Leadership | Mellitus

Leadership

Michael Chorev, Ph.D.
Co-Founder & Board Member

Michael Chorev, Ph.D. is an Associate-in-Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, an Associate Professor of Medicine (Biochemistry) at the Harvard Medical School and a faculty member of the Laboratory for Translational Research at the Department of Medicine of Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He led the development of the key reagents used in the diagnosis of glycated CD59. He has co-authored over 200 scientific articles and reviews in journals, chapters in monographs and books, and over 40 awarded and filed patents. He serves as an Editor for Journal of Peptide Science and is the recipient of the 2013 Vincent du Vigneaud Award from the American Peptide Society. Prof. Chorev is co-inventor of ladostigil and rivastigmine (Exelon®). Previously, Prof. Chorev held the Drs. Margaret and Henry Zentner Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry Chair at Hebrew University.

Prof. Chorev received his B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the Hebrew University and completed his post-doctoral training at University of California, San Diego.

Christopher de Souza, Ph.D.
Board Member

Christopher de Souza is a Director at Broadview Ventures in Boston. He started his pharmaceutical career at Novartis as senior scientist in the Metabolic and Cardiovascular Diseases group and then Director of Strategic Alliances. After Novartis, Christopher was VP of Business Development at SkyePharma US and also founded a business development consulting practice.

Dr. de Souza received an MBA from Rutgers University and a Ph.D. in physiology from Louisiana State University. He completed his post-doctoral training at “The Upjohn Company” and the Joslin Diabetes Center/Harvard Medical School.

Jose A. Halperin, M.D.
Co-Founder & Board Member

Jose Halperin, M.D. is a physician and researcher at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where he serves as Director of the Laboratory for Translational Research in the Division of Hematology, and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is a pioneer in the understanding of the role of the complement system and the complement regulator CD59 in the pathogenesis of diabetes complications. Dr. Halperin holds over 40 awarded or filed patents, several of which have been licensed by Harvard University to companies working on bringing his inventions to the marketplace. Previously, Dr. Halperin founded and was a board member of Best Doctors, Inc. Dr. Halperin is also a founder and board member of Bioambar, SPA.

Dr. Halperin earned his M.D. degree from the University of Buenos Aires School of Medicine.

E. Hunterson Henrie, II
Board Member

Hunt is an experienced financial, strategic and biomedical executive with over 30 years of broad-based global financial, investment banking, private equity and corporate operating experience in public and private healthcare companies. He is currently the Chief Business Officer of TISSIUM, a Paris-based medical device company which is developing products for atraumatic tissue reconstruction. He also advises a range of global medical device and diagnostics companies on business and financing strategy and is the Managing Partner of Sachuest Partners.  

Hunt received his Master of Arts in International Economics from The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and graduated Cum Laude with his Bachelor of Arts from Boston University. He has also achieved an Executive Certificate in Financial Management from the Graduate School of Business of Stanford University.

Shailendra Kumar, Ph.D.

Executive Vice President, Research and Development

Dr. Kumar serves as the Executive Vice President of Research and Development at Mellitus leading all aspects of product development. He has nearly 30 years of experience in academia, biotech and diagnostics industries. Previously, he served as Vice President of Diagnostic Technologies at BOA Biomedical a portfolio company of Miraki Innovation, where he managed sepsis diagnostics and therapeutic development, clinical studies and regulatory activities. Dr. Kumar has a breadth of experience in developing a wide variety of IVD platforms and diagnostic products for diseases including Covid-19, HIV, Dengue, Malaria, Typhoid, Anthrax, Chagas, Leishmania, Clostridium difficile, UTI infections, blood chemistry (Glucose, cholesterol, glycosylated hemoglobin, ALT, AST, triglycerides, creatinine etc.), bladder and breast cancer. Additionally, he is experienced in bringing IVDs to market through FDA clearance and CE marking. Prior to BOA he was a Senior Director at Chembio Diagnostics, where he was instrumental in managing research and development of point-of-care IVD devices for a number of infectious diseases. Prior to Chembio, he held various roles of increasing responsibility at First Light Diagnostics, Diagnostics For All, Matritech, Mass Diagnostics and Ranbaxy Laboratories.

Dr. Kumar received his Masters and Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Aligarh University and Central Drug Research Institute, India. He worked as a post-doctoral fellow and instructor at University of Illinois at Chicago and Harvard Medical School (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston).

Gail Page
Board Member

Ms. Page has spent her entire career in health care and has a passion for emerging technologies that advance the efforts in personalized medicine and wellness. As an independent Board Member of Mellitus, her partnering, investing and commercial experience will be invaluable. Ms. Page currently serves as a Venture Partner and consultant to Turret Capital and as Investment Advisor to Solas Bio Ventures. Her board appointments include Sword Diagnostics, Inc. and NxPrenatal, Inc. where she serves as Executive Chair. Her executive leadership experiences include President & CEO of Vermillion, Inc. focused on developing and commercializing a novel multi-proteomic/MAAA blood test for ovarian cancer, as well as Interim CEO of Chembio (CEMI:NASDAQ) a leader in point of care testing for infectious and other diseases. Ms. Page served on the Executive Managment team at Laboratory Corporation of America in various executive management roles and within academia (Univ. Florida/Shands Teaching Hospital).
Ms. Page earned degrees from Santa Fe Community College and the University of Florida and an
executive management program at Northwestern’s Kellogg School.

John Tagliamonte
CEO

Mr. Tagliamonte has more than 30 years of biotech industry experience with responsibility for business development, business and commercial operations, strategic planning, finance and legal functions growing established and emerging life sciences companies.  He serves on the Advisory Boards of startups Tantu, Mark Therapeutics and PhagePro.  Previously he led corporate development and alliance functions at Oxyrane, Anchor, ImmunoGen and Johnson & Johnson (Ortho Clinical Diagnostics) as well as venture investing with Safeguard.   He began his career as a scientist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute followed by global business unit management at Bio-Rad.  Mr. Tagliamonte received his M.B.A. from Boston College and his B.S. in molecular biology from Tufts University.

Kathy Welch, CPA
Head of Finance

Kathy Welch comes to Mellitus from Danforth Advisors and has over 20 years’ experience at the Controller and CFO level.  Ms. Welch is an accomplished accounting professional with extensive experience assisting companies as they meet the challenges of growth, transition and automation, while continually improving accounting control and financial reporting.

Ms. Welch is a Certified Public Accountant and graduated summa cum laude with a B.S. and B.A. from Bryant University.