Pioneering Company

Chief Scientific Officer, Scientific founder of OncoSpherix (cancer biology), and member, Board of Directors

Dr. Van Meir is Professor of Neurosurgery and Associate Director at the NCI-designated O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) which he joined in 2019. Prior to that, during his tenure at Emory University (1998-2019) he was Professor of Neurosurgery and Hematology & Medical Oncology, Leader of the Cancer Cell Biology program at the Winship Cancer Institute, Founding Director of two graduate programs in cancer biology at the Laney Graduate School, and Director of the Laboratory of Molecular Neuro-Oncology. His postdoctoral training was at the University Hospital in Lausanne (1989-1991) and the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in La Jolla, California (1991-1994). He obtained his BS/MS in molecular biology at the University of Fribourg (1984) and PhD in molecular virology at the University of Lausanne (1989), Switzerland. He has extensive expertise in molecular basis of tumorigenesis, experimental therapeutics and drug discovery. He is an author of over 200 peer-reviewed scientific articles in leading translational oncology journals, co-inventor on over 30 U.S. and international patent applications and his research has been supported by over 60 federal (NCI, NINDS, Dept of defense) and private foundation grants.

Vice President, Chemistry

Dr. Coats served as Senior Director of Chemistry for Cocrystal Pharma where he oversaw medicinal chemistry, chemical drug discovery, and drug development. He led the discovery and preclinical development of several novel antiviral nucleoside analogs for the treatment of HIV, hepatitis B, hepatitis C and other clinically important viruses. Prior to joining Cocrystal Pharma, he was a Principal Scientist at Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research and Development, LLC., in Pennsylvania with responsibility for discovery project management and synthetic medicinal chemistry spanning numerous therapeutic areas. Before joining J&J, Dr. Coats served as group leader for focused library synthesis at Helios Pharmaceuticals where he was responsible for design, synthesis, and structure activity relationship optimization of novel small molecules directed toward different nuclear receptors. Dr. Coats earned his Ph.D. degree in organic chemistry from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia followed by postdoctoral training at Yale University. Dr. Coats has co-authored more than sixty-five research publications in peer reviewed journals, and he is a co-inventor on more than forty-five issued or pending patents.

Vice President, Business Operations

Mr. Valmonte joins OncoSpherix with more than 25 years of experience in program/portfolio management and clinical operations within the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry. Most recently, he served as Executive Director, PMO at Taysha Gene Therapies, where he oversaw the creation and implementation of the PMO infrastructure to support portfolio and program management activities across Taysha’s therapeutic franchises. Prior to joining Taysha, Mr. Valmonte served as Executive Director, Program Strategy – Rare Disease and Pediatrics at Premier Research, Ltd, a full-service CRO, where he served as principal strategist during the planning and design phases of new business opportunities as well as primary contact with numerous sponsor companies within the rare disease, pediatrics, gene therapy development space. He previously held various management positions, with increasing responsibility in program management at Rocket Pharmaceuticals, and clinical operations at Abeona Therapeutics, Galena Biopharma, and KAI Pharmaceuticals. Mr. Valmonte serves as an adjunct professor within the Haub School of Business at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, PA. Mr. Valmonte holds a B.A. in Psychology from California State University, Hayward, and an M.B.A. with Honors from Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, PA.

Member, Board of Directors

Dr. Scott is a graduate of University of Cape Town in South Africa. He has held leadership positions in global Pharma for over thirty years. He recently retired as the Chief Medical Officer at Abbvie where he had responsibility for around 40 new molecular entities, four thousand people and a budget of close to two billion dollars. During his tenure, Abbvie achieved over 14 major regulatory approvals including Venclexta, Orilissa, Skyrizi and Rinvoq. He also created the Development Design Center, a Center of Excellence focused on using predictive analytics and big data to design and implement better clinical trials. Dr. Scott is a leader in digital transformation of clinical research, including a broad range of aspects from predictive analytics, innovative program and study design, synthetic and historical controls, pragmatic and real world studies, use of passive data collection using IoT and wearables and risk based monitoring to name a few. Earlier in his career, he was at Pfizer where he developed Lipitor and Norvasc. He also invented and developed the first commercially available Polypill, Caduet. At AtheroGenics, he designed and implemented the first large cardiovascular outcomes study to be wholly performed by a small biotech. At Amgen, he conducted the first outcome study for a PCSK9i, FOURIER. He has served on multiple advisory boards throughout his career and on multiple boards of directors. 

Scientific founder of OncoSpherix (chemistry) and member, Board of Directors

Dr. Wang is Regents’ Professor of Chemistry at Georgia State University and Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Drug Discovery. He served as Associate Dean for Natural and Computational Sciences/Research Graduate Studies, College of Arts and Sciences, Georgia State University from 2014-2018 and was chairman of the Department of Chemistry prior to that. He served as Editor-in-Chief for Medicinal Research Reviews from 2001-2019. He is the founding serial editor of the “Wiley Series in Drug Discovery and Development.” He is a synthetic medicinal chemist with extensive experience in drug design and delivery, and molecular recognition.

Business Advisory Board

For the past 30 years, Mr. Saylor has served as CEO of six emerging biotech companies in the U.S., Europe and Asia, leading enterprises that cover drug development, pharmaceutical marketing, and technologies for gene therapy, drug delivery and formulation. His experience includes fundraising, strategy development, in- and out-licensing and acquisitions in Asia, Europe and the United States. Most recently, he served as interim CEO of Guide Therapeutics, Inc., a company developing lipid nanoparticles for delivery of genetic therapeutics to non-liver tissue. Previously, he was as CEO of Arecor Limited, a British company focused upon enabling the next generation of therapeutic proteins and vaccines through advanced formulation

technologies. He was CEO of Sirus Limited, a neuronal drug targeting and delivery company based in Cambridge, England. Prior to joining Sirus, he was Chairman and founder of Lotus Healthcare Corporation, an Asian-based fully integrated pharmaceutical company.  

Mr. Saylor has also been actively involved in public policy as a member of the Executive Committee of the British North America Committee and Vice-Chairman and a member of the board of EuropaBio, the European bioindustry association. He is also a Trustee for the Georgia Tech Research Corporation and a Senior Advisor for the Georgia Research Alliance. Mr. Saylor received his B.S. degree from Georgia Institute of Technology in Biology followed by an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Clinical Advisory Board

Dr. Golomb’s recognition as a preeminent leader in oncology began early in his career, as reflected by his election in 1990 as President of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the world’s largest organization representing physicians and oncology professionals of all oncology sub-specialties.  He is a prolific researcher and thought-leader in clinical oncology, as seen by his authorship of more than 350 peer reviewed articles and co-editing of multiple editions of Oncologic Therapies, an industry textbook. He is an expert on clinical trial design and execution. His professional career has been mainly at the University of Chicago Medical Center where he served as section head of the Division of Hematology and Oncology, followed by Chairman of the Department of Medicine and then Dean of Clinical Affairs and Chief Medical Officer. Dr. Golomb received his medical degree from University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine followed by internship and residency in Internal Medicine at Boston University and Johns Hopkins Schools of Medicine, respectively. His oncology training was at the University of Chicago Hospitals and Clinics.