Exubrion Therapeutics®
Board of Directors
A seasoned and highly-experienced team
At Exubrion, our Board of Directors bring a broad range of experience across numerous therapeutic and business areas to our team.
Mr. Dennis Steadman
Co-founder and Chairman of the Board, Exubrion Therapeutics®
Dennis F. Steadman is a business leader and entrepreneur with a 40 year record of success. An experienced animal health executive, Mr. Steadman was the founder, Director and CEO of Velcera, Inc., a pet health company that he led from concept and capital funding to operational excellence and acquisition by a NYSE-listed multinational for $160 million in cash. Prior to Velcera, he held executive positions, including: Vice President, North American Operations and Global Management Committee Member with Merial Ltd., a leading animal health company, multiple domestic; international and global executive positions with Merck animal health; and more than a decade as Vice President and Senior Economist with a consulting subsidiary of Chase Manhattan Bank. Mr. Steadman holds a master’s degree in Agricultural Economics and a bachelor’s degree in Business Management from the Pennsylvania State University and has completed the Executive Program in Finance at the Harvard Business School.
In addition to providing strategic advisory services, Mr. Steadman serves on multiple private company boards and is an advisor to venture funds. Mr. Steadman also serves on the board of LMT Farmland Preservation, Inc., a non-profit dedicated to preserving farmland in developing areas.
Mr. Immanuel Thangaraj
Managing Director, Essex Woodlands Health Ventures, Inc.
Immanuel Thangaraj joined EW in 1998, and serves as Managing Director of the firm’s legacy venture capital funds Essex Woodlands Funds IV, V, VI, VII and VIII.
Mr. Thangaraj has 20 years of experience as a seasoned investor in operations, venture capital and growth equity opportunities. He began his career at ARCH Venture Partners (“AVP”), a leading venture capital firm with over $2 billion under management which makes early stage technology and healthcare investments. During his tenure at AVP, he managed one of its portfolio companies, HealthQual, a medical information company, until its sale to Nellcor, a large hospital supplies company. He left AVP in 1995 to run a start-up telecommunications services company called Integrated Telemanagement, which was later sold to Cam-Net Communications.
Mr. Thangaraj serves on the Board of Directors for Acura Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: ACUR), Serene, Kona Medical, Inc., and Proteus Digital Health. In addition to the portfolio company boards on which he serves, Immanuel was also responsible for EW’s investment in Microport Scientific Corporation (HK:853); China Cord Blood Services Corporation (NYSE: CO); VenturePharm; CBR Systems (acquired by GTCR); iKnowMed Systems (acquired by NYSE: MCK); and Novacept (acquired by NASDAQ: HOLX).
He serves as the Co-Chair of the Council of the Booth School of Business and the Visiting Committee of the College, both at the University of Chicago. He is also a Trustee of Trinity School in Menlo Park, California; on the Board of the India Community Center in Milpitas, California; and the former Chairman of MAP International.
Mr. Thangaraj holds both a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Chicago.
Dr. Rob Readnour
Managing Director, Mountain Group Partners
Dr. Readnour currently serves as Executive Chairman of the In the Bowl Animal Health, an animal health company that is developing an in-feed technology providing pet owners with a convenient alternative to current methods of drug administration. Dr. Readnour also currently serves on or has visitation rights to the following companies: Advanced Animal Diagnostics, a commercial-stage animal health company developing diagnostic tests to help livestock producers diagnose illness, predict performance and eliminate the overuse of antibiotics in cattle; ALSSP, a poultry vaccine delivery device company developing a novel, high-throughput spray system to individually vaccinate post-hatch chicks; AN2 Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company developing medicines for infectious diseases; Boragen, a company that is developing small molecule approaches focused on leveraging the unique chemical properties of boron chemistry, both in crop protection and animal health; Exubrion Therapeutics®, an animal health company developing a radiosynoviorthesis product to treat chronic osteoarthritis in dogs; and Skyline Vet Pharma, a company that is developing veterinary pharmaceuticals using proven delivery technologies to reformulate drugs with established animal health markets.
Prior to joining MGP, Dr. Readnour worked at Elanco Animal Health for 27 years. During his Elanco tenure, he held several senior management positions in which he was responsible for developing and executing Elanco’s Research and Development strategies for entering several new business areas (companion animal pharmaceuticals, vaccines and enzymes). Dr. Readnour played an important role in Elanco’s acquisition and integration of Novartis Animal Health, Lohmann Animal Health, ChemGen and Janssen Animal Health. Within Elanco, Dr. Readnour led several initiatives to transform Research and Development through the piloting of new approaches to developing animal health products. He pioneered a lean product development model which allowed Elanco to enter new areas of business without significant capital investment. He led initial efforts for Elanco to invest in early stage companies and partner with external funding sources to develop products with minimal initial investment from Elanco. Dr. Readnour served as a member of the Food and Agriculture Section of Bio International Board and as an External Advisory Board member for University of Illinois Animal Science Department.
Prior to entering management in Elanco, Dr. Readnour was an internationally recognized expert on animal health product development, analytical chemistry, human food safety and drug residues with 11 publications and 14 external presentations. Throughout his career, Dr. Readnour was responsible for the development and commercialization of 10 animal health products. Dr. Readnour received his PhD in Analytical Chemistry from University of Illinois in 1990.
Dr. Mark Pykett
Chief Scientific Officer, PTC Therapeutics
Mark Pykett, V.M.D., Ph.D., is Chief Scientific Officer of PTC Therapeutics. Previously, Mark served as CEO Of Agilis Biotherapeutics, CEO of Navidea Biopharmaceuticals, President and COO of Alseres Pharmaceuticals, President of CyGenics and CEO of Cytomatrix. Dr. Pykett received his B.A. degree in Biology from Amherst College, a Ph.D. and V.M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, and an M.B.A. from Northeastern University, and completed post-doctoral fellowships at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University.
Ms. Julia Stephanus
President, Avviare Consulting
Julia A. Stephanus is president and founder of Avviare. Avviare is a consulting practice designed to assist start-ups and established players in the field of veterinary biopharmaceuticals. Prior to this role, Ms. Stephanus served as the Chief Commercial Officer of Aratana Therapeutics, Inc., which went public in 2013 and was sold to Elanco Animal Health in 2019. Ms. Stephanus has more than 30 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, where she is closely involved in the commercial development and launch of blockbuster animal health care products such as Galliprant®, Rimadyl®, Revolution®, and Vectra®. From September 2010 to December 2012, Ms. Stephanus served as a Director of The Global Pet Franchise for Ceva Animal Health, where she oversaw the commercial development of new products as well as global marketing for strategic pet products. In 2006, Ms. Stephanus founded Summit VetPharm, the developer of Vectra, a pet parasiticide product line, and served as its President and Chief Executive Officer until it was acquired by Ceva Animal Health in August 2010. Prior to founding Summit VetPharm, Ms. Stephanus worked in various sales and marketing positions for Pfizer Inc. and its legacy companies, where she had the commercial responsibility for the development and global launch of multiple breakthrough pharmaceuticals and biological brands. Ms. Stephanus received a B.A. from Indiana University and extended her education with executive programs at Harvard, Columbia and the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Peter Selover
Chief Executive Officer, Exubrion Therapeutics®
Peter (“Pete”) Selover is the Chief Executive Officer of Exubrion, a position he started in 2018 as Exubrion was spun-out into an independent company. Mr. Selover has over 25 years of experience in human and animal health. From 2010 until 2018, Mr. Selover was a principal at Oriole Advisors where he advised human and animal health clients in business development, corporate strategy and product development. During that same time, Mr. Selover helped to found three separate animal health startup companies in livestock probiotics, pet dental care and aquaculture feed coatings respectively. Prior to that, Mr. Selover spent 10 years at Merial Ltd, most of it as the Vice President of Corporate Development & Strategy. Before joining Merial, Mr. Selover worked in Corporate Finance at Merck and in management consulting at Accenture.
He holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University and a Master of International Business Studies from the University of South Carolina.
Synovetin OA® delivers sustained OA pain relief.1
Synovetin OA® provides targeted, non-systemic therapy.2
References:
- Data on file, Exubrion Therapeutics®.
- Donecker JM, Fox SM. Safety and effectiveness of Synovetin OA®: Results of three randomized trials evaluating treatment of naturally occurring canine elbow osteoarthritis. Exubrion Therapeutics®, July 2019.