The Pathalys Team

We are an experienced and highly motivated team focused on improving the lives of patients with chronic kidney disease through the development and improvement of therapeutic treatments.

MANAGEMENT

Neal Fowler, MBA

Chief Executive Officer

Patrick Treanor, MBA

Chief Operating Officer

Theodore Danoff, MD, PhD

Chief Medical Officer & SVP Clinical Development

Ashwin Ram, MD, MS

Co-Founder & SVP Operations

David Banks, MBA, MS

SVP Technical Operations

Greg Klatt, CPA

VP Finance

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

BT Slingsby, MD, PhD, MPH

Co-Founder and Executive Chairman

Neal Fowler, MBA

Chief Executive Officer & Board Member

Jay Shepard

Co-Founder & Board Member

Mahesh Krishnan, MD, MPH, MBA, FASN

Co-Founder & Board Member

Takeshi Takahashi

Co-Founder & Board Member

Bali Muralidhar

Board Member

Tal Zaks, MD, PhD

Board Observer

INVESTORS

Neal Fowler, MBA

Cheif Executive Officer

Neal is the Chief Executive Officer of Pathalys Pharma, Inc. He previously served as CEO of Liquidia Technologies (NASDAQ), transforming the company from an early-stage research platform into a publicly traded biomedicines company. While at Liquidia, Neal also co-founded and served as CEO of Envisia Therapeutics (acquired), an ophthalmology therapeutics company. Prior to Liquidia, Neal worked for seven years with Johnson and Johnson, serving as President of Centocor, Inc., a global multi-billion dollar subsidiary focused on biomedicines, and President of Ortho-McNeil Neurologics, a company focused on neurological disorders. Neal started his career with Eli Lilly and Company, working for thirteen years in a variety of sales, marketing and business development roles in both the pharmaceutical and medical device divisions. Neal is the current chair of both NCBIO and the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy Foundation and serves on the board of Emergent BioSolutions (NYSE). He is a native of Raleigh, NC and earned his BS degree in Pharmacy and MBA, both from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Patrick Treanor, MBA

Chief Operating Officer

Patrick is the Chief Operating Officer of Pathalys Pharma, Inc. He previously served as President, US for Vifor Pharma, an international pharmaceutical company focused on nephrology. Mr. Treanor began his career with large pharmaceutical organizations such as Johnson & Johnson and Abbott Laboratories over 25 years ago but found his niche building early-stage commercial organizations at companies such as Oscient Pharmaceuticals, AMAG Pharmaceuticals, Insulet Corporation and Relypsa Pharmaceuticals. Mr. Treanor currently serves on the board of directors of KalVista Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a clinical stage pharmaceutical company focused on the discovery, development, and commercialization of oral, small molecule protease inhibitors. He holds a BS in Management from Bryant University and an MBA from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Theodore Danoff, MD, PhD

Chief Medical Officer and SVP Clinical Development

Theo is the Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President of Clinical Development of Pathalys Pharma. He is a graduate of the MD/PhD (MSTP) program at the University of Chicago with a PhD in Immunology. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine and fellowship in Nephrology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and then served on the faculty as an Assistant Professor in the Renal Division in the Department of Medicine. He has worked in the pharmaceutical industry for more than 20 years, initially at GlaxoSmithKline where he designed and ran Phase 1 and Phase 2 Proof of Concept (PoC) studies in a number of therapeutic areas including cardiovascular medicine, immunology, urology, endocrinology, bone, and women’s health, and applied pharmacogenomics in the evaluation of adverse events. After 10 years at GSK, he joined Endo Pharmaceuticals where he was VP of Clinical Development and Medical Affairs and had responsibility for the endocrinology, pain, and neuroscience therapeutic areas. While there, he supervised Phase III and IV studies, and he was the clinical lead for the FDA Advisory Committee meeting for an injectable testosterone which was subsequently approved. In the past 8 years he has been the CMO at 3 small biotech companies. At Clarus Therapeutics, he designed and ran their pivotal Phase 3 study and ran the AdCom for JATENZO, the first oral testosterone replacement that has received FDA approval in 2019. He then joined Complexa where CXA-10 was being studied in 2 PoC studies, one for pulmonary hypertension and the other for the renal disease focal segmental glomerulosclerosis. Results from these studies, and a translational medicine study, led to the discontinuation of development of CXA-10. Most recently he joined Pathalys Pharma as its first full-time employee. He has co-authored more than 40 peer-reviewed publications, five book chapters, and has 2 issued patents.

Ashwin Ram, MD, MS

Co-Founder & SVP Operations

Ashwin is a physician-scientist and biotechnology entrepreneur who serves as Co-Founder and SVP Operations at Pathalys Pharma, CBO of Kirilys Therapeutics, and Partner at Catalys Pacific LLC. Ashwin is also the Founder and Chair of Axelys, Inc. and Jupiter Therapeutics, Inc. Prior to this, he was a part of Genentech’s Early Clinical Development — Oncology team and practiced as a board-certified radiation oncologist.

Ashwin completed his MD at the University of Michigan Medical School with highest honors and Dean’s distinction in research. After training in radiation oncology at Johns Hopkins Hospital, he completed an MS in bioengineering at Caltech and a postdoc at Stanford University as an NCI Cancer Translational Nanotechnology fellow.

David Banks, MBA, MS

SVP Technical Operations

David is the Senior Vice President, Technical Operations for Pathalys Pharma, Inc. David has more than 30 years of Manufacturing, Supply Chain, and Quality experience in the pharmaceutical industry, having held positions of increasing responsibility at a number of companies including GSK (as SmithKline Beecham), Roche (as Syntex), Johnson & Johnson (as Alza), and Gilead (CV Therapeutics), in addition to having consulted for numerous life science startups. Product development including engineering, technology transfer, validation, as well as commercial product production management, planning, materials and distribution management, and executive management are areas of expertise.  David’s contributions to ten pharmaceutical product launches demonstrate his ability to handle complex operations in compressed timeframes. David earned a BS in Engineering from TN Tech University, MBA from East TN State University, and MS in Finance from the University of San Francisco.

Greg Klatt, CPA

VP Finance 

Greg is Vice President of Finance at Pathalys Pharma. Previously, Greg was Assistant Controller at Aravive, Inc., a clinical stage biotechnology company focused on developing innovative therapies to address the unmet medical needs of cancer patients. Before Aravive, Greg held positions at Alvarez & Marsal focusing on financial due diligence in various private equity transactions. Greg also worked at Ernst & Young specifically in the assurance practice and subsequently transferring to their transaction advisory group. Greg earned his B.S. at the Univeristy of Oregon and holds his license as a CPA in the State of California.

BT Slingsby, MD, PhD, MPH

Co-Founder and Executive Chairman

BT is Founder and Managing Partner with Catalys Pacific. He served as founding CEO of Pathalys during its creation and early stages of incubation. He founded Catalys Pacific to transform life-sciences innovation in Japan using transpacific bioventure. BT is a physician-scientist and biotechnology entrepreneur leading the company creation efforts for the firm. Prior to Catalys Pacific, he founded the Global Health Innovative Technology (GHIT) Fund – the world’s first public-private fund focused on the development of new medicines for low- and middle-income countries.

BT graduated from Brown University with honors, earned his MPH. and PhD from Kyoto University and the University of Tokyo, and received his MD with honors from the George Washington University. In recognition of his contributions to global health, he has been awarded a Foreign Ministry Commendation from the Government of Japan. BT has authored over 50 peer-reviewed articles on medicine and public health and currently is a visiting professor at the Graduate School of Medicine at the University of Tokyo, Kyoto University, and Osaka University.

Neal Fowler, MBA

Cheif Executive Officer & Board Member

Neal is the Chief Executive Officer & Board Member of Pathalys Pharma, Inc. He previously served as CEO of Liquidia Technologies (NASDAQ), transforming the company from an early-stage research platform into a publicly traded biomedicines company. While at Liquidia, Neal also co-founded and served as CEO of Envisia Therapeutics (acquired), an ophthalmology therapeutics company. Prior to Liquidia, Neal worked for seven years with Johnson and Johnson, serving as President of Centocor, Inc., a global multi-billion dollar subsidiary focused on biomedicines, and President of Ortho-McNeil Neurologics, a company focused on neurological disorders. Neal started his career with Eli Lilly and Company, working for thirteen years in a variety of sales, marketing and business development roles in both the pharmaceutical and medical device divisions. Neal is the current chair of both NCBIO and the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy Foundation and serves on the board of Emergent BioSolutions (NYSE). He is a native of Raleigh, NC and earned his BS degree in Pharmacy and MBA, both from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Jay Shepard

Co-Founder & Board Member

Jay currently serves as Venture Partner with Catalys Pacific. He brings 35 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical/biotech and drug delivery industries with his extensive corporate leadership and multiple product successes. In addition to working for Catalys Pacific, he currently serves as Chairman of The Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation and is on the board of directors of Esperion Therapeutics, Inovio Pharmaceuticals, and Craig Hospital, a world-renowned center for specialty rehabilitation and research for people with spinal cord injury and brain injury.

Prior to his current positions, he joined Versartis as President and CEO in May 2015. In 2018 when Versartis merged with Aravive, he became CEO of the newly formed company until January of 2020 when he retired. He was an Executive Partner at Sofinnova Ventures until May 2015. Previously, he served as President and CEO of NextWave Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Pfizer), Ilypsa (acquired by Amgen), and interim CEO of Relypsa (Ilypsa’s spin-out company, which was acquired by Galencia). He has participated in or led over 16 product launches by preparing markets and establishing sales and marketing operations, having served as Vice President of Commercial Operations at Telik and Alza Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Johnson & Johnson).

He holds a B.S. in business administration from the University of Arizona.

Mahesh Krishnan, MD, MPH, MBA, FASN

Co-Founder & Board Member

Mahesh is the Group Vice President, Research and Development for DaVita Venture Group and focuses on establishing strategic partnerships with industry leaders, while remaining active in DaVita’s R&D efforts. Prior to DaVita Venture Group, he served as DaVita’s first international Chief Medical Officer.   Before DaVita, Mahesh served as medical director for Epogen® at Amgen, and practiced nephrology in northern Virginia for nearly five years. He earned his MD from Jefferson Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University. He also holds an MPH from Johns Hopkins University and an MBA from the Johns Hopkins Carey School of Business.

Takeshi Takahashi

Co-Founder & Board Member

Takeshi is a Managing Partner with Catalys Pacific. He holds extensive experience in M&As, IPOs, and financing in the healthcare sector. Prior to Catalys Pacific, he worked for the investment banking division of Morgan Stanley for 12 years and played a significant role in over 30 distinguished transactions including, but not limited to, Japanese companies’ acquisitions of U.S. listed companies with an enterprise value of over US$10.0 billion, acquisitions of global healthcare companies with an enterprise value of over US$5.0 billion, and a number of alternative financing transactions. Prior to working for Morgan Stanley, Takeshi was an analyst and a portfolio manager for global and Japan fixed income and managed a $3.0+ billion portfolio in Japan and the U.S. at Merrill Lynch’s asset management division.

Takeshi graduated from Waseda University with a degree in Political Science and Economics, and holds an M.B.A. from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Proficiently bilingual and bicultural.

Bali Muralidhar

Board Member

Bali is Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer at Abingworth, a leading transatlantic life sciences investment firm. He has over 15 years professional experience in healthcare across a range of functions including venture investing, CCD, R&D, clinical practice, and teaching. He represents Abingworth on the boards of Anjarium, Glycomine, NuCana (NCNA), Reneo Pharmaceuticals (RPHM), Spruce Biosciences (SPRB) and Wugen. He is also an executive officer on the joint steering committee of CymaBay. Prior to Abingworth, Bali was a senior partner at MVM Partners LLP in London where he completed investments in and served on the boards of several companies, both public and private. In 2018, Bali was named among Financial News’ Rising Stars in Private Equity, which celebrated 25 men and women under the age of 40 standing out in the European private equity industry. Before MVM, Bali was a member of Bain Capital’s healthcare deal team. Bali obtained a degree in clinical medicine from the University of Oxford and practiced general surgery at the John Radcliffe and Addenbrooke’s Hospitals in Oxford and Cambridge, respectively. He has a PhD in translational cancer research from the MRC Cancer Cell Unit, University of Cambridge, and has published over a dozen peer reviewed papers. He was also a Bye-Fellow in Medical Sciences at Downing College, Cambridge where he taught pathology, surgery, and medicine.

Tal Zaks, MD, PhD

Board Observer

Tal is a Partner with OrbiMed. Dr. Zaks was recently the Chief Medical Officer at Moderna, where he led the development of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine and other key programs. Previously, Dr. Zaks held senior leadership positions in drug development at major pharmaceutical companies, including Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline. Dr. Zaks received his M.D. and Ph.D. from the Ben Gurion University and conducted post-doctoral research at the U.S. National Institutes of Health.