Board of Directors
John Friedman, Executive Chairman of the Board, is the founder of Easton Capital Investment Group which manages $200 million in venture capital and private equity funds. Prior, he founded and was Managing General Partner of Security Pacific Capital Investors. He has been Managing Director and Partner at E. M. Warburg, Pincus & Co., was an attorney at Sullivan and Cromwell and coChairs the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory President's Council. He holds a JD degree from Yale Law School and a BA degree from Yale College.
Dr. Stefan Ryser, President and Chief Executive Officer held various senior management positions of increasing responsibility at F. Hoffmann-La Roche, including Chief of Staff for the President of Global Research and Development. Dr. Ryser was from 1989 to 1997 at Roche in Nutley, NJ as well as in Basel, Switzerland. While at Roche he led initiatives to assess the impact of emerging technologies on pharmaceutical research and development, and assisted in the establishment and management of strategic research and development alliances. He was a member of the joint steering committee with Millennium Pharmaceuticals and a liaison for new research projects with Genentech. Stefan Ryser founded and served as managing partner of Bear Stearns Health Innoventures, a $212 million private equity fund established in 2000. He also founded and managed, beginning in 1998, International Biomedicine Management Partners, a biotechnology venture fund. Previously, Dr. Ryser has served on numerous boards of directors in both public and private biotechnology companies. Before joining Trellis Bioscience, Dr. Ryser was CEO at A-Cube, a biotech company focusing on identifying B-cell epitopes. Prior to A-Cube he was SVP for corporate strategy at Telik, a company founded by Larry Kauvar, and VP of Business Development at Aridis Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Ryser earned his undergraduate degree in molecular biology and biochemistry and Ph.D. in Immunology at the University of Basel, Switzerland.
Stote Ellsworth, Chief Technology Officer, has spent his career bringing high technology systems solutions to the life science industry. He joined Trellis in 2003 to bring to reality the company’s CellSpot™ platform now responsible for generating a pipeline of totally human therapeutic antibodies directly from human blood. The platform blends life science technology in cell and molecular biology with state-of-the-art microscopy, software, and nanotechnology. Prior to Trellis, Mr. Ellsworth was the VP R&D and Chief Operating Officer at First Medical, a point-of-care cardiac diagnostic company acquired by Sigma in 2000. This was preceded by a role as Vice President of Engineering at Becton Dickinson where he was responsible for developing through commercial release numerous flow cytometry products which now dominate that market. He holds a degree in Bioscience Technology from the University of California Santa Cruz, a BA from Dartmouth in Engineering and Mathematics, and an MS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.
Lawrence Kauvar, PhD, Founder and Senior Vice President, is an entrepreneur and scientist who founded Trellis and was previously the founder and CSO of Telik. He holds 40 US patents for methods, tools and drug compounds and is one of the inventors of CellSpot™, Trellis' core technology. Dr. Kauvar holds a PhD from Yale in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, did his post doctoral studies at Caltech and holds an undergraduate degree from Harvard.
Somu Subramaniam, MBA, is the co-founder and Managing Partner of New Science Ventures. He serves on several Boards of portfolio companies including Achronix Semiconductor, RF Arrays, Therox, BioVex, Receptor Biologix, and Celleration. Previously, he was a Director at McKinsey & Co. and at various times led their Strategy Practice, Technology Practice and HealthCare Practice. He received his undergraduate degree (B.Tech.) from the Indian Institute of Technology and his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
Thomas Lavin, MBA co-founded New Science Ventures in 2004 and serves as CFO. He serves on the Board of Directors for RF Arrays and Oxyrane. Previously, he was head of real estate investment banking at First Boston and Smith Barney and head of commercial mortgage lending at MetLife. He received his undergraduate degree in Government from Wesleyan University and his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.