Strategic Advisors
Dr. Mark Benedyk
Advisor to the Board of Directors
Dr. Benedyk, is currently a Managing Partner at Rila Partners LLC, a business and corporate development consultancy he founded earlier in his career. Among other things, in this role, he is a Strategic Advisory Board member to a clinical-stage neuropsychiatry specialty care company, is a Director at the Center for Drug Research and Development Ventures, Inc., and is on the Translational Medicine Advisory Board of the CNS Regenerative Medicine Foundation. Previously he was head of The Pfizer Incubator (TPI) where his duties included membership on the Board of Directors, a director seat on several TPI portfolio company boards, overseeing the TPI operations team, and reviewing investment opportunities in multiple technologies. Dr. Benedyk also held executive Business Development roles at Ascenta Therapeutics, Optimer Biotechnology, Aurora Biosciences (acquired by Vertex Pharmaceuticals), and Elan Pharmaceuticals. He received his Ph.D. in Developmental Genetics, from The Rockefeller University, his B.S. degrees in Microbiology and Botany from the University of Michigan, B.S., and received financial certifications from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, and the University of Virginia Darden School of Business.
Dr. Owen Garrick
Advisor to the Board of Directors
Dr. Garrick joins Amarantus with over 20 years of pharmaceutical and biotechnology experience. He currently serves as the Chief Operating Officer at Bridge Clinical Research and is President of the American Medical Association Foundation. Prior to that, he was Director of Corporate Strategy and Business Development at McKesson Corporation. Dr. Garrick was Executive Director and Co-Head of Mergers & Acquisitions at Novartis Pharmaceuticals where he oversaw company acquisitions, hybrid equity/license rights deals, mature product divestments and venture investments in biotechnology companies. Prior to Novartis, Dr. Garrick was an associate at Goldman Sachs in New York. Dr. Garrick received his MD from Yale School of Medicine and earned his MBA from Wharton School of Business. He holds an AB from Princeton University, where he has served on the national fund raising board.
Dr. Samuel Herschkowitz
Advisor to the Board of Directors
Since 1982, Dr. Samuel Herschkowitz has been a known leader in the area of biotechnology, healthcare devices and pharmaceutical development. Dr. Herschkowitz has participated in the development of many biotechnology innovations. He was one of the original investors in Theragenics Corporation, a New York Stock Exchange company, which innovated the development of high energy, short duration, radioactive seeds for the treatment of prostate cancer. He is also a founder of Delcath Systems, a NASDAQ company, specializing in the delivery of high dose chemotherapy to targeted area of cancer growth. He has provided early seed investment money and bridge financing for companies such as Perceptive Systems, Oncogene Sciences and, most recently, Serenity Pharmaceuticals.
Presently, Dr. Herschkowitz is the Chief Executive Office of Serenity Pharmaceuticals which specializes in the commercialization of urological pharmaceuticals. In addition, from 1982 until 2001, Dr. Herschkowitz was a general partner of two venture capital funds, Banipal and Venkol ventures, which specialized in the investment in health care technology and pharmaceuticals.