TherimuneX Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a biopharmaceutical research and development company with offices and laboratories located in Doylestown and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The purpose of the Company is to fully exploit the commercial applications of a new medical discovery by Dr. James D. Thacker, Professor, Institute for Hepatitis and Virus Research and the Department of Microbiology & Immunology, Drexel University College of Medicine.
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Michael N. Pocalyko, MPA, MBA
Chairman of the Board of Directors
Mr. Pocalyko is the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Monticello Capital, an investment banking firm in Chantilly, Virginia. Monticello advises high growth companies in advanced technology industries. He is an entrepreneur, an international economist, and an experienced executive leader of high performance teams. Mr. Pocalyko has served on the Board of Directors of both private and publicly traded companies. He advises clients worldwide on financial structures, mergers and acquisitions, and capital investments. Mr. Pocalyko received his MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School and his MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He has been a trusted advisor to Dr. Thacker for the past 15 years.
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Jane A. Hart, MBA
Director
Ms. Hart has held senior management positions with Astra Zeneca, Roche Laboratories, and Sanofi-Aventis. Most recently she was the Vice-President of National Accounts and Licensing at Hythiam, Inc., an early stage company focusing on medical treatment of addiction. As a leader in her field, Ms. Hart was one of the first women in the U.S. to lead a national sales organization. Ms Hart serves on the Board of Directors of Medrisk, Inc., the leading claims management and medical services company in the workman's compensation area. She is an adjunct professor of marketing at the University of Northern Virginia. Ms. Hart received her MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
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James D. Thacker, PhD
President and Chief Science Officer
Dr. Thacker is the founder of TherimuneX Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and is a Professor at the Institute for Hepatitis and Virus Research where he maintains an office and research laboratory in the Pennsylvania Biotechnology Center in Doylestown, PA. He also holds a joint appointment as an Adjunct Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Drexel University College of Medicine where he maintains an office at the Queen Lane medical school campus in Philadelphia. Dr. Thacker's research in the host response to cell injury has led the discovery of a host derived regulator of the innate immune response and is the enabling technology for TherimuneX Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Through his 20+year scientific career Dr. Thacker has served in academia and managed contract research laboratories in the environmental and pharmaceutical services industries. TherimuneX is the third biotechnology company that Dr. Thacker has formed. His first venture, Thaco Research, Ltd., was a CRO where, among other successful projects, he developed a quantitative immunoassay for Rhom and Haas that was used to conduct environmental fate studies for a new product. This assay was patented and received the first "Green Technology Award" from the U.S. EPA for the significant reduction in the production of hazardous wastes over that which would have been generated with the conventional methods of analysis for these studies. This technology was also successfully utilized by other clients of Dr. Thacker (Sanofi Animal Health and Bayer).
Dr. Thacker transformed Thaco Research, Ltd into his second venture, GeneBact Biotechnologies, Inc. While at GeneBact he developed a second product, "V Strip 2" for the rapid cow-side diagnosis of sub-clinical mastitis. This product was based upon Dr. Thacker's patented technology for the rapid detection of viable bacteria in biological fluids. A derivative of V Strip 2 ('PortaChek") is currently being marketed in Europe by Porta Science, Inc. for the rapid detection of urinary tract infections in humans.
A second product that was being developed at GeneBact was a serum fraction that had been shown to be an effective adjunctive therapy with antibiotics for the treatment of lower respiratory disease in the horse. GeneBact was developing this serum fraction as the sole therapeutic for the treatment of mastitis in dairy cows and the serum fraction and its veterinary uses were patented. With a change of investor control in 2004, Dr. Thacker departed GeneBact, liquidating his own equity stake. GeneBact went on to license the serum fraction to Argyll Biotechnologies, Inc. for human use development.
Dr. Thacker formed TherimuneX in 2005 as a limited liability company. In 2008 TherimuneX formed a strategic partnership with Drexel University College of Medicine and moved to the Pennsylvania Biotechnology Center. In 2009 TherimuneX received its first SBIR Phase I grant and reorganized as a Delaware stock corporation, TherimuneX Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Dr. Thacker received his Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry with Honors from North Carolina State University where he also received his PhD in Organic Chemistry/Biochemistry. His graduate research made significant contributions to the landmark body of work that established the chemical signaling between insect predators and their host plants. Dr. Thacker holds six U.S. Patents and currently has two patents pending. Dr. Thacker is the recipient of two Research Fellowships and was the 2003 recipient of the Thomas A. Edison Emerging Technology Award.
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Management relies upon independent third-party scientific advisors for advice as to the design, conduct, and interpretation of study results. In the coming months we will formalize a Scientific Advisory Board to advise the Board of Directors on strategic aspects of the Company's long-range Research and Development Plan.
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Jeffrey Jacobson, MD
Professor of Medicine
Chief, Division of Infectious Diseases and HIV Medicine
Drexel University College of Medicine
Dr. Jacobson received his medical degree from Cornell University Medical College. He completed his internship at University of Wisconsin Hospitals and his residency and infectious disease fellowship at Mount Sinai Medical Center. Dr. Jacobson has extensive experience in the design and conduct of immune-based studies for HIV infection. He conducted the pivotal studies in the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG) that demonstrated the effectiveness of thalidomide in treating HIV-related aphthous ulceration of the oropharynx and esophagus. Dr. Jacobson collaborates with several biotechnology companies in developing monoclonal antibodies targeting proteins involved in the HIV-host cell interaction leading to viral entry. Dr. Jacobson has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals, and was the editor of Immunotherapy of Infectious Diseases.
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Timothy Block, PhD
Professor, Department of Microbiology and Immunology
Drexel University College of Medicine
Dr. Block is the Director of the Drexel Institute for Biotechnology and Virology Research, Founder and Director of the Hepatitis B Foundation, Director of the Institute for Hepatitis and Virus Research. He was instrumental in founding the Pennsylvania Biotechnology Center in Doylestown, PA. Dr. Block's research focuses mainly on hepatitis B and C as well as liver cancer. Using a pioneering glycobiology focus Dr. Block and his team have discovered two therapeutics now in human clinical trials and new biomarkers of disease (two of the discoveries are in human trials for early detection of liver and colorectal cancer). His research is now examining the role of protein folding in antigen presentation and how viruses antagonize and oppose the host innate immune system.
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Seth L. Welles, ScD, PhD
Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics
Drexel University School of Public Health
Dr. Welles has focused his research on the molecular epidemiology of the development of HIV-1 ARV resistance, and the impact of ARV resistance and host immunity on disease progression and vertical transmission. Dr. Welles has served as Co-PI and PI for HIV-1 ARV resistance projects since 1995. Previously, Dr. Welles served as senior statistician and epidemiologist for the ACTG, where he was part of a team of scientists to first demonstrate the capacity of plasma HIV-1 RNA level and CD4 cell count as surrogate markers of clinical progression at a quantitative level, and among the first to evaluate phenotypic and genotypic HIV-1 drug resistance in studies on HIV-1 virologic markers and host responses as prognostic/surrogate markers of disease. During the late 1980s, Dr. Welles trained in the viral epidemiology of HTLV-1 infection, working with Dr. Nancy Mueller to elucidate the relation of changes in host biomarkers to immune suppression and leukemogenesis. Dr. Welles has served on several NIH scientific review panels including study sections that have reviewed CFARs, the WHIS, and NCI's Viral Epidemiology Branch intramural research program. Taken together, Dr. Welles has had more than 16 years of relevant experience in the management and epidemiologic analysis of viral and immunologic biomarker data.
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