about us

Board of Directors

Andrew Scott Blank was appointed to our board effective October 1, 2019 and is currently serving as Chairman of our board of directors. Mr. Blank is President of National Brands, Inc., an investment group that was one of the largest Anheuser-Busch beer distributors prior to divestiture of those operations, and has served in that capacity since March 1993. Mr. Blank also currently serves as President of WareITis Technologies, developer of one of the foremost enterprise level content management software suites called Records Studio; Archive America, one of the country’s largest family-owned document storage firms; and Seaboard Warehouse Terminals, a provider of nationwide third-party logistics services. Mr. Blank holds a bachelor’s degree in business from the University of Miami.

Simon H. Stertzer, M.D. has served on our board since 2002 and was previously Chairman of our board of directors. Dr. Stertzer is a Professor of Medicine, Emeritus at the Stanford University School of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, and a Professor at the Stanford University Biodesign Program. He served as Assistant Resident in Medicine at New York University and later as Chief Medical Resident at New York University Division of Bellevue Hospital. Dr. Stertzer was a founder and board member of Arterial Vascular Engineering, an angioplasty balloon and stent company that went public in 1996 and was subsequently acquired by Medtronic. Dr. Stertzer served as Director of the Catheterization Laboratory at Lenox Hill Hospital from 1971 to 1983. He was the Director of Medical Research and Director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory at the San Francisco Heart Institute from 1983 until 1993. He was appointed Professor of Medicine at Stanford University in 1998 and became Professor Emeritus at Stanford University in 2011. Dr. Stertzer received his Doctor of Medicine degree from New York University. He also earned a Certificat de Physiologie from the University of Paris (Sorbonne) and had a fellowship at New York University Hospital in Cardiovascular Disease. Dr. Stertzer received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Humanities from Union College.

Jay M. Moyes has served on our board of directors since 2011. He has served on the board of directors of Puma Biotechnologies (NYSE: PBYI) since April 2012, and on the board of directors of Achieve Life Sciences from 2018 to the present and on the board of directors and Chairman of the Audit Committee of Osiris Therapeutics (NASDAQ: OSIR), a biosurgical company, from May 2006 until December 2017. He also served as a member of the board of directors and Chairman of the Audit Committee of Integrated Diagnostics, a privately held molecular diagnostics company, from 2011 to 2016. From 2012 to 2014, Mr. Moyes served as a member of the board of directors of Amedica Corporation, a publicly traded orthopedics company, and as Chief Financial Officer from 2013 to 2014. Mr. Moyes was the Chief Financial Officer of Sera Prognostics, Inc. (NASDAQ: SERA), a women’s health diagnostics company, from March 2020 to June 2023. From 2008 to 2009, Mr. Moyes served as Chief Financial Officer of CareDx, a publicly traded molecular diagnostics company. Prior to that, he served as Chief Financial Officer of Myriad Genetics, Inc., a publicly held healthcare diagnostics company, from June 1996 until his retirement in November 2007, and as Vice President of Finance from July 1993 until July 2005. From 1991 to 1993, Mr. Moyes served as Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer of Genmark, a privately held genetics company. Mr. Moyes held various positions with the accounting firm of KPMG from 1979 to 1991. He also served as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Utah Life Science Association from 1999 to 2006. Mr. Moyes holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Utah, a Bachelor of Arts in economics from Weber State University and is formerly a Certified Public Accountant.

Krisztina Zsebo, Ph.D., a 31-year veteran of the biotech industry, was appointed to our board of directors in December 2020. Dr. Zsebo has extensive biotechnology experience in discovery, development, and commercialization, having raised more than $200 million to support operations and having launched breakthrough technologies and products with total annual sales exceeding $3.5 billion. She was an integral member of the Amgen team that first cloned the molecule that would become Neupogen; identified the molecule and led the Amgen research team that developed Stemgen; and led Xenotech, a division of Cell Genysis, which developed Vectibix, a fully human antibody technology for colorectal cancer. In addition to her leadership and development experience, Dr. Zsebo has contributed to 113 biotechnology publications, has been awarded 34 composition, process and method patents, and has 26 patents pending. She earned her Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley.

Richard Krasno, Ph.D. was appointed to our board of directors in October 2016. Dr. Krasno has served as a director of Ladenburg Thalmann (NYSEMKT: LTS) since March 2015, Castle Brands, Inc. since 2014, and OPKO Health, Inc. since 2017. Dr. Krasno served as the executive director of the William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust from 1999 to 2014 and, from 1999 to 2010, as president of the four affiliated funds. Prior to that, Dr. Krasno was the president of the Monterey Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California. From 2004 to 2012, Dr. Krasno also served as a director of the University of North Carolina Health Care System and served as chairman of the board of directors from 2009 to 2012. From 1981 to 1998, he served as president and chief executive officer of the Institute of International Education in New York. He also served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Education in Washington, D.C. from 1979 to 1980. Mr. Krasno holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of Illinois and a Ph.D. from Stanford.

Jim Allen was appointed to our board of directors effective October 1, 2019. Mr. Allen is Chief Executive Officer and President of Sea Star, Inc., a real estate development company, and has served in that capacity since he founded the company in February 1989. Mr. Allen has founded multiple companies from concept to full operation involving the development of various technologies, patents, manufacturing processes, and sales, distribution and maintenance programs. Six of his ventures have resulted in sales to publicly-traded companies. He is a named inventor on 29 issued and pending patents. Mr. Allen studied business at Troy University and Auburn University at Montgomery.

Peter Altman, Ph.D. has served as our President and Chief Executive Officer since 2002 and has global responsibility for the development, manufacture and marketing of our therapeutic candidates and products. He was founding Chief Executive Officer from 1999 to 2003 and board member of CareDx (NASDAQ: CDNA) from 1999 to 2014, a developer of a gene-based diagnostics to be used in chronic inflammatory diseases, including cardiac transplantation, coronary artery disease and systemic lupus erythematosus. He was also founding Chief Executive Officer for Lumen Therapeutics from 2004 to 2005, an early-stage pharmaceutical company. He has extensive experience in life science research and product development, is named inventor in 45 U.S. patents, and has authored 40 scientific publications. Dr. Altman currently serves as a director on the board of Oncocyclist Biotech. He received his Ph.D. in Bioengineering/Pharmaceutical Chemistry from the University of California, San Francisco and University of California, Berkeley, his Management of Technology certificate from the Walter A. Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, and both his Master of Science and Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Dr. Altman has been elected Fellow of the American Heart Association.