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Executive Team

Eric J. Patzer, Ph.D.
Founder & President
Dr. Patzer is a founder of Aridis and has over 25 years experience in biotechnology. He was involved in the development of many of the pioneering biotechnology products at Genentech (Activase®, Protropin®, Herceptin® and Xolair®.) and managed a large part of the development effort as VP Product Development. In 1996 he joined Aviron (now MedImmune Vaccines) as VP Development to build the development expertise needed to advance new vaccines from research through product development. He was project leader of the intranasal influenza vaccine (FluMist™) during preclinical and clinical development. Dr. Patzer received his Ph.D. in Microbiology at the University of Virginia and was a Helen Hay Whitney Fellow at Stanford University.

Vu L. Truong, Ph.D.
Founder & Chief Scientific Officer
Dr. Truong is a founder of Aridis and has over 12 years experience in biopharmaceutical drug development. He formerly served as head of the Formulation Technology Department at MedImmune and Sr. Scientist at Aviron. His product development experience includes FluMist™, CAIV-T™ vaccine, Synagis™ mAb, Vitaxin™ mAb, anti-IL-9 mAb, RSV/PIV vaccine. He is an expert on formulation and delivery of macromolecules and vaccines. Dr. Truong received his Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Bruce Keyt, Ph.D.
Research and Development
Dr. Keyt's career extends over 28-years in the field of protein and antibody therapeutics at major biopharmceutical companies. As Chief Scientific Officer at Trellis Biosciences, he led discovery and development efforts o human anti-RSV antibodies isolated from patients, which was licensed to Medimmune/AstraZeneca. He has also served as Vice President of Preclinical Development at Abgenix, a monoclonal antibody therapeutics company acquired by Amgen in 2006. Prior to that, he was Director of Biotherapeutic Oncology at Millennium Pharmaceuticals. He spent over 16 years as member of the scientific management at Genentech in the protein and analytical biochemistry, cardiovascular research, pharmacology and pharmacokinetics areas of development. Dr. Keyt has 21 US patents and applications and authored 55 scientific publications. Dr. Keyt received his PhD in Biochemistry/Pharmacology at Tufts University School of Medicine.

Paul Mendelman, M.D.
Clinical Development, Acting CMO
Dr. Mendelman has over 25 years experience in clinical development in the biopharmaceutical industry. He is former Sr. Vice President of Clinical Development at Telik, Vice President of Clinical development at Medimmune and Aviron, and Senior Research Physician at Merck. He received his MD at the University of Washington, Seattle and completed residency at Stanford University.

Stefan Ryser, Ph.D.
Business Development
Stefan Ryser was Founding and Managing Partner of Bear Stearns Health Innoventures and former Chief Executive Officer and Founding Partner of International Biomedicine Management Partners. Prior to his ventures investment roles, he was a long time member of the Roche technical staff and served as Head of International Research Staff and Member of the Research and Development Board.

Stephen LaMond, PharmD, MBA
Marketing
Steve Lamond has over 20 years of biotech, pharmaceutical, medical device and brand marketing experience. He was responsible for late stage Brand and NPD teams for anti-infectives, and critical care-specialty teams in his prior role as Sr. Director of Business Development & Marketing at Nektar. Steve was also Director & worldwide Team Lead of Marketing and Product Evaluation Group at Pfizer. He possesses extensive background in business development, alliance management, US/ global strategic and brand marketing, market research, project management/commercialization, pricing/reimbursement/health economics, managed care, sales/field liaison mgmt., brand mgmt., across major therapeutic areas (oncology, CNS, pain and anti-infectives). Dr. Lamond received his graduate degrees at the University of Michigan.

John Borgeson, MBA, CPA
Finance
John Borgeson has extensive financial experience in the life sciences industry having spent over twenty years at Pfizer in positions of increasing responsibility. At Pfizer, John’s most recent role was Vice President, Finance where he had broad strategic , financial and operational responsibility over a start-up division focused on biotherapeutic research and development. John started his career at Ernst & Young and is a certified public accountant. He has an MBA from RIT and a BS from the School of Business at the University at Buffalo (S.U.N.Y.).

Michael Kope, JD
Corporate Development
Mike Kope has 20 years experience in technology licensing and business development. He was formerly Director of Corporate Development at MedImmune serving as the leader on vaccines business strategies. He came to Medimmune a few years after having licensed the company its core FluMist™ technology from the University of Michigan, where he served as the University's Intellectual Property Counsel. Mr. Kope has negotiated a broad range of business acquisition and partnership agreements, designed strategies for technology protection and promotion in many fields of research, and facilitated a number of successful university spin-offs. He received his JD from the University of Michigan in 1990.

Lawrence Lutz, CPA
Controller
Mr. Lutz has more than 15 years of experience serving as a finance officer in the biopharmaceutical industry. He started at Syntex and then went to Aviron and MedImmune where he was Director of Finance.