About

Michael P. Bailey serves as president and chief executive officer for AVEO Oncology (an LG Chem company) and is a member of AVEO’s board of directors.  Michael brings more than 30 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry to the company. Before the acquisition of AVEO by LG Chem in January of 2023, Mr. Bailey was named president and chief executive officer of AVEO Oncology in January 2015, prior to that appointment, Mr. Bailey served as AVEO’s chief business officer from 2013 to 2015 and its chief commercial officer from 2010 to 2013. Mr. Bailey joined AVEO from Synta (now Madrigal Pharmaceuticals), where he served as senior vice president, business development, and chief commercial officer since 2008. Prior to joining Synta, Mr. Bailey led ImClone Systems’ (now Eli Lilly) Worldwide Commercial Organization. During his nine-year tenure at ImClone Systems, he was responsible for commercial aspects of the planning and launch of ERBITUX® (cetuximab) across multiple oncology indications, as well as new product planning for the ImClone Systems development portfolio, which included CYRAMZA® (ramucirumab) and necitumumab. In addition, Mr. Bailey was a key member of the strategic leadership committees for ImClone and its North American and worldwide partnerships. Prior to joining ImClone Systems, Mr. Bailey managed the cardiovascular development portfolio at Genentech, Inc., and was a key member of their global commercial partnership teams. Mr. Bailey started his career in the pharmaceutical industry as part of SmithKline Beecham’s Executive MBA Marketing Development Program, where he held a variety of commercial roles, including sales, strategic planning, and product management. Mr. Bailey received a B.S. in psychology from St. Lawrence University and an M.B.A. in international marketing from the Mendoza College of Business at University of Notre Dame.

Currently, Mr. Bailey also serves as chairman of the board of directors of IMV Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company.

Dr. Birkhofer serves as Chief Medical Officer of AVEO. Dr. Birkhofer is an oncologist and seasoned business executive with more than 30 years of life sciences management experience. Dr. Birkhofer joins AVEO with proven leadership abilities and extensive global clinical development, business development, regulatory and medical affairs experience with both small molecules and biologics. Dr. Birkhofer most recently served as Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of Taiho Oncology Inc. Prior to joining Taiho Oncology, he served as Chief Medical Officer of Gradalis, Inc. and NuCana BioMed Ltd. Between 1994 and 2013, he served in various leadership roles within Research and Development and Business Development at Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS).

Dr. Birkhofer is Board Certified in Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology. He obtained his M.D. from New York Medical College in Valhalla, New York.

Matthew Coulter comes to AVEO with more than 25 years of experience integrating the finance and IT roles in companies ranging from Fortune 500 enterprises to pharmaceutical startups. Most recently, he led internal and external IT operations for startup Zealand Pharma as it brought its insulin pump to market, and he helped build field sales and manufacturing infrastructures to support growth to tens of millions of dollars in annual revenue. Matt has written and implemented custom software to streamline processes in ERP, supply chain, HR, and manufacturing functions, and he has digitized accounting functions to increase efficiency. Matt holds a Bachelor of Science in Finance, Economics, and Entrepreneurial Studies form Babson College in Wellesley, MA.

David Crist brings more than twenty years of oncology sales experience in both launch-stage and late-stage companies, building commercial organizations and developing high performing sales force teams. During his career, Mr. Crist held oncology-focused sales roles at several leading pharmaceutical companies including MGI (Molecular Genetics, Inc), Eisai, Sanofi Genzyme, GlaxoSmithKline and ARIAD Pharmaceuticals, where he led their sales organization in the successful relaunch of  ICLUSIG^® (ponatinib), which contributed to the acquisition of ARIAD by Takeda Oncology in 2017. Following the acquisition, he continued at Takeda to successfully launch ALUNBRIG^® (brigatinib), which exceeded launch year and subsequent year forecasts nationally. Directly prior to joining AVEO, Mr. Crist served as general manager, hematology oncology U.S. franchise at argenx, a global immunology company, where he led commercial development for two of the company’s hematology and oncology compounds. Mr. Crist holds a B.S. from Florida State University.

Reetu Dandora serves as Vice President, Compliance and Regulatory Counsel at AVEO and brings over 25 years of counseling clients in the pharmaceutical and health care industries on a wide array of business initiatives. Prior to joining AVEO, Ms. Dandora worked at Merck & Co., Inc. (“Merck”), in two separate roles. Most recently, she served as Executive Director, MRL Quality Assurance, where she developed strategies that provided end-to-end support related to the overall management of data quality and integrity matters throughout the drug development process. Ms. Dandora also worked as a Director in Merck’s Office of General Counsel where she served as primary legal counsel on clinical trial-related matters and provided legal and compliance support to the U.S. Market of the Human Health Division on issues related to pricing, sales and marketing. Ms. Dandora began her career at Reed Smith LLP where she was a Partner in the Life Sciences group and represented pharmaceutical companies in product liability matters, including mass torts, class actions and personal injury cases. Ms. Dandora has a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania and a J.D. from The George Washington University Law School.

Mr. Ferraresso, who joined AVEO in December 2017, most recently served as senior vice president, business analytics and commercial operations. He has over 20 years of commercial pharmaceutical and biotechnology experience, including 15 years developing and commercializing oncology products. At AVEO, in addition to developing the Company’s commercial strategy and infrastructure, Mr. Ferraresso has played a key role in business development activities, including the Company’s immuno-oncology clinical collaborations and the over $400 million agreement amendment with Kyowa Kirin for non-oncology rights to tivozanib in AVEO’s territories. Prior to joining AVEO, he served in sales and commercial operations roles of increasing responsibility at several biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, including at Verastem, Infinity Pharmaceuticals, AMAG Pharmaceuticals, Critical Therapeutics, Praecis Pharmaceuticals, Ascent Pediatrics, and Muro Pharmaceuticals. Mr. Ferraresso has extensive experience in commercial strategy including partnerships, development, pricing, and field deployment models and has launched Oprapred^™, Plenaxis^™, Zyflo^™ and Feraheme^™. Mr. Ferraresso holds a BA degree in Economics from Assumption College.

Brent Gardner brings 20 years of leadership experience in the pharmaceutical industry to AVEO in his role as Executive Director, Medical Affairs.  Prior to joining AVEO, Brent served as Executive Director, Medical Affairs at Epizyme where he led the field medical affairs organization as well as the investigator-sponsored research program, real-world evidence research program and the expanded access program.  Prior to Epizyme, Brent built and led the medical affairs function at Partner Therapeutics, having broad responsibility for external stakeholder engagement, publications, evidence generation, medical education and medical information.  Brent has also served in various medical affairs roles at Algeta, Bayer, Biodesix and Merrimack Pharmaceuticals.  Brent began his career leading a radiopharmacy teams for Covidien, Triad Isotopes and IBA Molecular.  Brent holds a Doctor of Pharmacy degree from Purdue University.  

Danielle Holland serves as Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of AVEO. Prior to joining AVEO, Ms. Holland served as an Associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP where she advised public and private clients in a variety of industries in corporate and securities law matters, mergers and acquisitions, governance, corporate finance and other matters. Prior to her legal career, Ms. Holland taught elementary education in New York City through Teach For America. Ms. Holland received a B.A. in International Studies from Boston College and a J.D. from Boston University School of Law.

Mr. Jeong serves as AVEO’s Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Jeong joins AVEO from its parent company, LG Chem, Ltd. (“LG Chem”), where he has served as a financial and accounting officer since 1999. During his time at LG Chem, Mr. Jeong has served as the financial director and controller for several entities where LG Chem invested in joint ventures and/or subsidiaries, the majority of them in Thailand. He has provided strategic financial counsel on the new entities’ successful stabilization, spearheaded the implementation of financial controls and systems, and overseen the expansion of the Finance/Accounting departments.

Mr. Jeong received his B.S. in Business Administration from Kyunghee University in South Korea.

Dr. Vijay Kasturi, Vice President, Clinical Development and Medical Affairs, brings more than 25 years of experience establishing and executing global and regional strategies that have brought innovative new treatment options to patients in hematology and oncology. Prior to joining AVEO, Dr. Kasturi was Senior Vice President of Scientific Affairs at FerGene, where he also led both Medical Affairs and Clinical Development. He has also led U.S. Medical Affairs, Oncology for EMD Serono where he had broad leadership responsibilities, including external stakeholder management, evidence generation, medical education and publication strategy. During his time with EMD Serono, Vijay also developed and managed the global medical strategy and launch plan for the company’s anti-PD-L1 agent (avelumab), including indications in Merkel cell, urothelial, and kidney cancer.

Earlier in his career, Dr. Kasturi served as an Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of Hematology-Oncology  at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and was the program leader for genitourinary oncology at UMass Memorial Cancer Center. He trained in Hematology-Oncology at the National Cancer Institute and worked as an investigator and physician at the National Cancer Institute and at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center.

Mr. Ledell serves as Chief Operating Officer of AVEO. He joins AVEO from Enzyvant Therapeutics, a biotechnology company dedicated to developing novel, transformative regenerative therapies for people with devastating rare diseases, where he served as Chief Operating Officer and led key business operations during the recent U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval of RETHYMIC^®. Prior to Enzyvant, Mr. Ledell served as the Chief Operating Officer at Compass Therapeutics and Horizon Discovery Group. He was responsible for leading operations at both organizations through several changes in scale. Prior to Horizon, he held multiple technology, operations and development roles at Zalicus Inc. Mr. Ledell holds a BS degree in Chemical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Jason Noto brings over 20 years of broad commercial leadership experience to his role as Senior Vice President of Market Access at AVEO Oncology. Prior to joining AVEO, Jason served as Vice President at 1798 Consultants, a strategic market access consultancy specializing in integrated channel strategy, patient support services (HUB), payer contract development and assessment, financial impact analysis, and related Access functions. Earlier, Jason served as Senior Director of Market Access Strategy and Payer Marketing at Amag Pharmaceuticals, leading Payer marketing efforts across all business units totaling >$600M in revenue in 2019.

Prior to his tenure at Amag Pharmaceuticals, Mr. Noto held various launch, in-line, and multi-channel marketing leadership roles of increasing responsibility at Sunovion Pharmaceuticals, Alkermes, and Bristol-Myers Squibb Company. During his career, Mr. Noto has had responsibility for the US commercial launch of various specialty products in oncology, immunology, CNS, & ultra-orphan disease states. Mr. Noto received a B.S. in Business Administration from Le Moyne College and an M.B.A. in finance from the Carroll School of Management at Boston College.

Greg Oehrtman brings over 20 years of Drug Development experience to his role returning to AVEO after 8 years.  Dr. Oehrtman has held roles of increasing seniority in Drug Development and Manufacturing at Quintiles/Catalent, Amylin, Stealth Biotherapeutics, and Dicerna.  He has led both drug substance and product development and manufacturing from early pre-clinical to commercial validations, supporting development of Fast Acting Advil, Advil PM, Bydureon, FOTIVDA, Elamipretide, and Nedosiran.  While in these roles, he has managed product development of small molecules, peptides, and antibodies as oral and sterile injectable along with combination device development.  Dr. Oehrtman received his Ph.D in Chemical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Manoj Patel has more than 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, over 15 of which are directly in the development of oncologic treatments and joins AVEO as Vice President of Program Management. Prior to joining AVEO’s management team, Dr. Patel led the development of several biologics programs as a Project Leader within Teva’s specialty pharma group. Prior to Teva, he held several senior level positions within Project and Program Management as well as Customer Solutions at PRA Health Sciences (now part of ICON) and IQVIA. During his tenure at these CROs, Dr. Patel oversaw the development of oncology treatments for several major pharmaceutical and biotech clients. Prior to IQVIA, he worked at GlaxoSmithKline for more than 10 years across multiple functions that included Clinical Development, Medical Affairs and Project Management. Dr. Patel was also Sr. Director of Program and Alliance Management at ImClone Systems and was involved in the process leading to the ultimate sale of the company to Eli Lilly. Dr. Patel received BS degrees in Chemistry and Pharmacy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Doctorate of Pharmacy from Campbell University.

Kevin Peacock currently serves as AVEO’s Senior Vice President of Marketing. Prior to joining AVEO, he served as both the Vice President, New Product Planning and Business Development at Lycera where he was leading the early commercialization process for Lycera’s novel immune-oncology compounds and in 2015 completed an exclusive strategic collaboration and license with Celgene resulting in $100M in non-dilutive financing. Mr. Peacock also previously served as Vice President, Global Marketing and Business Analytics at Dendreon, where he led the launch of Provenge^® in select European countries and managed the US Business Analytics team. Mr. Peacock was Senior Director and Product Champion for Savient Pharmaceuticals while working on Krystexxa^® and previously served as Senior Director of New Product Planning at Allos Therapeutics. Prior to that, Mr. Peacock held various roles on the ERBITUX^® brand team while at ImClone Systems. Mr. Peacock’s has extensive experience in the oncology commercialization process including marketing, market research, new product planning and product development on the R&D side. Mr. Peacock earned his Bachelor of Administration in Finance and Risk Management from Temple University.  

Ganesh Rajaratnam serves as AVEO Oncology’s Vice President of Business Analytics. In this role, Mr. Rajaratnam is responsible for AVEO’s enterprise-wide Business Analytics, including Commercial Analytics, Commercial Operations, Market Insights and Omnichannel Strategy and Operations.

Mr. Rajaratnam has more than 15 years of diverse experience spanning multiple therapeutic areas within the biopharmaceutical and healthcare sectors. Before joining AVEO in 2020, he served as the Director of Field Operations at AMAG Pharmaceuticals where he was responsible for all aspects of field operations, including supporting go-to-market modeling and launch execution for bremelanotide. Prior to this role, Mr. Rajaratnam held roles of increasing responsibility in finance and various rotational positions spanning investor relations, sales, managed care, and field operations at Alkermes. Earlier in his career, Mr. Rajaratnam held positions of increasing responsibility in Finance at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Mr. Rajaratnam earned a bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering, with a minor in Mathematics from the University of Miami (FL) and a Master of Business Administration from Suffolk University Sawyer Business School.

Sharon Reinhard serves as Vice President of Quality Assurance at AVEO and brings more than 25 years of pharmaceutical executive industry experience holding roles in Clinical Development, Clinical Operations, Quality and Compliance. Ms. Reinhard began her career building and running the Emergency Medicine research program at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.  Once she transitioned into the industry, she worked in a variety of different size companies such as Wyeth, LLC, Shire plc, Merck & Co., Inc. and CSL Behring where she managed responsibility for GMP, GLP, GVP, GCP and Device/combination product quality.  She has also worked on numerous NDA/BLA filings and supported dozens of regulatory inspections and audits.  Ms. Reinhard focuses on employing risk-based and quality by design approaches. She has published over 20 abstracts and papers related to clinical research.  Ms. Reinhard received her undergraduate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania in Biology and English and earned her Masters of Science degree from Temple School of Pharmacy in Pharmaceutical Drug Development- Regulatory Affairs and Quality Assurance.

Noelia Rycerz brings more than 17 years of global drug development experience to her role at Aveo Oncology. Ms. Rycerz has held roles of increasing seniority in Clinical Operations and Program Management at Amgen Inc., Pfizer Inc., and Odonate Therapeutics, Inc. She led and executed clinical phase 1 – 3 clinical trials in varying therapeutics areas including oncology, rheumatology and cardiovascular disease. During her time at Amgen Inc. as a Program Manager, she supported CMC, Regulatory and Safety Affairs to ensure delivery of marketing applications leading to approval of Corlanor®. While at Pfizer, Ms. Rycerz was accountable for oversight of pivotal clinical trials and support of regulatory inspections leading to marketing application approvals for Xeljanz®, Besponsa® and Daurismo®. Ms. Rycerz received a Bachelors of Science at Boston University. 

Michael has extensive experience counseling life sciences companies to achieve clinical and commercial goals while responsibly managing compliance and enforcement risks.  He previously held in-house Legal and Compliance positions at PDL BioPharma, Mylan and Dendreon.  Michael began his legal career with the FDA Drug and Biotechnology practice at an international law firm in Washington, DC.  Prior to his career as an attorney, Michael was a marketer with Procter & Gamble and Bristol-Myers Squibb. Michael earned Juris Doctor and Master of Public Health degrees from the University of Virginia and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Notre Dame.

Anisha Wharton serves as Head of Regulatory Affairs at AVEO and brings more than 16 years of global regulatory leadership to support the development, registration and life-cycle management of biologics and pharmaceutical products. Prior to joining AVEO in 2021, Ms. Wharton served as Director, Global Regulatory Affairs – Oncology at Merck & Co., Inc. where she served as the Global Regulatory Lead for early and late-stage clinical development programs for advanced metastatic tumors, women’s cancers, melanoma, and multiple myeloma. While at Merck, Ms. Wharton led a global regulatory team responsible for the approval of a new dosing regimen of KEYTRUDA® across all approved adult indications in over 35 countries. Prior to Merck, she served in global Regulatory Affairs roles of increasing complexity and responsibility at Nektar Therapeutics, InterMune, Inc. (acquired by Roche), InSite Vision, Inc. (acquired by Sun Pharma), and Genentech, Inc. She helped lead a cross functional team in the approval of ESBRIET® and AZASITE®, as well as the development of a global regulatory intelligence database.  Ms. Wharton earned her Bachelor of Science degree from Clark Atlanta University and her Master of Business Administration degree from the University of San Francisco School of Management.