About
Serica

• Technology Overview
• History
• Strategy
• Leadership
  • Board of Directors and Observers
  • Scientific Advisory Board

Leadership of Serica

Dedicated to scientific and commercial success

Serica’s Board of Directors and Scientific Advisory Board are comprised of experienced business executives and renowned scientists and physicians.

Board of Directors and Observers

Greg Altman, Ph.D. (Director), President and CEO of Serica. Dr. Greg Altman, a former all-American football player at Tufts University, ruptured his ACL in the fall of 1996. Following knee surgery, he experienced the debilitating side effects of ACL reconstruction and became interested in creating a solution to this problem. Dr. Altman founded Serica in 1998 and serves as the company’s President and CEO. Under Dr. Altman’s direction and leadership, Serica has grown from a single product developed during his doctoral work to a platform technology applicable to multiple medical fields including orthopaedics, plastic surgery, general surgery, and women’s health. He has led the company through two rounds of venture financing, raised over $4M in federal grant funding, and positioned Serica to achieve major clinical, regulatory, and business milestones. Dr. Altman also holds adjunct faculty appointments in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Department of Orthopaedics at Tufts University. Dr. Altman was a “National Scholar Athlete” at Tufts University prior to receiving his Bachelor of Science in Chemistry and his Ph.D. in Biotechnology Engineering.

David Castaldi (Director) earned his B.B.A. from the University of Notre Dame in 1962 and graduated from Harvard Business School in 1966. He co-founded Cadent Medical Corporation in 1996 and was appointed CEO in 1998. From 1995 to 1998, Mr. Castaldi served as Chairman, CEO, and Director of Biolink Corporation. Mr. Castaldi is also the former founder, President, CEO, and Director of a publicly held tissue engineering company, BioSurface Technology, Inc., that developed and marketed the world’s first tissue-engineered human tissue product and the first tissue-engineered orthopaedic product brought to market. He sold BioSurface Technology, Inc., to Genzyme Corp. In addition, he has been CEO of two other start-up medical device companies, and for ten years he was President of Hyland Therapeutics, a division of Baxter International. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of two Nasdaq-listed life science companies and two privately-held companies.

Gerald Chan, Sc.D. (Director), is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Morningside Ventures, with whom he has been associated since 1986. Prior to his career in technology, venture capital, and direct investment, both in the U.S. and China, Dr. Chan was a research fellow in pathology at the Harvard Medical School. He received his undergraduate training in engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles, and his Doctor of Science degree in Radiation Biology from Harvard University. Since 1986, he has been a board member of Hang Lung Development Company, Limited, of Hong Kong. Dr. Chan also serves on the board of a number of companies including Natural Polymer International Corporation. His many non-profit activities include serving on the Visiting Committee of the Harvard School of Public Health and on the Cancer Center of the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Stephanie Monaghan O’Brien, Esq. (Director), also represents Morningside Technology Ventures. Morningside has a long history of investing in successful early stage companies such as Paypal, Family Education Network, Sohu.com, and many others. Ms. O’Brien has extensive experience with start-up companies and currently serves on a number of private company boards. She received her A.B., cum laude, from Harvard College in 1980 and her J.D. from New York University School of Law in 1985. She has worked with nonprofits and recently served on the board of the Radcliffe College Alumnae Association.

Brendan O’Leary, Ph.D. (Director), is an integral member of the Prism VentureWorks life sciences team, where he focuses on companies in the medical device, pharmaceutical and diagnostic sectors. Dr. O’Leary currently sits on the board of several life sciences companies including Locus Pharmaceuticals, Proteon Therapeutics, ROX Medical, and Trius Therapeutix. He was previously a director at BioRexis Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Pfizer). Prior to joining Prism Dr. O’Leary held senior operating positions at several biotechnology and medical technology companies including Meso Scale Discovery, a high throughput discovery start-up, and IGEN International, a leading medical diagnostics company that was acquired by Roche. Dr. O’Leary received his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and holds a B.A. in Chemistry and Economics from Middlebury College.

Robert W. Pangia (Observer) co-founded Ivy Capital Partners, the general partner of Ivy Healthcare Capital, L.P. (Fund I). Mr. Pangia has nearly 30 years of experience in the investment banking and private equity businesses, with a particular emphasis on healthcare and technology. Prior to co-founding Ivy Capital Partners, Mr. Pangia worked at PaineWebber Incorporated, where he served as Executive Vice President and Director of Investment Banking. He also held a number of senior management positions, including Member of the Board of Directors of PaineWebber Incorporated and member of the firm’s executive and operating committees. Mr. Pangia also worked as a private merchant banker. He is currently serving as a director for three of Ivy Fund I portfolio companies: IvyRehab Network Inc., Scandius BioMedical Inc., and Auriga Medical Products, GmbH. In addition, he is currently a director of McAfee Inc. (MFE) and Biogen Idec (BIIB). Mr. Pangia has formerly served as a director of Athena Neurosciences, ICOS Corporation (ICOS), and Ryan, Beck Corporation. Mr. Pangia received an A.B. in Economics from Brown University and an M.B.A. with distinction from the Columbia University Graduate School of Business.

Scientific Advisory Board

Bruce Beynnon, Ph.D., (Director of Research, Department of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation, Associate Professor of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation, University of Vermont)
During the past 10 years, Dr. Beynnon has been involved with studies focused on the biomechanical behavior of the knee, anterior cruciate ligament, and anterior cruciate graft. A significant portion of this effort has focused on the development of devices and techniques to measure the strain behavior of normal anterior cruciate ligaments and anterior cruciate ligament grafts in human subjects. This has resulted in the development of objective data used to improve surgical procedures and rehabilitation programs during ACL graft healing. In addition, Dr Beynnon has focused on neuromuscular studies of the normal knee, the anterior cruciate ligament deficient knee, and knees undergoing anterior cruciate reconstruction and rehabilitation, and is currently directing clinical trials focused on rehabilitation of subjects that have undergone an ACL reconstruction.

David Kaplan, Ph.D., (Chair, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tufts University, Professor in Chemical Engineering, Professor in Biomedical Engineering, and Director of Biotechnology Center)
Dr. Kaplan has been conducting studies on biomaterials and tissue engineering over the past 13 years, and has studied structural proteins and polysaccharides over the past 18 years. He has focused on engineering fibrous proteins as scaffolds for tissue engineering, and on developing new approaches toward modification of biopolymer structures to modify function. He runs the recently awarded and constructed W. M. Keck Foundation Laboratory on Biomimetic Materials Characterization as well as the Biotechnology Center at Tufts University and is Principal Investigator of the Tissue Engineering Resource Center at Tufts University. The preliminary data for Serica's technology was collected in Dr. Kaplan’s laboratory at Tufts University’s Biomedical Engineering Department. Dr. Kaplan is a co-inventor on several Serica patent disclosures and a co-founder of Serica.

John C. Richmond, MD (Chair, Department of Orthopaedics, New England Baptist Hospital, Boston, MA)
Dr. Richmond is also a Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at Tufts University School of Medicine and an Assistant Professor, Large Animal Surgery, Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine. Dr. Richmond has conducted more than 2,000 ACL and Rotator Cuff Tendon (RCT) reconstructive surgeries over the past 17 years. He has a comprehensive and detailed understanding of the requirements for successful repair in vivo. In addition, he has conducted several clinical trials for failed synthetic ACL prostheses in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and has published his findings. He is a committee member of the AOSSM, OREF, AANA, and has held over 22 teaching assignments since 1982. He is a co-founder of Serica.

Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, Ph.D. (Columbia University, Professor of Biomedical Engineering)
Dr. Vunjak-Novakovic has 20+ years of research experience in chemical and biomedical engineering. Over the past 10 years, she has focused on tissue engineering of skeletal and cardiovascular tissues using cells, polymers, and bioreactors. She has published more than 150 papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals, and authored 15 book chapters. She was also involved in the development of the Serica preliminary data and continues to contribute her expertise in tissue engineering, bioreactors, and transport phenomena in biological systems.