Board of Directors

Samuel Broder, MD

Samuel Broder is the former head of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the largest and most important Agency for cancer research in the world. President Ronald Reagan appointed Dr. Broder to serve as Director of the NCI in 1989, and he held the position for six years.  While at the NCI, he also oversaw the development of numerous anti-cancer therapeutic agents, such as TAXOL^®. As NCI Director, Dr. Broder helped launch a number of large-scale clinical trials related to the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer, and he inaugurated the highly successful SPORE Program.

Dr. Broder joined the Celera Corporation at its founding in 1998, as the Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs and Chief Medical Officer, and helped advance the human genome project, i.e., the elucidation of the 3 billion letters of code that make up human DNA. His most recent operational position was as SVP, Health Sector, Intrexon Corp, with responsibilities for gene therapy and synthetic biology.  He has served on numerous BODs and SABs.

Dr. Broder spent his entire career in translational medicine, and his laboratory interests have included antiretroviral therapy, the relationship between immunodeficiency disorders and cancer, the human genome, and the proteomics of cancer cells. In the mid-1980s, in response to the AIDS pandemic, he focused his attention on HIV-1/AIDS.  His laboratory played a major role in developing the first 3 agents approved by FDA specifically to treat the AIDS virus. These are the novel nucleosides Retrovir^® (AZT), Videx^® (ddI), and HIVID^® (ddC).

Dr. Samuel Broder graduated from the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor in 1970. He did an internship and residency in Internal Medicine at Stanford University in Palo Alto, and then did subspecialty training in medical oncology at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda. He is the author or co-author of over 340 scientific publications, and is an inventor on many patents. He has received numerous scientific awards related to his research in cancer and AIDS. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in 1993.

Casey Cunningham, MD

Omar H. Khalil

Omar H. Khalil manages Santé’s Boston Office and concentrates on biotechnology, where he partners with scientific founders and entrepreneurs across multiple therapeutic areas and modalities. Omar joined Santé in 2007 and rejoined in 2020 after holding various transactional and operational leadership roles within the pharmaceutical and biotech industry. He held senior leadership roles with Baxter International, Baxalta (now part of Takeda), and Kaléo, a commercial-stage biotech. In these positions, he led and managed businesses ranging from early clinical development to commercial launch, which scaled to more than $3 Billion in annual sales. Earlier in his career, he worked at McKinsey & Company in the healthcare practice, advising leading pharmaceutical and medical device companies on growth and M&A strategies. Omar serves as a board member, advisor, and mentor to several organizations focused on biotech entrepreneurship and is a member of the Leadership Advisory Board at the University of Michigan College of Engineering. He received his MSE and BSE in Biomedical Engineering summa cum laude from the University of Michigan with a concentration in Tissue Engineering.

Laurent Humeau, PHD

Laurent Humeau is Chief Scientific Officer at Inovio. He works to ensure continuous and strategic growth of INOVIO’s pipeline by introducing a constant flow of innovative concepts and cycling them from early-stage discovery and development through clinical application and patient monitoring. He provides technical and strategic leadership across multiple teams that are essential to upstream and downstream verticals of clinical development. Prior to INOVIO, Laurent was Senior Director of Translational Research, Human Therapeutics Division for Intrexon and previously Chief Scientific Officer, Vice President of R&D at VIRxSYS Corporation. Laurent holds a Ph.D., summa cum laude, from Denis Diderot/Paris 7 University and a MS degree from Pierre & Marie Curie/Paris 6 University, Paris, France.

Sangwoo Lee

Mr. Lee is Head of Korea Investment Partners (KIP’s) US office based in Silicon Valley and actively explores cross-border investments to contribute to the global expansion of Korea Investment Partners.  He is currently managing over 12 companies in his investment portfolio and participates actively on more than 7  boards. Portfolio companies range from biotech/healthcare companies such as Enlivex, Prokarium, PDC Line, Atrogi and KAHR to IT/Fintech companies such as Pavilion Data Systems and SecuLetter.

Before his career in Venture Capital, Mr. Lee spent 18 years in diverse positions and companies including his 12 years of entrepreneur experience in the IT industry including Samsung Electronics, Dasan networks, Neomtel and Polidigm. In the latter two, he cofounded the companies and led the teams as top management officer. The image compression algorithm for cell phone of Neomtel was de facto standard in Korea at early 2000s and the company went on to IPO at 2007.

Ted Fjällman, PhD

Ted Fjällman is Partner at Flerie Invest, a European biotech and pharma investor managing a portfolio of more than 20 companies in the US, UK, Sweden and other countries. Ted has been CEO and board member of several biotech companies engaged in a wide range of areas including immunology, oncology and biologics development and manufacturing. He holds a Ph.D. in Biotechnology and Immunology from the University of Guelph, Canada and splits his time between the UK, Sweden and Switzerland

Niranjan Y. Sardesai, PhD

Dr. Sardesai founded Geneos after building Inovio Pharmaceuticals into a Phase III cancer and infectious disease immunotherapy company serving as its Chief Operating Officer. He held positions of increasing responsibility after joining the company in 2006 where he helped formulate the company’s product development and growth strategies and reorganized the company into a DNA vaccine and immunotherapies company. For Inovio, Dr. Sardesai drove multiple M&A and licensing transactions to consolidate key technologies, establish the corporate footprint, and develop its immunotherapies platform and product pipeline. He led the strategic out-licensing of Inovio’s pipeline products to secure major licensing deals totaling over $1 Bn with pharma partners.

Dr. Sardesai was previously the founder and President of NVision Consulting Inc., a firm providing strategic counsel to entrepreneurial life sciences companies. He served as Director of Research and Development at Fujirebio Diagnostics, Inc., where he oversaw the expansion of the company’s oncology portfolio. Products developed under his leadership include groundbreaking new tests for mesothelioma (MESOMARK^TM), bladder cancer and a multi-marker test for ovarian cancer (HE4).

Dr. Sardesai received a PhD in Chemistry from the California Institute of Technology and a MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he was the recipient of the Shils-Zeidman Award in Entrepreneurship. He was awarded fellowships at the Scripps Research Institute and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Dr. Sardesai received his Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in Chemistry from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. Dr. Sardesai has authored over 120 peer-reviewed manuscripts and was recognized by PharmaVoice magazine as one of the top 100 most influential and inspirational leaders across the life sciences industry (2015).