Martin A. Simonetti has served as our President and Chief Executive Officer since November 2005. From 1999 to 2005, Mr. Simonetti was employed at Dendreon Corporation, most recently serving as Chief Financial Officer, Senior Vice President Finance and Treasurer. From 1991 to 1998, he was employed at Amgen Inc., serving as Vice President Operations and Finance of Amgen BioPharma and its Director of Colorado Operations. From 1984 to 1991, he worked at Genentech, Inc., first as a scientist in its Medicinal and Analytical Chemistry Department and later as a financial analyst and group controller. Mr. Simonetti serves on the board of directors of Alexandria Real Estate Equities (NYSE: ARE), based in Pasadena, California and Icagen, Inc. (Nasdaq: ICGN), based in Durham, North Carolina. He is also a member of the Dean's executive advisory board for the Albers School of Business and Economics at Seattle University. Mr. Simonetti received an M.S. from the University of California, Davis and an M.B.A. from the University of Santa Clara.
Craig A. Smith, Ph.D., Founder, VLST Scientific Fellow and
Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board
Craig A. Smith, Ph.D. is co-founder, VLST Scientific Fellow and Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board of VLST Corp. Prior to co-founding VLST, Dr. Smith's research accomplishments at Immunex include having cloned a receptor for TNF and, working with colleague Dr. Ray Goodwin, engineered a novel, soluble recombinant form (later termed Enbrel) for use in treating autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis. For this discovery and invention, both Dr. Smith and Dr. Goodwin shared the Scientific Achievement Award from the National Arthritis Foundation, the PhRMA Discoverers Award and the IPO National Inventor of the Year (2001). He has published more than 100 scientific articles and is a named inventor on 20 patents.
Dr. Smith also initiated and led a research program that discovered novel superfamilies of TNF-related gene products, which collectively help orchestrate fundamental immune processes, several of which are in clinical trials for cancer and autoimmune disorders. Long interested in virology, Dr. Smith is generally credited with establishing the molecular nature of virulency genes in eukaryotic viruses which productively infect humans and animals: many of which encode proteins that modulate the host immune response to viral advantage by targeting crucial genes of the human immune system. The research program put in place to exploit this observation led to the co-founding of VLST. Dr. Smith received his B.S. in Molecular Biology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the Molecular Biology Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Steven R. Wiley, Ph.D., Founder and Chief Technical Officer
Steven R. Wiley, Ph.D. is co-founder and Chief Technical Officer for the Company. Dr. Wiley has experience in molecular biology research and development of biologically oriented information systems at Amgen, Immunex, and Abbott Laboratories. Dr. Wiley received his B.S. in Mathematics at University of Chicago and his Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Biology at University of Wisconsin. While at the University of Wisconsin, Dr. Wiley worked on gene regulation of simian virus 40. During his time at Immunex/Amgen Dr. Wiley, working with Craig Smith and Ray Goodwin, discovered and characterized TRAIL, a member of the TNF family that selectively induces apoptosis in cancer cells but not normal cells. Agents targeting the TRAIL pathway are currently in clinical trials for oncology indications.
Julia M. Eastland, Vice President Finance & Administration, CFO
Ms. Eastland joined VLST as our Vice President Finance & Administration and Chief Financial Officer in February 2006. Prior to VLST, Ms. Eastland was employed at Dendreon Corporation from 2000 to 2005, where she held various finance positions, most recently as the Vice President of Strategic Planning. From 1996 to 1998, Ms. Eastland was employed at Amgen, Inc. as Area Finance Manager for its Colorado operations and Assistant Controller of Amgen BioPharma. Ms. Eastland also held positions as Director of Finance at Biovail Corporation, Director of Finance & Planning for Encore Media Group, International Finance & Business Manager for SCIENCE Magazine and Financial Manager for the Discovery Channel. Ms. Eastland received a B.S., finance from Colorado State University and an M.B.A. from Edinburgh University.
Teresa M. Foy, Ph.D., Vice President, Preclinical Development
Teresa M. Foy Ph.D. is Vice President of Preclinical Development for VLST. Dr. Foy most recently served as Director of Preclinical Development at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Biologicals, Seattle, following GSK’s acquisition of Corixa Corporation. Prior to that, Dr. Foy was employed as the Director of Preclinical Biology at Corixa Corporation for 10 years, where she made substantial contributions to the development of therapeutic vaccines and antibodies for oncology, several of which are currently in clinical development. Dr. Foy received her B.S. degree in Biology at the University of Minnesota, Duluth and her Ph.D. at the University of Iowa where her work focused on B cell development. Her post-doctoral work in the area of CD40-CD40 ligand regulation of immune responses was carried out at Dartmouth Medical School.
Consuelo M. Blosch, M.D., Vice President of Clinical and Regulatory
Consuelo M. Blosch has served as our Vice President of Clinical and Regulatory since September 2007. From 2005 until joining VLST, Dr. Blosch served as administrative director of the Benaroya Research Institute (BRI) at Virginia Mason Clinical Research Program. There, she provided leadership oversight to investigators involved in more than 200 clinical trials. Prior to BRI, Dr. Blosch held director level positions at Immunex Corporation and NPS Pharmaceuticals, Inc. At Immunex, where she worked from 1992 to 1998, Dr. Blosch directed the soluble receptor program, participating in the study design and overseeing the monitoring for clinical trials including those for ENBREL. At NPS, she directed a global research program for a recombinant human parathyroid hormone for the treatment of osteoporosis. Dr. Blosch received an M.D. from the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
Ron Myers, Vice President Legal Affairs & Intellectual Property
Ron Myers joined VLST as Vice President Legal Affairs & Intellectual Property in January 2008. Mr. Myers has broad experience in M&A, licensing, litigation and intellectual property, including more than 16 years experience in intellectual property acquisition, enforcement and defense in the biotech and pharmaceutical fields. Mr. Myers joined Corixa in 2004 and served as associate general counsel, intellectual property. In 2005, Corixa was acquired by GlaxoSmithKline, plc., during which time Mr. Myers played a key role in the transition of assets. Mr. Myers also served as senior patent counsel to Pfizer Inc., where his responsibilities included global management of Pfizer’s antiviral therapeutic portfolio, as well as patent enforcement and defense in the US, Canada, Asia and Japan. Prior to his in-house work, Mr. Myers served as outside counsel to several Fortune 500 companies. Mr. Myers received an M.S. in Molecular Pharmacology from Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, PA and his J.D. from George Washington University in Washington, DC.
Dan Allison, Ph.D., Sr. Director of Therapeutic Design
Dan Allison has served as our Senior Director of Therapeutic Design since February 2007. Dr. Allison joined VLST from ICOS Corporation, where he worked from 1992 to 2007, and most recently served as Senior Director, Production Development. At ICOS, Dr. Allison was responsible for engineering antibodies and other proteins used in clinical studies and also directed the development of microbial and mammalian expression systems used to produce those proteins. Prior to ICOS, Dr. Allison worked at Genencor International. Dr. Allison received a Ph.D. from the Genetics Department at the University of Washington and carried out post-doctoral studies in yeast cell biology at the Biozentrum in Basel, Switzerland and in the Biochemistry Department at the University of Washington.