private law practice as an IP litigator, licensing and transactional attorney and patent advisor. Mr. Tu began his legal career as a law clerk for the Honorable Judge Leonard I. Garth (Third Circuit Court of Appeals) and the Honorable Justice Stewart Pollock (NJ Supreme Court).
Mr. Tu earned bachelor’s degrees in chemical engineering and biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an MBA in finance from Seton Hall University. He graduated magna cum laude from Seton Hall University of Law, where he served as the Symposium Editor for the Law Review. Mr. Tu is admitted to practice law in the states of New Jersey and New York, as well as in the Third Circuit and Federal Circuit Courts of Appeals, the United States District Courts of the District of New Jersey and the Southern District of New York, and the United States Court of Federal Claims. Mr. Tu is a registered patent attorney, admitted to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Ms. Younis, Vice President Regulatory affairs at Equilibre Biopharmaceuticals and PhD candidate in Vaccinology/Immunology, is a seasoned professional with a strong background in regulatory affairs, clinical research, product development, and quality assurance. As a former regulatory affairs and CMC professional at Janssen Vaccines & Prevention - Johnson & Johnson, she provided regulatory strategy and advice for IND, IMPD, Marketing Authorization Applications globally and Emergency Use Authorization applications. The licenses were submitted and granted for several prophylactic vaccines and therapeutic drugs. Ms. Younis holds a MSc in Biomedical Sciences, Immunology and Infectious Diseases from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and a B.AS in Life Sciences-Biomedical Sciences from Hogeschool Rotterdam.
Dr. Zanin-Zhorov is Senior Vice President of Translational Medicine at Équilibre Biopharmaceutical Corp. Prior to joining Équilibre, Dr. Zanin-Zhorov was a Vice President, Head of Immunology at Kadmon Holdings, Inc.,where she established a new research group and managed activities across research, clinical, regulatory, and business development. Dr. Zanin-Zhorov led the successful bench-to-bedside development of the selective ROCK2 inhibitor, REZUROCK, for a variety of inflammatory and fibrotic diseases including Psoriasis, Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis and significant contributed to the REZUROCK FDA approval for patients with chronic Graft Versus Host Disease.
Prior to Kadmon, Dr. Zanin-Zhorov was a postdoctoral fellow at NYU School of Medicine where she led research efforts in defining signaling pathways that control immune cell function during disease state. Over her research career in both academic and industrial settings, Dr. Zanin-Zhorov published more than 30 scientific papers in high-profile journals including Science, PNAS, JCO and she is a co-inventor on 13 patents.
Dr. Zanin-Zhorov holds a Ph.D. degree in Immunology from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, Master’s degree in Tumor Immunology and B.Sc. degree from Life Sciences Faculty at Tel-Aviv University in Israel.
Dr. Peter Anton is a Professor of Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and a Research Scientist at the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. He was founding director of the UCLA Center for HIV Prevention Research and director of the UCLA Center for AIDS Research Mucosal Immunology Core Laboratory, which operated from 1987-2018. He also served as past co-director of the Center for Inflammatory Bowel Disease at UCLA.
Dr. Anton graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University and received his MD from Case Western Reserve University. He did fellowship work at the Cholera Hospital, ICDDR, in Bangladesh and a year fellowship in pathology at Cleveland’s Institute of Pathology. He performed his internship and residency in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston Massachusetts. Dr. Anton began in his work at UCLA in 1986 with a gastroenterology fellowship and has been on faculty since 1989.
Dr. Anton’s research focuses on the degree of mucosal inflammation and altered co-receptor expression associated with HIV infection and associated therapeutic interventions, the potential use of the mucosa as a route of HIV immunization with various HIV vaccine candidates as well as microbicides for HIV mucosal prevention, investigating the interaction of HSV and HIV in mucosal pathogenesis and efforts to clarify the role of compartments in HIV pathogenesis.
Dr. Anton has been the PI on over 30 clinical trials including two Phase I HIV vaccine trials and two Phase I anti-HIV topical microbicide trials. He recently completed research as PI of the NIH IPCP U19 award “Microbicide Development Program” (MDP), with national/international sub-study sites, focusing on a developmental pipeline for rectal microbicides. These rectal microbicide efforts have continued with both the Clinical Trials Project within the second IPCP U19 Combination HIV Antiretroviral Rectal Microbicide (CHARM) which has six exploratory pre-Phase I microbicide trials and JHU’s DREAM project. His research has expanded into delayed-release vaginal drug delivery and IM/injectable drug delivery with Oak Crest Institute of Sciences’ U19 and Northwestern University’s UM1 SLAP-HIV.
Dr. Jacqueline French is a professor of Neurology in the Comprehensive Epilepsy Center at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and Founder/President of the Epilepsy Study Consortium, an academic group that has performed a number of early phase clinical trials in epilepsy and has developed new methodologies for epilepsy trials. Dr. French trained in Neurology at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York and did her fellowship training in EEG and epilepsy at Mount Sinai hospital and Yale University.
Dr. French has focused her research efforts on development of new therapeutics for epilepsy, and new methodologies for clinical trials. Over the past 20 years she has served as the principal investigator on a number of trials for new epilepsy drugs. She is responsible for creation of a number of new trial designs that have been accepted by regulatory authorities for new drug approval. Dr. French has been active in creating guidelines for the American Academy of Neurology and the International League Against Epilepsy. She chaired an AAN/AES committee that produced two widely quoted guidelines on the use of new antiepileptic drugs. She has served as chair of the International League Against Epilepsy North American Regional Commission, and Commission on Therapeutic strategies. Dr. French serves as the Chief Medical/Innovation Officer of the Epilepsy Foundation. She is the past president of the American Epilepsy Society. She is the past Secretary of the American Society of Experimental Neurotherapeutics. She is the recipient of the American Epilepsy Society Lennox Award (2017) and Service Award (2005), the Epilepsy Foundation Hero award (2013), and is an ILAE Ambassador for Epilepsy. She has authored over 300 articles and chapters, is the editor of three books, and lectures internationally on clinical trials and use of antiepileptic drugs.
Dr. Melsaether is a consultant for Clinical Research at Équilibre Biopharmaceuticals Corp. Prior to joining Équilibre, Dr. Melsaether served as faculty in the Departments of Radiology at Mount Sinai Hospital from 2018-2021 and at NYU from 2010-2018 as an Associate Professor. In these roles, she designed and led clinical research, published extensively, and cultivated a national and international speaking record.
Dr. Melsaether graduated with honors from the University of Wisconsin, Madison with her B.S. in biochemistry, molecular biology, and English, completed medical school at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, was awarded an NIH/Howard Hughes research fellowship, and completed residency and fellowship at NYU and Northwestern University, respectively.
Dr Stebbing is Editor-in-Chief of Oncogene and a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation. He has published over 650 papers and during the Covid-19 pandemic his work starting with artificial intelligence led to an FDA EUA for baricitinib, now a full approval. Dr. Stebbing has combined his medical career with healthcare investing and has worked with Atticus capital, Lansdowne and Vitruvian partners as well as previously chairing the board of BB Healthcare Trust. Dr. Stebbing originally gained a first-class medical degree from Trinity College Oxford prior to a residency at Johns Hopkins hospital. He is a Visiting Professor of Cancer Medicine at Imperial, London, having previously been an NIHR Research Translational Professor there.