Board of Directors

Mr. Adams is Co-founder & Partner at MintPharma Capital, which led Vycellix’s most recent March 2024 funding round. He has more than 30 years of experience in investment management. Currently, he serves as the managing partner of Mint12, a specialized alternative investment management company. Under his guidance, Mint12 oversees the management of two real estate lending funds and two real estate equity funds. Before establishing Mint12, Dave held the position of Managing Partner and Founder at Fluid Capital Management (FCM), a company he established in 2010. At FCM, he successfully managed various alternative investment portfolios. Before his tenure at FCM, Dave worked as an interest rate derivatives trader at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) from 1991 to 2010. During these 20 years, he efficiently managed substantial proprietary and investor capital. Mr. Adams initiated his career in 1987 at Deloitte Haskins & Sells. In 1987, he graduated Cum Laude from Indiana University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting.

Dr. Evren Alici is a senior researcher and group leader in Hematology at Karolinska Institutet (KI), Department of Medicine, Stockholm, Sweden. He also serves as co-director of NextGenNK, an international Competence Center for the development of next-generation NK cell-based cancer immunotherapies based at KI. He received his M.D. and did his residency at the Ege University, Turkey. He received his Ph.D. in 2006 at KI. His main research interests are novel approaches to generating universal cells including allogeneic NK cells, multiple myeloma, lentiviral and retroviral gene transfer, stem cell transplantation and immunology. He is a member of several international and national committees, advisory boards and scientific meetings. He is currently leading a group of more than 20 scientists. Dr. Alici participated in the planning and design of the first clinical study with gene-modified cells in Sweden and authored the final publication. Additionally, he was also responsible for the first-in-man autologous NK cell therapy clinical trial that was classified as advanced therapy medicinal product use.

Mr. Calder serves on the Board of Directors for NextGenNK, an international Competence Center for the development of next-generation NK cell-based cancer immunotherapies based at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. He also serves as a Director for BioFlorida and is a Member of the Society for Natural Immunity.

A graduate of Florida State University, Mr. Calder has nearly 25-years of life science executive experience, with an emphasis on investor relations, capital markets strategies and public/media relations, having served in senior executive and officer roles for biotechnology companies and research institutes including the Vaccine & Gene Therapy Institute, Biovest International, Accentia Biopharmaceuticals and Viragen, as well as having formerly served as a licensed registered representative financial portfolio manager with a focus on life science equities with the NYSE-member firms, Gruntal & Co. and Dean Witter Reynolds.

Mr. Finizio is Co-founder & Partner at MintPharma Capital, which led Vycellix’s most recent March 2024 funding round. He also co-founded CareFusion, the market leader in medication patient safety in 2001, which he sold to Cardinal Health (CAH) in 2006. After CareFusion, Rob co-founded TherapeuticsMD (Nasdaq: TXMD) in 2008. As the CEO and Vice Chairman, he developed TXMD from a start-up to the market leader in women’s health pharmaceutical development. TXMD is the first and only women’s health pharmaceutical company to have three new drugs approved in a single year (2018). In 2013, Rob took TXMD public on the New York Stock Exchange and achieved a market capitalization of well over a billion dollars. During his tenure at TXMD, Rob raised more than $1 Billion dollars through public equity and debt. Rob also currently serves as a board member and Executive Director of PleoPharma, Myosin Therapeutics and Zyversa (Nasdaq: ZVSA).

Professor Hans-Gustaf Ljunggren earned his medical and doctoral degrees at Karolinska Institutet (KI). He also serves as Center Director of NextGenNK, an international Competence Center for the development of next-generation NK cell-based cancer immunotherapies based at KI. In 2001, he was appointed Professor of Infection Medicine and Director of the Center for Infectious Medicine (CIM), a Strategic Research Center at the Department of Medicine, KI. He has authored >300 articles within the fields of immunology, infectious diseases and cancer and been cited >20,000 times. Immune reactions mediated by innate immune cells such as NK cells have been a long-standing focus of his research. Starting off from simple model systems, Ljunggren and collaborators early on provided fundamental insights molecular specificity and function of NK cells. In recent years, he has gone on to explore the same cells in humans. His research group is now taking new steps exploring the use of NK cells in therapeutic settings in humans with cancer. Professor Ljunggren has been a member of the organizing or scientific committees of numerous international conferences. He has had multiple national and international assignments, involving external research evaluations and participation in international advisory boards. He has been a member of the editorial board of several leading international journals within the field of immunology. He has functioned as Dean of Research at KI and is a member of the Nobel Assembly at KI, which awards the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Dr. Poché was appointed as Vycellix’s CEO on April 1, 2024. Tom brings over 25 years of experience across all phases of intellectual property, regulatory strategy and complex transactions relating to small molecules, biologics and medical devices. Most recently, Tom has served as General Counsel for PleoPharma, and notably he served as Vice President and Head of Intellectual Property Management and Strategy at Allergan until its $63 billion takeover by Abbvie in 2020. Prior to Allergan, he was a Partner in the Washington, D.C. offices of Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, Cooley Godward Kronish and Connolly Bove Lodge & Hutz. Tom received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Chicago.

Dr. Streeter is a Partner at DeepWork Capital, a venture capital firm based in Florida, which co-participated in Vycellix’s most recent March 2024 funding round. Dr. Streeter also has a dual role as the Director of Ventures at the University of Florida. Previously, he founded the medical technology companies, PhotoThera and American Veterinary Laser, and he was the CEO of Banyan Biomarkers. He also served as SVP, Corporate Development & Strategy at Quanterix (Nasdaq: QTRX) and as CEO of the Institute for the Commercialization of Public Research, which has the mission of funding early-stage companies throughout the State of Florida. Dr. Streeter’s Board appointments have included Florida Research Consortium, Governor’s Life Science Task Force for the State of Florida, FBI Counter Terrorism Southeast Working Group, Walter H. Coulter Center Committee at the University of Miami, and the Gainesville Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors. He earned his B.S. in Biology from the University of Nevada Reno and his M.D. from the University of Nevada School of Medicine. He’s the inventor of more than 20 patents and has authored numerous scientific publications. Prior to entering industry, Dr. Streeter served as an Officer in the U.S. Navy where he became the first Navy Flight Surgeon selected as a TOPGUN instructor.

Governor Thompson served as the University of Wisconsin System President from 2020 to 2022. He is the former U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary, serving from 2001 to 2005, and a four-term Governor of Wisconsin. From 2005 to 2009, he served as a senior advisor at the consulting firm Deloitte & Touche USA LLP and was the founding independent chairman of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions. From 2005 to 2012, Governor Thompson served as a partner at the law firm of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP. He served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Logistics Health, Inc. from January 2007 to May 2011, and served as President from February 2005 to January 2011. Governor Thompson has served on the boards of United Therapeutics Corporation (Nasdaq: UTHR) since 2010 and TherapeuticsMD, Inc. (Nasdaq: TXMD) since 2012. He was formerly the Chairman of the Board of Trustees at Physicians Realty Trust from 2013 until its merger with Healthpeak Properties (NYSE: DOC), in 2024. Governor Thompson also previously served on the boards of Scilex Holding Company (Nasdaq: SCLX), Tyme Technologies, Inc. (formerly Nasdaq: TYME), Cancer Genetics, Inc. (now Vyant Bio, Inc., formerly Nasdaq: VYNT), Cytori Therapeutics, Inc. (now Plus Therapeutics, Nasdaq: PSTV), CareView Communications, Inc., C.R. Bard, Inc. (formerly NYSE: BCR) and Centene Corporation (NYSE: CNC).