Our team's functional experience is in the very type of work that the company is conducting; that is, identifying and creatively shaping and catalyzing early stage academic research and scientific competencies into monetizable programs whose disposition generates financial returns. These proven skill sets are distinctly different from those of traditional venture capitalists that evaluate, invest and exit developed business plans. Our team's success is based upon its experience in growing value in the bioscience sector, knowledge of the industry and marketplace, a formidable network and a demonstrated ability to meld these together to initiate, manage and complete technology-based development.

Frank A. Dinucci, President and CEO

Mr. Dinucci has a 35-year career that includes venture capital and merchant banking, institutional investment and investment banking. He most currently served as President and Executive Director of Connecticut Innovations, the quasi-governmental venture fund of the State of Connecticut charged with investing in early healthcare and other technology companies. As such, he managed a staff of about 40 people, all of which functioned to make investments in and oversee the development of young technology companies. Prior to CI, he was a managing director of SAE Ventures/Forest Street Capital where he spent fourteen years as an investor and advisor to early stage healthcare and technology companies, assisting them in a full range of formative stage issues. Prior experience includes thirteen years as an investment banker, principally at Merrill Lynch. He headed investment banking at Conning & Co. where he worked with private equity companies in addition to an extensive array of public companies. He has a broad background in the full range of financial products and services. He began his career with seven years as an institutional investment officer at Aetna Life & Casualty and Connecticut Bank & Trust managing large private and public portfolios. Prior to the formation of Boston BioCom, Mr. Dinucci served as the financial advisor to the MGH Russia team.

back to top

James A. Bento, Treasurer & Controller

Jim has extensive experience in business expansion from start-up to advanced development including joint venture development, venture capital acquisition and corporate financing. Prior to Boston BioCom, Jim was the Managing Director of e-Business Solutions, Inc., a Strategic Management & Finance Consulting company, where he spent over five years consulting at Pfizer R&D, and other major Fortune 1000 companies. Jim was CFO of four companies involving three IPOs and significant M&A activity. He gave special focus to the international growth of the organizations in the areas of sales, personnel, operations, technology, profits and facilities. He directed team projects such as TQM, ISO9001, Strategic Planning & Reporting, Lean Manufacturing, Continuous Improvement, and the computer software design/implementation of ERP systems. He also re-engineered corporate processes through active improvement and Change Management.

back to top

Timothy A. Brauns, VP Strategic Planning

Mr. Brauns has over 15 years experience working in the academic medical research environment with an emphasis on research program development and translation of innovative technology from academic research to commercial development. He was part of the CIMIT Russia team with responsibility for commercialization during which time his team guided two Russian spin-off companies to commercial partnering opportunities with U.S. companies and venture firms. Mr. Brauns also provided strategic planning and business development expertise to over two dozen Russian research institutes and private companies, including development of market analyses and business plans. He has also consulted with start-up life sciences and medical technology companies including portfolio companies of Oxford Bioscience Partners, a Boston-based venture capital firm. He holds a Masters of Business Administration from Suffolk University as well as a Master of Theological Studies degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

back to top

Alexey V. Eliseev, VP Business Development

Dr. Eliseev has a 15-year research and business development career in drug discovery in the biotechnology industry. He received his Ph.D. in Bioorganic Chemistry from Moscow State University and an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management. Having worked in U.S. academia and industry since 1993, he maintained active relationships with many Russian companies, research institutions and prominent scientists. Over the last decade he co-founded several biotechnology companies in the U.S. and Europe that are currently developing advanced drug candidates in a variety of therapeutic areas. Recently he held a position of CTO of Alantos Pharmaceuticals and was President of its US division.

back to top

Jeffrey A. Gelfand, Chief Scientific Officer

Dr. Gelfand holds appointments as Physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, Clinical Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. He has served as a program leader with the Boston-based Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology since 2000. Prior to his work at CIMIT and the Massachusetts General Hospital, he served as Professor and Chairman of the Department of Medicine of Tufts University School of Medicine and Physician-in-Chief at the New England Medical Center from 1994-1998, and subsequently as the Dean for Research at Tufts University School of Medicine and Senior Vice President for Research and Technology at the New England Medical Center. Dr. Gelfand has conducted laboratory and clinical research in immunology, inflammation, infection, and more recently, tumor immunology. He has 90 scientific publications and 45 chapters in leading textbooks of medicine. He developed the therapy for hereditary angioedema with danazol, also first using that drug in autoimmune thrombocytopenia. Both have been standard therapies for over two decades. Dr. Gelfand led the CIMIT team that evaluated Russian life sciences technologies on behalf of the State Department’s BioIndustry Initiative.

back to top

Alex L. Nivorozhkin, VP Technologies

Alex Nivorozhkin received his Ph.D. from Rostov University in Russia where he subsequently served as a staff member and Senior Researcher at the Institute of Physical and Organic Chemistry. After continuing an academic career that included work at the University of Southern Denmark, University Paris-Sud, France, and the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University, Alex gained substantial experience in the commercial aspects of drug discovery and development at Epix Medical and Inotek Pharmaceuticals where he served as the company’s Head of Medicinal Chemistry. Following that, he was part of the technologies commercialization team led by Dr. Jeff Gelfand at the Massachusetts General Hospital that spearheaded founding of Boston BioCom. He is a co-inventor of several drug candidates that have advanced to clinical trials and late pre-clinical studies in the United States, has co-authored over 60 scientific publications in different areas of chemistry and chemical biology and holds 10 patents.

back to top

Jan Andrew Buck, Strategic Advisor

Mr. Buck has a career in healthcare that spans over two decades. He is the founder of Princeton Group International, Inc., a healthcare focused, senior level strategic development firm that he has managed since 1990. In addition, Mr. Buck was a senior healthcare consultant and partner at Arthur D. Little and SRI (Stanford Research Institute), providing strategic advisory services to a wide range of healthcare companies. He was the CEO of Creative Biomolecules and Vice President of Corporate Development at Bristol-Myers Squibb and the Vice President of Legal Affairs at Squibb. During the last decade he founded or co-founded a number of companies in new biomedical technologies which have successfully achieved exit levels. Prior to that period, Mr. Buck was also instrumental in starting up new enterprises in the electronics, defense, telecommunications and computer science fields. Along with Partners HealthCare, Mr. Buck was a founder of Boston BioCom.

back to top

Hamed Abdou, Consultant

Previous to joining Boston BioCom, Dr. Abdou was the Senior Vice President of CMC Development & Supply Chain at OSI Pharmaceuticals and a member of the Senior Executive Committee of EyeTech Pharmaceuticals prior to its acquisition by OSI. At Eyetech, Hamed was key in gaining FDA approval for Macugen, a novel drug for AMD, in record time. He has led and aggressively executed strategies and development plans coupled to business results at major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Dr Abdou's 30-year career at Bristol-Myers Squibb culminated in his position as President of Worldwide Technical Operations and as a member of the BMS Corporate Executive Committee. He built an integrated global manufacturing network that emphasized high quality, regulatory compliance and cost effectiveness. Hamed has extensive experience in successfully managing complex partnerships with global pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies including BMS, Eyetech, Pfizer, OSI, and Genentech.

back to top