Senior Management Team
Robert F. Johnston, President and Chief Executive Officer
Yoshitomo Hamuro, Ph.D., Senior Director of Technology Development
Dawne M. Miller, Head of Business Development
Sam Milstein, Ph.D., Pharmaceutical Development Consultant
Robert F. Johnston, President & Chief Executive Officer
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.
Yoshitomo Hamuro, Ph.D., Senior Director of Technology Development

Dr. Hamuro joined ExSAR in 2002 and has led the development of hydrogen/ deuterium exchange (H/D-Exchange) analysis of protein dynamics, protein-ligand interactions and protein-protein interactions using mass spectrometry.
Prior to joining ExSAR, he was instrumental in the development of modern H/D-Exchange technology at the University of California, San Diego, in the laboratory of Professor Virgil Woods, scientific co-founder of ExSAR.
Dr. Hamuro previously conducted postdoctoral research on combinatorial chemistry and solid-phase chemistry at DuPont Central Research and Development and later on antibacterial β-peptides at the University of Pennsylvania in the laboratories of Professor William DeGrado. He obtained his Ph.D. in 1996 from the University of Pittsburgh under Professor Andrew Hamilton on protein structure mimetics.
Dawne M. Miller, Head of Business Development
Dawne Miller joined ExSAR in 2002 and has held various roles of increasing responsibility within the company since then. As of June 2009, Dawne oversees Business Development for ExSAR. Dawne has extensive experience in client relations and draws on her solid knowledge of customer service to manage ExSAR’s client base. Before joining ExSAR, Dawne worked at Synthon Chiragenics, a biotechnology company focused on providing carbohydrate-based chiral technology for drug discovery.
Sam Milstein, Ph.D., Pharmaceutical Development Consultant
Dr. Milstein is currently the Scientific Officer at Ception Therapeutics, Inc. Ception’s lead program is a monoclonal antibody, currently in clinical trials, for the treatment Eosinophilic Esophagitis and Asthma. Dr. Milstein is responsible for technical planning and oversight of the drug discovery arm of the company. From 2001-2006, Dr. Milstein was the founder/CEO of Fulcrum Pharmaceuticals (later merged with Ception), a drug discovery, drug design company. Fulcrum’s technology designed an oral MRSA compound with a novel mechanism of action and a family of TNFR1 inhibitors for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. Dr. Milstein received his Ph.D. in biochemistry at New York University. He completed his Post-Doc Fellowship at the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Institute in 1982.
Company Profile (History) | Senior Management Team |
Board of Directors |
Scientific Advisory Board
Robert F. Johnston |
Yoshitomo Hamuro, Ph.D. |
Dawne M. Miller |
Sam Milstein, Ph.D