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Board of Directors
Steven T. Downey
President and Chief Executive Officer
Mr. Downey is ApoImmune's President and CEO and also serves as Chairman of Board of Directors. Mr. Downey has over 28 years of business experience including 23 years in senior leadership positions with both start-ups and large public corporations. He previously served as the acting CEO and COO of MetaCyte Business Lab LLC, the life sciences business accelerator in Louisville, KY. In 2004, Mr. Downey was named by former Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher to the Kentucky Life Sciences Advisory Consortium and was a member of the Board of Directors of the Kentucky Life Sciences Organization. Previously, as Executive Vice President and CFO of Ventas, Inc., a NYSE $200 million revenue real estate investment trust, Mr. Downey actively participated in the restructuring of Vencor, Inc., its primary tenant. At Providian Corporation, he was responsible for the financial operations of the holding company and three divisions with over $20 billion in assets and $2 billion in revenue. He also spent over 12 years with Ernst & Young serving primarily publicly-held clients in the financial services, real estate and health care fields.
Haval Shirwan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientific Officer and Founder
Dr. Shirwan is the Founder and CSO of ApoImmune and also a member of the Board of Directors. He is Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Louisville, and is the Director of the Molecular Immunomodulation Program at the Institute for Cellular Therapeutics at Louisville. He is also the Hamilton Chair in Autoimmune Disease and a University Scholar at the School of Medicine.
Throughout his career Dr. Shirwan has maintained a focus on clinically relevant details of the immune response. Dr. Shirwan investigated the molecular basis of the effects interferons on the replication of viruses during his graduate studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His postdoctoral work at the California Institute of Technology dealt with the structure and function of major histocompatibility complex antigens. He was recruited from Caltech to start the Molecular Immunology Program at Cedars/Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles with a focus on transplantation immunology. After a brief tenure at the Alleghany University of Health Sciences in Philadelphia, PA, Dr Shirwan joined the faculty of the University of Louisville in 1998. In recent years, Dr. Shirwan has focused on translational research and pioneered the ProtEx technology, the Company's platform technology, as a safe, efficient, and practical alternative to DNA-based immune gene therapy for immunomodulation.
Dr. Shirwan has served on numerous study sections for national and international funding agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, the Veteran's Administration, The U.S.-Israel Binational Science Foundation, Israel Science Foundation, American Heart Association, Wellcome Trust, and Philip Morris USA Inc. He has also served on the Editorial Board of the journal Graft, was Section Editor for Current Opinion in Organ Transplantation, and an ad hoc reviewer for numerous scientific journals. He is the member of several scientific organizations and authored more than 100 papers, reviews, and book chapters. He has lectured at various national and international scientific meetings as an invited speaker. Dr. Shirwan's numerous honors and recognitions include the following organizations and awards: the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Red Cross, an NIH First Independent Research Support & Transition (FIRST) award, the American Society of Transplant Physicians-Ortho Award, the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center Young Investigator Award, and the Louisville Business First, Partners in Health Care Award.
For additional information, please visit Dr. Shirwan's University of Louisville web site.
George Emont
Managing Partner, Kentucky Seed Capital Fund
Partner, Triathlon Medical Ventures
Mr. Emont brings a significant background in the life sciences and venture capital industry to the ApoImmune team. Mr. Emont is a Managing Partner with the Kentucky Seed Capital Fund and a Venture Partner with Triathlon Medical Ventures. Until 2003, Mr. Emont was Director of Venture Capital for Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM), managing their $70 million venture portfolio. Mr. Emont was a co-founder of OncoTherapeutics, an early stage cancer immunotherapy company, which was sold to Biomira, Inc. As part of the IAI Venture Capital Group of Minneapolis, he evaluated and recommended new investment opportunities. Mr. Emont led the first round of financing of SangStat Medical Corporation and served on its Board of Directors prior to its going public and eventually being bought by Genzyme. Previously, Mr. Emont held positions within Baxter Healthcare. He holds an MBA in Finance and Marketing from the University of Chicago. Mr. Emont brings a diverse background in venture capital, business development and proven early stage company development expertise.
Steve Gailar
Managing Partner, Kentucky Seed Capital Fund
President & CEO, MetaCyte Business Lab LLC
Mr. Gailar is President and Chief Executive Officer of MetaCyte Business Lab LLC, the life sciences business accelerator in Louisville, KY, and managing partner of Kentucky Seed Capital Fund. Mr. Gailar has spent the last 30 years as a manager of, and investor in, various life sciences businesses. During 14 years at Eli Lilly and Company he held various management positions in finance, sales, and marketing, as well as establishing the initial Pharmaceutical Strategic Planning component for the company which determined future competencies, investments and acquisitions. Mr. Gailar spent 3 years in the San Francisco Bay Area in senior management positions of emerging biotechnology companies including his role as President and CEO of Marlstone Corporation, a rational drug design firm. For 13 years Mr. Gailar was a Managing Director of Senmed Medical Ventures, a private evergreen venture capital firm making investments in university spin-outs and mid-to-late stage private life science companies. He has been Founder/CEO of seven biomedical startups and has raised more than $50 million in venture capital financing. The public market capitalization of his investments exceeds $1 billion. Mr. Gailar holds a B.A. from Indiana University and an M.S.I.A. from Purdue University's Krannert School of Business.
James C. Seiffert, J.D.
Attorney, Stites & Harbison
Mr. Seiffert is a Member of the law firm Stites & Harbison based in its Louisville office, where he is a
member of the Banking & Finance and Tax Service Groups. He has been with Stites & Harbison since
1986 and his practice focuses on venture capital financing, closely held business, taxation, mergers and
acquisitions and general business law. A widely respected authority on business entities, Mr. Seiffert was
co-chair of the 1994, 1996, 1998 and 2000 Kentucky Limited Liability Company Act Committee, which
drafted and amended KRS Chapter 275, the Kentucky Limited Liability Company Act. He was also the
founding editor of the Innovation Newsletter for the firm. He is listed in The Best Lawyers in America®
(2006-2009) and ChambersUSA "America's Leading Lawyers for Business," 2003-09. He is also
President of the Kentucky Bar Association Business Law Section, 2006. Jim is a member of the University
of Louisville Entrepreneurial Council (2003-present), a director of the Executive Committee for the
Kentucky Science & Technology Corporation (2001-present), director and member of the executive
committee of the Kentucky World Trade Center (2008-present), and director of Association of Capital
Growth Kentucky. Mr. Seiffert holds a B.A. from the University of Iowa, a J.D. from the University of
Louisville School of Law, and an LL.M. in Taxation from the University of Miami School of Law.
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