Sandra E. Dunn, PhD
Chairwoman, Founder and CEO
Dr. Sandi Dunn founded Phoenix Molecular Designs in 2012, following the identification of a novel approach to treating TNBC, the deadliest form of breast cancer. The discovery of RSK as a prime target for TNBC came from functional genomic screens in her laboratory. Sandi has spent more than 27 years as a breast cancer researcher and as such has served on multiple oversight committees, including: Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program (USA) and the Susan Komen Foundation. She was the youngest member of the DOD Breast Cancer Research Program in the early 1990s and was recognized for her commitment to the field during her early days as a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institutes of Health.
She is passionate about making a difference in the lives of people suffering from cancer and is firmly dedicated to breast cancer. This was inspired by personal experiences with the disease in her family, as it impacted several generations of women. Her broad range of experience in private industry, government and academia has prepared her to lead PhoenixMD, where they are working to change the outcomes for women with breast cancer by developing a selective new drug to uniquely attack the cancer cells in a way that has not been done before.
She has led multinational oncology research projects to advance the development of novel cancer therapeutics and has built amazing teams to achieve these goals. Over the past three decades, she has raised millions of dollars to fund cancer research and has built one of the few female-led biotechnology companies specifically aimed at eradicating breast cancer.
Sandi is a technology leader in oncology drug development and biotechnology businesses.
Leena Das-Young, Pharm.D.
Board Member
Leena Das-Young is a founder, investor, and is currently the CEO of Caliber Biosciences, a precision immuno-oncology company. She is also Managing Partner at Emerald Bioventures focused on new companies in the fields of Oncology, Immunology, Women’s Health, and others. She also leads RaniBio, a life sciences advisory firm. Previously, Leena was General Manager/Chief Lunar Officer at Guardant as Head of the early cancer detection unit. Prior to Guardant, she worked in Pfizer Oncology for 15 years, most recently as VP Head of the Late Phase Development Group responsible for a portfolio of 13 assets and over 300 clinical trials. At Pfizer, she played an instrumental role in the development & approvals of innovative agents such as Ibrance, Xalkori, Lorbrena, Sutent, Talzenna and others including six BTDs. She also oversaw the complex regulatory defence establishing two new surrogate clinical endpoints for regulatory approvals.
Previously, Leena held increasingly responsible commercial roles at Pfizer and at Bayer. She led the successful launch of Sutent reaching $1B in sales as one of first ‘nichebusters’ and re-launched Cipro oral growing it from $600m to ~$1B. Leena holds a B.S. in Pharmacy and a Doctor of Pharmacy degree (PharmD) from Purdue University. She is a classically trained musician, plays eight instruments, and enjoys traveling and spending her time with her family.
Fred Eshelman
Board Member
Fred Eshelman is the Founder of Eshelman Ventures, LLC an investment company primarily interested in healthcare companies. Previously he founded and served as Chair/CEO of Pharmaceutical Product Development (PPDI) prior to the sale of the company to private equity interests. After PPD he served as founding chairman and largest shareholder of Furiex Pharmaceuticals (FURX), a company which in-licensed and rapidly developed new medicines. Furiex was sold to Forest Labs/Actavis in 2014. His career has also included positions as SVP development and board member of the former Glaxo, Inc., as well as management positions with Beecham Laboratories and Boehringer Mannheim Pharmaceuticals.
He is currently on the boards of several biotechs, and previously was chair of The Medicines Company (MDCO-sold to Novartis) and was on the board of Bausch Health (BHC). Eshelman has served on the executive committee of the Medical Foundation of NC, and was appointed by the NC General Assembly to serve on the Board of Governors for the state’s multi-campus university system (chair of audit committee), as well as the NC Biotechnology Center. In addition, he chairs the board of visitors for the School of Pharmacy at UNC-CH. The School was named the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy in recognition of his many contributions to the school and the profession. US News & World Report named the School #1 in the US.
He has received many awards including the Davie and Distinguished Service Awards from UNC, outstanding alumnus from both the UNC and U. Cincinnati Schools of Pharmacy, Life Science Leadership Award (CED) and the NC Biotech Hall of Fame. Eshelman received the Doctor of Pharmacy from the U. of Cincinnati, completed a residency at Cincinnati General Hospital, and a BS Pharm from UNC-CH. He completed the OPM program at Harvard Business School. Eshelman also received an honorary doctor of science from UNC-CH.
Christopher Bissonnette, PhD
Board Member
Dr. Chris Bissonnette has been a neuroscientist, a day trader, and a co-founder of an adtech startup in Chicago that raised significant venture funding. He is currently the managing partner of Pallasite Ventures, a Vancouver-based early-stage venture fund with a growing portfolio of over 70 companies across Canada and the United States. Following 10 years as a research scientist focusing on stem cell treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, successfully launching a startup company, and then spending several years in corporate finance, Chris founded Pallasite Ventures as a vehicle to enable the positive impact of science at a scale beyond what is possible in a research lab.
Pallasite is currently investing predominantly in later seed-stage medtech companies, with portfolio companies tackling some of the most challenging current health issues today, from Parkinson’s disease to genetic engineering, tissue regeneration, and prenatal health, while also working on software to empower patents and drive access to medical services. Pallasite is also actively investing in fintech and business optimization SaaS companies. Chris devotes a significant amount of time to mentoring founders – both those in his portfolio and others he hasn’t funded yet – to deliver additional value and help support and build the startup tech ecosystem.
Chris is currently on the boards of Aspect Biosystems (Vancouver, stem cell technology), Ionomr (Vancouver, fuel cell/battery technology), RealtyButler (Vancouver, SaaS optimization tools), and ViralGains (Boston, algorithmic brand engagement). Outside of investing, Chris is also on the board of two foundations that support neuroscience research and medical infrastructure development in British Columbia and has been a speaker at various conferences. He holds a BA from Johns Hopkins University in cellular neuroscience and a PhD from Northwestern University in stem cell biology and has a US patent for his previous scientific research work.
Robert Levak, MBA
Board Member
Robert brings over 22 years of experience in oncology with 18 ½ years in biotech commercialization - marketing and sales including new product planning (Avastin, Perjeta, Kadcyla, Adcetris and Tukysa), in-line marketing (Adcetris), sales and sales management (Herceptin, Tarceva, Tukysa), diagnostic and competitive strategy (Adcetris, Tukysa) and early pipeline commercial strategy. At Seagen Inc. he led the initial Global Marketing for tucatinib, ladiratuzumab vedotin and other pipeline programs.
Robert was also the Commercial lead on the $614M Cascadian acquisition driven by the market valuation of tucatinib and the $2B licensing deal with Immunomedics for Sacituzumab govitecan. Robert was the Head of Global Marketing, Oncology at Zymeworks Inc. where he oversaw the strategic commercial development of ZW-25 (zanidatamab) and ZW-49. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry from the University of British Columbia, a Baccalaureate Diploma in Clinical Cytogenetics from the British Columbia Institute of Technology and a Master of Business Administration from Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University.
Nicholas Sharp, MVetMed PhD
Board Member
Dr. Nick Sharp, an entrepreneur, scientist, and veterinarian, is deeply committed to building companies at the intersection of science and medicine. As a clinician, he is double board-certified in veterinary surgery and neurology.
His dedication to translational medicine goes back many years. He received his PhD from Duke University School of Medicine for identifying the mutation in a canine model for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, the first of just two large animal models now used to develop therapies for this disease. After spending over 20 years in academia, Nick has authored 135 scientific articles, including two books, 30 chapters, and 66 peer-reviewed publications. His current research interest is to analyze the clinical and market opportunities for RSK inhibition in oncology, particularly breast cancer.
After his career in academia, in 2004, Nick became an owner and partner at Canada West Veterinary Specialists, where he helped to grow the business from a small team with a big vision to a 26,000 sq. ft., 24-hour emergency referral hospital. It is now one of North America’s most successful, privately owned, multi-specialty veterinary practices.
Steve Potts, PhD, MBA
Board Member
Steve has worked in oncology since 1999 and has experience in a wide range of areas, including medical affairs, product development, sales, marketing, and general management. He has a proven track record of success, with his last three of four companies all with investor exits of minimum 12x+ returns. He founded the multi-armed immunotherapy company, OncoMyx, in 2018 and raised $75M of venture funding. Previously, he was Vice President of Medical Affairs at Ignyta, which was recently acquired by Roche/Genentech for $1.7B, and he led the global operation of the testing of 20,000 patients in an oncology basket trial for entrectinib in 15 countries. The ROS1 & TRK kinase inhibitor, now launched by Roche (www.rozlytrek.com), was the first in the industry to receive breakthrough designation equivalents in USA, Europe, and Japan, and also one of the first to run a global concurrent registrational adult and pediatric trial.
Prior to Ignyta, he bootstrapped his first company, Flagship Bio, as founding CEO to 75 employees and had an exit with a 16x return for his investors. This company’s platform digital pathology image analysis was instrumental in the approval of the first muscular dystrophy gene therapy drug (www.exondys51.com). He was also General Manager at Aperio, which exited to Danaher for $180M, and his team drove the global adoption of digital pathology (whole slide tissue image analysis) in the industry. He and his team developed the first standards for the use of digital pathology in preclinical and clinical trials testing by pharmaceutical companies and was involved in the 510k approvals of three different companies' image analysis IHC FDA 510k medical device clearances. Prior to Aperio, he built the Bioinformatics Department for a Fortune 500 Company, Quest Diagnostics, which now delivers several billion dollars of annual revenue and is the largest clinical diagnostics testing laboratory in the United States.
He holds a Ph.D. in Biological Engineering and an MBA from the University of California Davis, and a BS in Physics from Wheaton College, Illinois. He has 30+ publications and is the first author of the book Molecular Histopathology and Image Analysis in Drug Development.
Patricia Lady, MBA
Corporate Advisor
Patricia has over thirty years of experience in finance including start-ups as well as publicly traded companies. In 2020, Patricia launched her private consultancy business, The Next level Up, to help start-up CEO’s of Life Science companies raise capital needed to advance their growth and pipelines. Prior to starting the Next Level Up, Patricia spent a decade at Pfenex Inc. (PFNX), beginning with the spin out of the novel protein production platform from the Dow Chemical Company into a stand-alone biotechnology company. She was instrumental in developing and executing on Pfenex’s financial strategy that included an IPO and provided the capital needed to obtain FDA approval on its lead candidate and eventual final exit through acquisition. Prior to Pfenex Inc, Patricia led finance and corporate development teams in the life science and technology industries of various start-ups and publicly traded companies.
Patricia received her MBA from the University of California, Los Angeles. She holds an active CPA license in the State of California.