Management
Hugh Rosen, M.D., Ph.D., President & Chairman
Hugh Rosen, M.D., Ph.D., joins ActivX as President and Chairman with a 30+ year career in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and academic sectors. Hugh’s career has been one of significant achievements. Following training in medicine in Cape Town, he received his D.Phil. as a Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 Scholar at the University of Oxford. He then spent 11 years at Merck Research Laboratories before becoming a Professor at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) in 2002. At TSRI, his research focus has been on chemical and biological approaches to the molecular mechanisms regulating lymphocyte trafficking. As part of this research, he co-invented ozanimod with the Edward Roberts lab and was a scientific founder of Receptos, which was acquired by Celgene in 2015 for $7.3 Billion. Hugh is also a scientific founder of BlackThorn Therapeutics which recently closed a $40M Series A. He serves as an independent Board member at Regulus Therapeutics and will also remain on the faculty of TSRI.
Yoh Ito, Vice President, Chief Financial Officer
Mr. Yoh Ito, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of ActivX, is also the Director of Finance & Accounting of Kyorin Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. He joined Kyorin in 2003 and previously held the position of Senior Manager of Strategies & Business Development Headquarters. Prior to Kyorin, Mr. Ito was Managing Director of Capital Arts, Inc. He received his MBA from Cornell University and graduated from the University of Tokyo.
Lorrie Daggett, Chief Operation Officer
Ms. Daggett joined Activx in 2006 and is responsible for management of our corporate and legal matters and administrative departments. Lorrie also helps to foster and maintain ActivX's agreement and collaboration portfolio and business development for the ActivX Technology Platforms. Prior to ActivX, Lorrie worked for GHC Technologies as Senior Research Scientist for a Phase I Early Warning Bioterrorism Defense System (IBADS). Lorrie previously worked for 14 years for Merck Research Laboratories/SIBIA Neurosciences. As a Research Fellow, Ms Daggett was project leader of a GPCR drug discovery project and a stroke biomarker project. She also worked on molecular biology assay development and oversaw the HTS development group in support of novel drug candidates for stroke, eating disorders, anxiety, or schizophrenia. Lorrie obtained her Bachelors of Science from the University of California at Los Angeles.
Jonathan Rosenblum, Ph.D., Vice President of Research
Dr. Rosenblum has been at ActivX since January 2001 and is responsible for overseeing profiling of compounds in (pre)clinical development and the biological aspects of the company’s drug discovery programs, including high throughput screening, genomics and proteomics. He was one of the original scientists at the company, and has been involved in many facets of the company’s evolution, from technology development to IND submission. Jonathan also served as the Principal Investigator for an SBIR grant from the National Institutes of Health, and has served as a study section member at the NIH. Prior to ActivX, Jonathan trained as an NIH postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Günter Blobel at the Rockefeller University. While at Rockefeller, Jonathan used proteomics and molecular cell biology to characterize mechanisms of nuclear protein transport. Prior to Rockefeller, Jonathan received his Ph.D. in Macromolecular and Cellular Structure and Chemistry as a National Science Foundation fellow at The Scripps Research Institute. Jonathan received a Bachelor of Arts degree in chemistry, magna cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was also elected to Phi Beta Kappa, having been a Benjamin Franklin Scholar.
Tyzoon Nomanbhoy, Ph.D., Senior Director of Drug Discovery and Proteomics
Dr. Nomanbhoy received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry, Molecular and Cell Biology from Cornell University in 1997, and this was followed by post-doctoral training at Scripps Research under the guidance of Professor Paul Schimmel. He then joined ActivX Biosciences in 2001 where he currently serves as Senior Director, Technology. In this role, he oversees all operational and business development aspects of the proprietary technology platforms at ActivX, including KiNativ®.
Helge Weissig, Ph.D., Senior Director of Research Informatics & IT
Dr. Weissig joined ActivX Biosciences, Inc. in 2002 and is responsible for bioinformatics and IT efforts. Before joining ActivX, Dr. Weissig was Project Manager, Structural Bioinformatics, at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) where he designed, implemented and maintained the query and data analysis functionality of the Protein Data Bank (PDB) website. He did his post-doctoral training in structural bioinformatics at the San Diego Supercomputer Center where he set up the only repository for historical PDB files removed from the public archives. Dr. Weissig also teaches computer and bioinformatics related courses at UCSD and at California State University, San Marcos. He co-edited the textbook "Structural Bioinformatics" and is a founding member of the San Diego Bioinformatics Forum. Dr. Weissig obtained his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Freiburg in Germany.
Mariangela Urbano, Ph.D., Director of Chemistry
Dr. Urbano joined ActivX in September 2017 and is responsible for overseeing the Medicinal Chemistry team as part of our drug discovery efforts. Prior to ActivX, Mariangela was a Sr. Scientist at BlackThorn Therapeutics where her work contributed to the development of a small-molecule kappa opioid receptor (KOR) antagonist (BTRX-335140) that is entering Phase 2 trial for the treatment of stress-related neurobehavioral disorders. Before joining BlackThorn, Mariangela worked as a post-doctoral fellow at Arena Pharmaceuticals, and in the translational chemistry group of Prof. Edward Roberts at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI, La Jolla, CA). While at TSRI, she contributed to the discovery of selective KOR antagonists that were then licensed to BlackThorn, and played a key role in the identification of small-molecule modulators of the sphingosine 1-phosphate receptors. Mariangela received her Ph.D. in Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Technology from the University of Pavia, Italy.
