Iaterion’s founders have been working together on women’s health and cancer for over 25 years.
Iaterion’s R&D focus harnesses their basic and translational research
in nuclear receptor biology and cancer.
Management
Isaac Cohen, OMD, PhD
President and Chief Executive Officer
Isaac Cohen, OMD, PhD
President and Chief Executive Officer
Isaac Cohen, OMD, PhD, serves as the President and CEO of Iaterion. Dr. Cohen has substantial experience in all phases of drug development and biopharmaceutical company management, from start-up to NASDAQ listing. He brings breadth and wealth of knowledge from his 20 years of experience in R&D, regulatory, as well as the pharmaceutical business.
Dr. Cohen was the Founder, Chairman and CEO of Bionovo, Inc. and brought the company to a NASDAQ Capital Markets listing. At Bionovo he created a preclinical research program, managed all aspects of R&D, designed and built pre-launch manufacturing plant under FDA approved cGMP and ushered drugs from bench to Phase 3 development. Isaac holds multiple patents for new drugs. Iaterion’s current focus is derived from Dr. Cohen’s targeted screening approach for discovering drugs to treat and prevent diseases.
Prior to Bionovo, Dr. Cohen was a guest scientist at UCSF Center for Reproductive Sciences and the Comprehensive Cancer Center. He was in private clinical practice for 20 years in Berkeley, CA. Dr. Cohen earned his PhD at the University of California, San Francisco and University of California, Berkeley joint program, and holds an OMD degree from the Postgraduate Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Hong Kong, China.
Dale Leitmen, MD, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer
Dale Leitman, MD, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer
Dale Leitman is the Chief Scientific Officer at Iaterion Inc. He is also an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. His research is focused on the mechanisms of action of nuclear receptors with a focus on estrogen receptors. Dr. Leitman’s discoveries related to selective functions of nuclear receptors and discoveries of novel ligand-drugs led to the development of new drugs for women’s diseases and novel anti-inflammatory agents. Dale has long biotechnology industry experience. As a Scientific Advisory Board member at Bionovo Dale led the drug discovery program for Women’s Health.
Dale earned his B.S. degree at UC Berkeley. He received his PhD in Physiology at Stanford University. Ferid Murad, Nobel Laureate was his advisor. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Endocrinology at UCSF with John Baxter, President Emeritus, Endocrine Society. He obtained a MD at UC Davis School of Medicine and completed residency in Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at UCSF. He was on faculty in Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at UCSF for 12 years before joining the faculty at UC Berkeley.
Scientific Advisory Board
Uwe Christians, MD, PhD
Scientific Advisor
Uwe Christians, MD, Phd
Scientific Advisor
Professor of Anesthesiology and Pathology, iC42 Clinical Research and Development, University of Colorado, Anschutz Medical Campus, Denver, Colorado, USA
Dr. Christians received his M.D. (with highest honors) and his Ph.D. in Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology from the Medizinische Hochschule Hannover, Hannover, Germany, where he is a board-certified pharmacologist, toxicologist and clinical pharmacologist. He is also a Diplomate of the American Board of Clinical Pharmacology. Dr. Christians currently holds two faculty appointments, one as Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology (University of Colorado) and as Professor (apl.) in the Department of Pharmacology, Medizinische Hochschule Hannover in Germany. He is the author of more than 300 peer-reviewed original research articles, reviews and book chapters as well as the Editor-in-Chief of the IATDMCT journal Therapeutic Drug Monitoring. In 1995, he received the IATDMCT Young Investigator Award and, in 2015, the IADTMCT C.E. Pippenger Award. His main research interest is pharmacokinetics/ pharmacodynamics relationships, companion biomarkers in drug development and “precision drug therapy”, including, but not limited to, the development of novel translational, diagnostic and clinical monitoring strategies.
Carlos E. Milla, MD
Scientific Advisor
Carlos E. Milla, MD
Scientific Advisor
Carlos Milla is Professor of Pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine, where he is also Associate Director for Translational Research at the Center for Excellence in Pulmonary Biology at Stanford. Dr Milla graduated from Medical School in Lima Peru, completed Residency in Pediatrics at the Children’s Medical Center of Brooklyn, State University of New York, and then went on to complete sub-specialty training in Pediatric Pulmonology and Cystic Fibrosis at the University of Minnesota, as well as advanced training in Epidemiology and Biostatistics. In 2007 Dr Milla joined the faculty at the Center for Excellence in Pulmonary Biology at Stanford University and became the Director of the Stanford Cystic Fibrosis Center. He has been a member of the ATS since 1992 and a member of the Pediatric Assembly since 1993. He is a member of the ATS/ERS Joint Working Group on Infant/Preschool Lung Function, and has also served on the ATS project committees for Standardization of Preschool Inert Gas Washout and Diagnosis of primary ciliary dyskinesia.
Dr Milla’s research interests have centered on the inflammatory responses that lead to airway disease in Cystic Fibrosis and the pathobiology of infections in the airway. He has actively participated in multiple CF clinical research studies and has accumulated substantial experience on the development of novel outcomes in CF. This includes participation in multiple clinical trials, from early phase to pivotal trials, as well as participating in multiple advisory boards for drug development focused on CF. Dr Milla has published and lectured extensively on the topics of cystic fibrosis and the genetics of rare lung diseases. Current areas of research include early CF lung disease development and diagnostic challenges in newborns identified by screening, as well as expanding his research interests with active programs for biomarker discovery for chronic pulmonary conditions such as primary ciliary dyskinesia, pulmonary hypertension, chronic lung disease of infancy and interstitial lung disease.
Jen-Chywan (Wally) Wang, PhD
Scientific Advisor
Jen-Chywan (Wally) Wang, PhD
Scientific Advisor
Dr. Jen-Chywan Wang received his PhD at Vanderbilt University, where he studied how steroid hormone glucocorticoids activate the transcription of phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase gene that encodes a rate-controlling enzyme in gluconeogenesis. He then conducted his post-doctoral training at University of California San Francisco, where he explored the approach to identify glucocorticoid receptor (GR) primary target genes and the mechanisms governing the regulation of GR activity by ligands. Dr. Wang joined the Department of Nutritional Sciences & Toxicology at UC Berkeley as a tenure-track faculty on August 2006. His laboratory applies a combination of molecular and cellular biological, genomic, genetic and physiological approaches to elucidate the mechanisms underlying the physiological and pharmacological actions of GR. These topics include the identification of GR primary target genes that mediate biological functions of glucocorticoids, the exploration of the mechanisms governing the transcriptional activation of GR primary target genes, and the discovery of GR transcriptional coregulators involved in specific physiological actions of glucocorticoids.
Lorin Johnson, Phd
Scientific Advisor
Lorin Johnson , PhD
Scientific Advisor
Lorin K. Johnson, PhD is founder and Chief Scientist of Glycyx PharmaVentures Ltd., a biopharma investment and development company. In 1989, he co-founded Salix Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: SLXP), a GI specialty pharmaceutical company, and held senior leadership positions prior to its $15.8 billion acquisition by Bausch Health Inc. (NYSE: BHC) in April 2015. Prior to Salix, Dr. Johnson served as Director of Scientific Operations and Chief Scientist at Scios, Inc. (formerly California Biotechnology, Inc). He is a board member of 9Meters Biopharma Inc. (Nasdaq: NMTR) and Edesa Biotech. Inc. (Nasdaq: EDSA), Glycyx MOR, Inc. and Kinisi Therapeutics, Ltd., both GI specialty pharma companies and Intact Therapeutics, Inc., a GI specialty drug delivery company. In addition to his career in industry, Dr. Johnson has served as Assistant Professor of Pathology at Stanford University School of Medicine. He is the co-author of 75 journal articles and book chapters and is the coinventor on 22 issued patents. Dr. Johnson holds a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, San Francisco.
Board of Directors
Patrick Suel, M.Sc.
Board of Directors
Patrick Suel, M.Sc.
Board of Directors
Patrick has over 18 years of experience establishing and managing international Corporate VC funds. Prior to entering the Venture Capital world, he worked in various positions with multiple Software startups in Silicon Valley from Artificial Intelligence to Financial Services or Software Tools and Learning. He was also an entrepreneur, founding 3 companies of his own in the Internet, Biotechnology and Medical Devices fields. Patrick established Diamond Edge Ventures, the CVC arm of Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corporation in 2018 after a long tenure at Panasonic Ventures. Besides his CVC practice know-how, he brings to iaterion a unique combination of innovation ecosystem network, technical expertise, business acumen and international experience that the companies in his portfolio value. Patrick earned a MSc. In Physics followed by a MSc. in Artificial Intelligence.
