Management
Mike Kelly
President & Chief Executive Officer
Mike Kelly, MBA, brings three decades of pharmaceutical experience playing instrumental roles in the creation, development and strengthening of several companies to his role as President & CEO of NervGen. Most recently, Mr. Kelly served as President of US Operations for Adapt Pharma, Inc. from March 2016 to June 2019, and played a key leadership role in the development and commercialization of NARCAN (naloxone HCl) Nasal Spray in the US and Canada and in the eventual sale to Emergent BioSolutions for US$735 million.
Prior to his tenure at Adapt Pharma, Inc., Mr. Kelly served as the Chief Executive Officer and a Director of Covis Pharmaceuticals, Inc., where, along with its European affiliate, grew and sold the company assets for US$1.2 billion. Mr. Kelly was also a member of the founding management team of Azur Pharma Limited, a specialty pharmaceutical company, and later, following a strategic merger, served as the Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Jazz Pharmaceuticals Inc. Mr. Kelly has also held various commercial and medical roles at Guilford Pharmaceuticals Inc., ViroPharma Incorporated and TAP Pharmaceuticals Inc. and has been a Director of ARS Pharmaceuticals Inc. since May 2019. Mr. Kelly holds a Bachelor of Science in business administration from The College of New Jersey and a Master of Business Administration from Rider University.
Dan Mikol
Chief Medical Officer
Dan Mikol, MD, PhD, has over 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry and as a practicing physician conducting clinical research in the field of neurology, designing Phase 1-4 clinical trials, and leading clinical development teams.
Prior to joining NervGen, Dr. Mikol was at Amgen where he served as the Head of clinical development in the neuroscience and nephrology therapeutic areas, as well as Head of the molecular genetics team across therapeutic areas. He was instrumental in the approval of Aimovig for migraine prevention in 2018. Prior to Amgen, Dr. Mikol was the development lead for Tysabri at Biogen and supported the Japan approval of Tysabri for relapsing multiple sclerosis in 2014. Prior to that, he held positions in senior clinical development and medical affairs in neuroscience at Novartis and EMD Serono.
For 12 years, Dr. Mikol was an active clinician and clinical researcher in the Department of Neurology at the University of Michigan, specializing in the treatment of multiple sclerosis, where he rose to the level of Associate Professor. Dr. Mikol was educated at the University of Chicago for both his MD and PhD, and was a Fulbright Scholar in Immunological Research at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany. He held a staff physician role treating patients for 12 years at The University of Michigan, Department of Neurology.
Bill Adams
Chief Financial Officer
Bill Adams, CPA, has over 25 years of strategic financial management experience that includes mergers and acquisitions, operations and capital markets in both Canada and the U.S., as well as corporate and operational finance having held a number of executive positions with high-growth technology and life sciences companies, including Chief Financial Officer roles at Anandia Laboratories Inc., Response Biomedical Corp., CellFor Inc., and AnorMED Inc.
He had a leading role in the sale of AnorMED to Genzyme for $580 million and was instrumental in the sale of Anandia in 2018 for $118 million. Mr. Adams has been responsible for completing over $250 million in public and private equity financing, including listing on the TSX and NASDAQ, and over $750 million in mergers and acquisitions and technology licensing transactions. Mr. Adams is a Chartered Professional Accountant, CA and holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of British Columbia.
Liz Eberhardt
Senior Vice President, Program Management
Liz Eberhardt, BSc, brings over 25 years of biotech experience in product leadership and program management. Most recently, Ms. Eberhardt was SVP of Program Management at Idera Pharmaceuticals and prior to that she held leadership roles at Tmunity Therapeutics, Trevena, Inc. and ViroPharma Incorporated.
Throughout Ms. Eberhardt’s career, she has taken multiple compounds through all stages of development, including preclinical and commercialization. She has extensive experience in leading drug development teams, global launch teams, and teams focused on special initiatives. In addition, Ms. Eberhardt has expertise in alliance management and strategic development. Her passion is building companies that have the potential to contribute to the lives of patients. Ms. Eberhardt holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration graduating magna cum laude from East Carolina University.
Matvey Lukashev
Vice President, Research and Preclinical Development
Matvey Lukashev, PhD, has over 30 years of research experience in academia, industry, and non-profit biotech settings. Most recently, Dr. Lukashev served as Vice-President, Translational Sciences at the ALS Therapy Development Institute where he built and led a new translational research and drug discovery function encompassing patient genomics, stem cell biology, genome editing and phenotypic screening for biomarker, target and drug discovery in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Prior to joining the ALS Therapy Development Institute, Dr. Lukashev held positions of increasing responsibility at Biogen, where he received the Biogen Idec Outstanding Achievement Award for his leadership of translational studies supporting clinical development of Tecfidera®. Dr. Lukashev obtained his doctorate in Cell Biology from the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences and received postdoctoral training at John Hopkins University and University of California, San Francisco.
Chuck Olson
Senior Vice President, Technical Operations
Chuck Olson, DSc, is a biotechnology industry professional with broad scientific and operational experience, having a focus in process development, manufacturing and CMC associated quality and regulatory activities for many clinical and commercial products. With over forty years of experience, he has enabled the production of virtually every class and size of biological product from peptides, recombinant proteins, enzymes, blood products, natural products, adenovirus and whole cell immunotherapies.
Mr. Olson’s diverse background includes the positions of COO at Dendreon (Provenge), Sr. VP of Operations at Applied Molecular Transport, CTO for Anthera Pharmaceuticals, VP and Site Head of Operations for Cell Genesys, Senior Director of Manufacturing, Facilities and Process Development for BioMarin Pharmaceuticals (Aldurazyme and Naglazyme), Staff Scientist and Scientist at Bayer (Kogenate) and Genentech (Activase and Xolair), respectively. Mr. Olson has a Bachelor’s Degree in Biology and Chemistry, a Master’s Degree in Chemistry and a DSc in Biochemistry.
Advisors
Jerry Silver, PhD
Co-Inventor and Scientific Advisor
Dr. Silver is the Professor of Neurosciences at Case Western Reserve University’s School of Medicine and adjunct Professor in the Department of Neurosurgery at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. He is credited in over 180 publications and is the recipient of several prestigious awards, including the Ameritec Prize for significant accomplishments toward a cure for paralysis.
In 2003 he was also honored with the Christopher Reeve-Joan Irvine Research Medal (The Reeve-Irvine Medal) for critical contributions that may lead to the promotion of repair of the damaged spinal cord. Dr. Silver is an active advisor to NervGen, and his lab continues to conduct studies in concert with other academic institutions and partners to advance and evolve intracellular sigma peptide
Bill Radvak
Co-Founder and Advisor
Bill Radvak co-founded and was the Executive Chairman or Chairman of NervGen since its inception. Mr. Radvak has been the chief executive officer and director of multiple start-up companies. He was a founder and the CEO of Response Biomedical Corp., a (formerly publicly listed) medical device company (which continues to carry on that business), which he led from its inception to a 90-employee, sales and manufacturing company.
Since 2010, Mr. Radvak has been the President and CEO of Monitor Ventures Inc. (an inactive mining exploration company) and President and CEO of Clean Air Metals (formerly Regency Gold Corp.) from April 2007 to April 2019 and from June 28, 2019 to February 2020.
Mr. Radvak holds a Bachelor of Applied Science degree in Mining Engineering from the University of British Columbia.
Michael Davis, Colonel (ret.) USAF, MC, MD, FACS, FRCS (Hon.)
Advisor
Colonel (ret.) Michael Davis, MD, FACS is recently retired after 26 years of military service, and has accumulated an extensive, rare knowledge base involving the clinical, scientific, operational and governmental programmatic domains. He has garnered numerous military and medical publications and awards, and serves as a reviewer for professional journals…
…and is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. For the past seven years, Colonel (ret.) Davis has served in escalating Department of Defense programmatic roles as Deputy Commander, US Army Institute of Surgical Research, and culminating over the past three years, as Director, US Combat Casualty Care Research Program-the Department’s largest medical R&D program. With more than 30 years in the clinical and biomedical science field, Colonel (ret.) Davis provides services and expertise in trauma, regenerative/ restorative medicine, federal government relations, defense, health, cyber and national security.
Brian McAlister
Co-Founder and Advisor
A prolific start-up specialist, advisor, founder and angel investor to start-up companies, Mr. McAlister assists start-ups with raising capital and other activities. Over the past 30 years, Mr. McAlister has assisted over 25 early stage companies in various industries including biotechnology, enterprise software, and natural resources.
