Henry Ji
Chairman, President and CEO
- 25+ years of experience in the biotechnology and life sciences industry
- Dr. Ji co-founded Sorrento and has served as a director since 2006, CEO and President since 2012, and Chairman since 2017
- During his tenure at Sorrento, he has engineered and led a phenomenal growth of Sorrento through acquisition and merger including Bioserv, Scilex Pharmaceuticals, Concortis Biotherapeutics, Levena Biopharma, LACEL, TNK Therapeutics, Virttu Biologics, Ark Animal Health, and Sofusa Lymphatic Delivery Systems
- Served as Sorrento’s Chief Scientific Officer from 2008 to 2012 and as its Interim CEO from 2011 to 2012
- Prior to Sorrento, he held senior executive positions at CombiMatrix, Stratagene and also co-founded Stratagene Genomics, a subsidiary of Stratagene, and served as its President & CEO and Director of the Board
- B.S. and Ph.D.
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Mike Royal
Chief Medical Officer
- Dr. Royal is a pharmaceutical executive with 20 years of clinical development and medical affairs. Recently, he was the Chief Medical Officer of Suzhou Connect Biopharmaceuticals and, prior to that, Concentric Analgesics. He rejoins Sorrento where he was previously EVP, Clinical Development and Regulatory Affairs in 2016
- He has been responsible for or instrumental in several successful NDAs, including NCEs, 505(b)(2)s and ANDAs
- Dr. Royal is board certified in internal medicine, pain medicine, anesthesiology with additional qualifications in pain management, addiction medicine and legal medicine
- He has been an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences, Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology/Critical Care Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and an Adjunct Professor at University of Oklahoma and University of California San Diego
- He has published extensively with over 190 book chapters, peer reviewed articles and abstracts/posters; and has been an invited speaker at national and international meetings
- B.S., M.D., J.D., M.B.A.
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Elizabeth Czerepak
Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Business Officer
- 35+ years of financial and operational experience in biotech and pharmaceuticals
- Ms. Czerepak spent 18 years in big Pharma and 11 years as CFO of various biotechs, where she led financing, partnering and M&A efforts. Began her career at Merck & Co., played a key role in Roche’s $5.4B acquisition of Syntex, and led partnering efforts for Humira® which culminated in BASF Pharma’s $6.8B sale to Abbott.
- For nine years as a Managing Director at JP Morgan and Bear Stearns, she was founding general partner of a $212M venture fund, where she led investments in 13 biotechs, serving on boards and facilitating exits through IPO and acquisition. Series 7 and Series 63 FINRA (NASD) Registered Representative from 2001 to 2008.
- Experienced board member (including Sorrento and Scilex) and audit chairperson, earning a Corporate Director Certificate from Harvard Business School in 2020.
- B.A. and MBA
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Mark R. Brunswick
Senior Vice President Regulatory Affairs
- Dr. Brunswick has over 35 years of senior positions in Regulated Industry including over 9 years in the US FDA, Center for Biologics, Division of Monoclonal Antibodies
- Prior to joining Sorrento, Dr. Brunswick was Head of Regulatory Affairs and Quality at Sophiris Bio, a company developing a drug for benign prostatic hyperplasia and prostate cancer. Prior to that he was the head of Regulatory Affairs at Arena Pharmaceuticals specializing in therapies directed at G Protein receptors
- Dr. Brunswick led the regulatory group at Elan Pharmaceuticals concentrating on Alzheimer Disease and the pain compound, ziconotide
- B.S. and Ph.D.
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Robert D. Allen
Senior Vice President R&D
- Dr. Allen has spent over 15 years in the biotechnology industry leading research, preclinical development, and early clinical manufacturing of antiviral and anti-cancer therapeutics.
- Prior to joining Sorrento, Dr. Allen served as Scientific Director of the Oregon Translational Research and Development Institute (OTRADI), collaborating with industry and academic partners on drug discovery and candidate profiling campaigns targeting hematologic cancers, solid tumors, and infectious disease pathogens.
- Prior to OTRADI, Dr. Allen developed discovery programs at SIGA Technologies that identified direct-acting antivirals targeting viruses in the bunyavirus and filovirus families as well as host-directed countermeasures against a broad spectrum of human viruses and obligate intracellular bacteria.
- B.S. and Ph.D.
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Xiao Xu
President ACEA
- Dr. Xu has more than 20 years experience as an executive in biotech industries. Dr. Xu was a cofounder, president and CEO of ACEA Biosciences (acquired by Agilent in 2018) and ACEA Therapeutics (acquired by Sorrento Therapeutics in 2021). He joins Sorrento Therapeutics after the acquisition, and continues functioning as President of ACEA, a subsidiary of Sorrento Therapeutics.
- He has been managing and responsible for ACEA innovative drug pipeline development, clinical studies, and cGMP manufacture facility.
- He was the co-inventor of innovative label free cell-based assay technology and responsible for technology/product development and business partnership with Roche Diagnosis, global commercialization of ACEA’s proprietary technology and products, and $250 million Agilent acquisition of ACEA Biosciences.
- He has been staff investigator and research scientist at Gladstone Institutes, The Scripps Research Institute and US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He owns over 50 US patents and patent applications and has published over 60 research articles in international journals, including Science, PNAS, Nature Biotechnology, and Chemistry and Biology.
- B.S., M.S., and M.D.
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Shawn Sahebi
Senior Vice President Commercial Operations
- Dr. Sahebi leads Sorrento’s commercial operations functions
- Brings more than 30 years of pharmaceutical experience including marketing science and commercial strategy to Sorrento
- Prior to joining Sorrento, he held senior management positions with Novartis, Pfizer, and Lilly developing commercial analytics and data driven marketing strategies responsible for significant sales growth of over 20 products reaching blockbuster status in areas of Cardiovascular, Arthritis, Neuroscience, Diabetes, and Oncology
- A firm believer that collaborative cultures create winning teams
- Past President, Pharmaceutical Management Science Association of America
- B.A., M.B.A. and Ph.D.
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Brian Cooley
Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications and Lymphatic Drug Development BU
- 30+ years of experience in the biopharmaceutical and life science industry
- Mr. Cooley held various sales, marketing, and commercial leadership positions at fortune 500 companies and has led successful fund raising and start up efforts for healthcare technology companies
- Prior to joining Sorrento, Mr. Cooley led global marketing new product launch efforts with P&L responsibility at both Eli Lilly and Company and Genentech in disease areas including Diabetes, Neurology, Immunology and Rare Disease
- In addition, he has also led significant BD, in-licensing, and integration efforts both internationally and in the U.S. This included multiple business expansion deals Europe, Middle East and Africa, and a $400MM collaboration agreement to in-license, develop and commercialize the first GLP-1 agonist
- Most recently, Mr. Cooley was CBO for the Sofusa Business Unit at Kimberly-Clark and led the successful sale and integration effort into Sorrento Therapeutics. He continues to lead the Lymphatic Drug Delivery systems division at Sorrento.
- B.S.
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Bill Farley
Vice President Business Development
- 30+ years of experience in the Business Development, Sales and leading efforts in drug discovery, development and partnering
- Prior to joining Sorrento, Mr. Farley has held leadership positions at HitGen, WuXi Apptec, VP of Key Accounts building and leading a global BD team; ChemDiv, VP of BD at, leading numerous efforts to create new therapeutic companies in CNS, Oncology and Anti-infectives
- Mr. Farley has served as a consultant to various executive management teams and BODs to develop and commercialization assets with likes of Xencor, Caliper Technologies and Stratagene
- He has built a robust network throughout pharmaceutical companies, biotech and the Venture Capital community. Mr. Farley has spoken at numerous conferences and has been published in variety of peer reviewed journals
- B.S.
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Alexis Nahama
Senior Vice President Neurotherapeutics BU
- Dr. Nahama leads RTX human and animal health drug development programs
- As a member leadership team, Dr. Nahama supports strategy development, oversees high value projects, facilitates go to market preparation, and nurtures external alliance efforts
- Passionately drives the translational opportunities to accelerate human development programs while bringing technologies that otherwise would not be available to pets
- Prior to joining Sorrento, he spent over 25 years holding global executive roles working in Life Sciences and Biotechnology for Sanofi, Colgate, Novartis, Merck, VCA Antech and VetStem Biopharma
- D.V.M. with early career focused on R&D in the pain area (clinical trials for pets)
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