Meet The Team

Dr. Pelletier is a scientist-entrepreneur with over thirty years of research and operational experience in the life sciences industry. Dr. Pelletier founded his first company, Aeromics, as a James Hudson Brown-Alexander B. Coxe Fellow at Yale School of Medicine. He led Aeromics’ drug discovery and development program from bench to clinic, developing the first clinical-stage Aquaporin inhibitor to treat diseases of water imbalance, starting with brain swelling or cerebral edema. At Aeromics, Dr. Pelletier served as Chief Executive Officer from 2008-2019 and Chief Financial Officer from 2008-2016, overseeing strategic business and scientific operations. In 2015, he co-founded Iridia, Inc., a company developing DNA-based molecular information storage technologies. Dr. Pelletier served as a Director of Iridia from 2016-2019, and as secretary of Iridia from 2017-2019. He has extensive training in the life sciences sector, having completed three Post-Doctoral Fellowships at Yale University: in the Departments of Genetics, Molecular Biophysics & Biochemistry and Cellular and Molecular Physiology. He received his PhD in Genetics and Cell Biology from McGill University and both a M.Sc. in Genetics and B.Sc. in Biology and Economics from Concordia University in Montreal. 

Eliot has held senior research, and research leadership positions in drug discovery and development in the pharmaceutical industry for more than 35 years. Previously, he led R&D teams at GlaxoSmithKline for 25 years, most recently as a Senior Vice President Drug Discovery and Development, where he was involved in cardiovascular, metabolic, renal and oncology therapeutics, with both small, large and peptide molecules. Under Eliot’s leadership GSK discovered and advanced into clinical development and to market, Coreg® (carvedilol) for heart failure, the HER2 receptor inhibitor Tykerb® (lapatinib) for metastatic breast cancer, and the tyrosine kinase angiogenesis inhibitor Votrient® (pazopanib) for advanced renal cell carcinoma. Eliot has been a founder of biotech companies Venuvics Pharmaceuticals, AltheRx Pharmaceuticals, and Velicept Pharmaceuticals. He joined Bessor Pharm as a consultant in 2016. Eliot is an author on more than 275 publications on drug discovery and development for new therapeutic targets and active in the field of Pharmacology as an Adjunct Professor of Pharmacology at Drexel and is a member of for several Biotech SABs. He is Editor for NC-IUPHAR, is on the Editorial Board for Pharmacological Reviews and British Journal of Pharmacology and is also Specialty Editor-in-Chief for Frontiers in Pharmacology—Cardiovascular Pharmacology & Urogenital Disorders.
Eliot holds a BS in Pharmacy from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and a PhD in Pharmacology from the Tulane University School of Medicine. His graduate research on the discovery of nitric oxide as an important biological mediator contributed to the Nobel Prize in 1998. He was honored with the Prix Galien Award and Special Commendation for Innovation Research for endothelin receptors. In 2008, Dr. Ohlstein received PhRMA's highest honor, the Discoverer's Award, for his work on GSK's Coreg® (carvedilol), the "standard of care" for chronic heart failure.

Dr. McGuirk, brings nearly 40 years of pharmaceutical industry leadership experience to our company. Dr. McGuirk served at Aeromics Inc. from March 2009 to November 2020, as CTO,  EVP and Head of Medicinal Chemistry, Process Chemistry, and Clinical Development, and as a member of the Board of Directors. Dr. McGuirk was responsible, together with Dr. Pelletier, for the discovery and development of the first clinical stage aquaporin-4 inhibitor for the treatment of brain edema, which is preparing for Phase II clinical trials at Simcere. Prior to Aeromics, Dr. McGuirk was at Pfizer from 1982 to 2009. As a medicinal chemist and manager of Infectious Diseases Medicinal Chemistry at Pfizer Global R&D in Groton, CT, Dr. McGuirk was responsible for leading the discovery and development of the marketed drug danofloxacin/Advocin®, which is approved for treatment of bovine respiratory disease. Dr. McGuirk chaired the Allergy and Respiratory Early Clinical Management Team, progressing the inhaled PDEIV inhibitor tofimilast into Phase 2 studies. As a director, Dr. McGuirk led the nearly 100-person interdisciplinary team that pioneered Pfizer’s Absorption, Distribution, Metabolism and Excretion (ADME) & Toxicology program. As Executive Director, Dr. McGuirk led the global review and evaluation of 310 clinical candidates, over a ten-year period, as a prerequisite to their entry into formal development. The candidate reviews spanned ten therapeutic areas and included successful drugs such as Maraviroc®, Chantix®, and Xeljanz®. Dr. McGuirk is an expert on new molecular entity (“NME”) attributes needed for success in drug development. 

Allan currently leads Remed's licensing, business, and legal activities. He is also CEO of Bessor Pharma (Remed is a Bessor Pharma spin-out), and formerly served as its VP Licensing and General Counsel. Mr. Cohen has over 30 years of experience as a biotech management team member, corporate lawyer, and accountant. Previously, he served as VP Transactions and Legal at Novavax, was a legal lead for BD transactions at Daiichi Sankyo subsidiary American Regent and at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, and headed the legal and transactions function at Auven Therapeutics and Celtic Pharma, hybrid venture capital and virtual drug development firms. Prior to joining Celtic, he was interim General Counsel of computational chemistry company Schrödinger, worked in the general counsel's offices at Goldman Sachs and American Express, served as general counsel of a publicly-traded technology incubator, worked as a corporate attorney at McDermott, Will & Emery, and served on the Audit and Advisory team at Arthur Andersen. Allan earned a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law and a B.S. in Accounting from Penn State.

Mark has been a VP on the Bessor Pharma team for more than 10 years. He has more than 30 years of experience in drug development and project management in both large and small pharmaceutical companies. He has led numerous project teams, overseeing drug development. Prior to Bessor, he was President of ClinSearch, a clinical trial organization in which he served as PI on 45 clinical trials and a co-PI on an additional 75. He served as Vice President for Drug Development at several companies, including XTL Biopharmaceuticals and Relox Medical, and served in a number of roles at Smith, Kline & French and Ciba-Geigy. Mark holds an AB degree in Biology from Boston University's MBA degree in Management from Fairleigh Dickinson University and MS and PhD degrees in Pharmacology from the University of Rhode Island. He is a Fellow of the American College of Clinical Pharmacology.

Jon is a chief licensing advisor in the New York office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. He is also a member of the technology transactions and the patents and innovations practice groups. Jon has spent over 40 years managing the commercialization of intellectual property created at major public and private research institutions. 
Under Jon’s leadership for 25-plus years, Yale Ventures (formerly known as Yale’s Office of Cooperative Research) helped form over 75 new ventures including Achillion Pharmaceuticals, Arvinas, NextCure, Biohaven Pharmaceuticals, and Inozyme Pharma, which have collectively raised over $1 billion in professional venture capital. 
In 2001, with his direction, Yale became the first university to monetize its intellectual property when it worked with Royalty Pharma to sell its royalty interest in Zerit®, the first FDA-approved drug to effectively treat HIV/AIDS. In 2007, his office created the Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale (formerly known as the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute) to help undergraduate, graduate, and professional school students at Yale to start scalable new ventures. Over 100 new ventures were formed that raised over $135 million in investment capital, including IsoPlexis. In 2009, together with seven other major research universities, Jon helped lead the formation of Osage University Partners to invest in the participation rights that universities acquire in their start-up ventures based on their intellectual property. In 2016, he helped create the Academic Venture Exchange designed to connect highly successful serial entrepreneurs with start-up opportunities at major research universities.
Jon has served in a number of professional leadership positions and is well-known in his community and industry. In addition to his professional accomplishments, he was honored as the 87th “Point of Light” by President George H.W. Bush in March 1990 for volunteer work with low-income families in East Tennessee through the creation of Aid to Distressed Families of Appalachian Counties.

Barry is Co-Founder and Chairman of REMED and Bessor Pharma’s Founder and Chairman. Barry has founded and led highly successful drug discovery and development organizations in start-up and large pharmaceutical environments for nearly 40 years. He has built value around the companies he has led through numerous strategic transactions, including alliances with major pharma companies, such as Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Wyeth and Bristol Myers Squibb as well as M&A. Companies he has co-founded and or led as CEO include: Myco/Chemgenics (acquired by Millennium Pharmaceuticals); New Chemical Entities (acquired by Albany Molecular); and Fibrogen. Earlier in his career, he held senior research positions at Smith, Kline & French, where he was a Vice President, and the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology. Barry holds a BS degree in Pharmacy from Northeastern University and a PhD in Pharmacology from the University of California San Francisco.

Dr. Desir is the Beeson Professor of Medicine at the Yale School of Medicine, where he also serves as Chair of the Department of Internal Medicine., Dr. Desir is also Chief of Internal Medicine at Yale New Haven Hospital, and at Yale University he serves as Vice Provost for faculty development and diversity.
As a physician-scientist, Dr. Désir has made several important contributions to Medicine, including the discovery a specific voltage-gated potassium channel that regulates body weight and insulin sensitivity, and the identification of a new growth factor, which he named Renalase (RNLS). Dr. Désir (1) elucidated the pathway through which Renalase affects cellular signaling, (2) discovered how RNLS functions abnormally in organ injury, and (3) how RNLS is linked to several forms of hard-to-treat cancers.
Dr. Desir earned a bachelor’s degree in biology, magna cum laude, from New York University. As an undergraduate he was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa academic honor society and received New York University’s Founders Day award. Following graduation from Yale School of Medicine (cum laude, Alpha Omega Alpha honor society), he trained in internal medicine and nephrology at Yale New Haven Hospital. He is an established investigator of the American Heart Association and has been elected to honorary societies including the Association of Professors of Medicine, the American Clinical and Climatological Association, the Association of American Physicians, and the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering

Marc Goldberg, JD, MBA, a is co-founder and Managing Partner of BioVentures Investors.
Prior to joining BioVentures Investors, Marc served as President and CEO of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Research Institute. Marc was Vice President, Finance and Corporate Development, CFO, and Treasurer at Safer, Inc., a developer and manufacturer of novel biopesticides and related products, and started his career at Genetics Institute, one of the earliest biotechnology research and development companies.
Marc co-founded and served as founding president of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council (MassBio) in 1985, served four terms as President, and was a Director from inception until 1997. On his retirement from the Board, Governor Weld proclaimed March 18, 1997 as “Marc Goldberg Day” in Massachusetts.
Marc serves as Chairman Emeritus of the Harvard Varsity Club and a member of its Advisory Board in addition to being a member of the Board of Directors for Step by Step Supportive Services and the Richi Childhood Cancer Foundation. Marc currently serves on the Board of Directors for BrainBox Solutions, Endotronix, Optivio, Verax Biomedical, Cardiosolutions, HydroCision, Revivo and Rachiotek.
Marc earned his AB from Harvard College, his JD from Harvard Law School, and his MBA from Harvard Business School.