Robert F. Johnston - Chairman of the Board

Charles R. Cantor, Ph.D.

Myra Williams, Ph.D.

F. Raymond Salemme, Ph.D.

Robert Towarnicki

Robert F. Johnston - Chairman of the Board

Mr. Johnston is President and CEO of ExSAR, and has been Chairman of the Board of Directors since 2002.   Mr. Johnston runs Johnston Associates, a venture capital firm which he founded in 1968 to provide seed capital for start-ups emerging in the biotechnology and healthcare fields. Mr. Johnston is the executive chairman of Pharmos Corporation, which acquired Vela Pharmaceuticals, Inc.  He has founded numerous public companies including Sepracor, Cytogen (sold to EUSA Pharma), I-STAT (sold to Abbott), Genex and Envirogen (sold to Shaw Environmental), and was instrumental in the early formation of many private companies such as Sonomed, Immunicon (since sold to J&J), PharmaStem (formerly Biocyte), Praelux (since sold to Amersham/GE) and Targent (since sold to Spectrum Pharmaceuticals). Mr. Johnston served as CEO of Cytogen from July 1988 to April 1989 and as CEO of Praelux (formerly SEQ) from November 1997 to January 1999. Additionally, he is a member of the Advisory Council of the Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton University, and the Executive Committee of the Friends of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Mr. Johnston received his B.A. from Princeton University and his M.B.A. from New York University.

Charles R. Cantor, Ph.D.
Dr. Cantor is the Chief Scientific Officer and Chairman of Sequenom (NASD:SQNM), and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He was previously the chair and professor of the department of biomedical engineering and biophysics, and director of the Center for Advanced Biotechnology, at Boston University. Prior to this, Dr. Cantor held faculty positions at Columbia University. He was also director of the Human Genome Center Project of the Department of Energy at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. Dr. Cantor is a consultant to more than 16 biotech firms, has published more than 325 peer reviewed articles and has been granted 26 U.S. patents.

Myra Williams, Ph.D.
Dr. Williams served most recently as President and CEO of Molecular Applications Group, a bioinformatics company that developed proprietary technology to predict gene and protein function for use in pharmaceutical and agricultural product discovery. Previously, Dr. Williams was Vice President of Worldwide R & D Information Resources for Glaxo Wellcome plc and Vice President and Chief Information Officer of Glaxo, Inc. She served in an executive capacity at Merck Research Laboratories for over twenty years, including several years as the Executive Director of Information Resources and Strategic Planning. Dr. Williams is a member of the Boards of Directors of a number of companies, and is a consultant to venture capital, pharmaceutical, biotechnology and software companies.

F. Raymond Salemme, Ph.D.
Dr. Salemme is CEO of Redpoint Bio Corp, a biotechnology company, and a founder of Imiplex LLC, a nanotechnology company. Prior to his current roles, Dr. Salemme founded 3-Dimensional Pharmaceuticals in 1993, a drug discovery company integrating structure-based drug design, biophysical methods for drug screening, and combinatorial chemistry for the discovery of new drugs for cardiovascular disease and cancer. Prior to 3DP, Dr Salemme worked at DuPont Merck Pharmaceuticals, Sterling Winthrop Pharmaceuticals, and DuPont Central Research. Prior to his work in industry, Dr. Salemme was Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Arizona. He holds a BA in Molecular Biophysics from Yale and a PhD in Chemistry from UCSD. Dr. Salemme has been a pioneer in the application of X-ray crystallography and biophysical methods to protein engineering and drug discovery. He has authored over 90 scientific papers and is an inventor on 33 issued US patents.

Robert Towarnicki
Mr. Towarnicki is the President & CEO of Makefield Therapeutics, an emerging specialty pharmaceutical company developing therapeutics based on its proprietary Hybrid Nanoparticle™ technology platform. Previously Mr. Towarnicki served as: President & CEO of Nucleonics, Inc.; Chairman, President & CEO of Cell Pathways, Inc.; and President & COO of Integra LifeSciences Corporation. Earlier experience includes: General Manager of Focus Technologies, a privately held esoteric disease reference laboratory; VP of Development and Operations for Collagen Corporation; Plant Manager for Pfizer Pharmaceuticals and ten years of increasing management responsibility in operations for Merck & Co. Mr. Towarnicki earned a BS and MS in Biology from Villanova University in 1973 and 1974 respectively.


Company Profile (History) | Senior Management Team | Board of Directors | Scientific Advisory Board
Robert F. Johnston - Chairman of the Board | Charles R. Cantor, Ph.D. | Myra Williams, Ph.D. | F. Raymond Salemme, Ph.D. | Robert Towarnicki