Velcura Senior Management Team
- Michael Long, Ph.D., President and CEO
- Richard D. Dyer, Ph.D., Executive Vice President Product Development
- Jeffery Fellows, Vice President of Regulatory Affairs
- Daniel Chagnovich, Ph.D., Vice President Corporate Development and Acting Director of Research
- Linda Thompson, Director of Finance
Since opening in late 2002, Velcura's management team has raised over $11 million of non-dilutive capital and identified, acquired and brought a bone-building therapy to the point of human clinical trials.
Velcura’s management has also negotiated an exclusive license for its intellectual property from the University of Michigan, and an exclusive license from Nippon Chemiphar, Tokyo, Japan, for world-wide rights to a family of compounds that stimulate human bone formation.
Velcura has successfully submitted two INDs and completed a Phase Ia clinical trial. Velcura’s senior management team has considerable experience in science, drug R&D, business development and regulatory affairs. Taken as a whole, Velcura’s management has all the necessary experience to execute drug development.
Michael Long, Ph.D., President and CEO
Dr. Long founded Velcura Therapeutics, Inc. in 2001 to develop a portfolio of bone therapy programs and subsequently recruited a senior management team that has raised over $11 million in non-equity financing. He has built the company’s business development and licensing function, including strategic directions, team formation and execution of a partnering initiative. As part of this effort, Dr. Long led the transaction team negotiation of an exclusive intellectual property agreement from the University of Michigan, as well as the in-licensing transaction from Nippon Chemiphar for intellectual property (5 patents) covering Velcura’s first bone disease therapy (VEL-0230) and its related molecules. Following the recent discovery that VEL-0230 was a powerful anti-inflammatory agent, he and his team successfully refocused and positioned the company in the area of Rheumatoid Arthritis, as VEL-0230 functions as as a powerful disease-modifying anti-rheumatoid drug (DMARD). He next developed and led a clinical trials team through two successful IND applications and successfully completed a Phase I clinical trial for VEL-0230 that demonstrated safety, tolerability, and, importantly, efficacy in humans. Dr Long has put together very strong Scientific and Medical Advisory Boards and maintains strong communications with a working Board of Directors regarding Velcura’s direction and status of current partnering and fundraising efforts.
Dr. Long has extensive private sector experience, having served as a consultant for startup and leading biotechnology firms as well as major pharmaceutical firms, particularly in the areas of refining and troubleshooting their discovery research efforts. He worked extensively with a later stage biotechnology company to improve its scientific presentations in preparation for an IPO and played a role in the company’s subsequent acquisition - valued in excess of $500 million. Dr. Long’s organizational management experience includes the direction of large clinical and research laboratories. He also has 25 years of volunteer experience with the non-profit Leukemia and Lymphoma Society; six on its Executive Committee and now serves as a Director of this $300 Million non-profit organization. This association has provided broad experience in corporate oversight, fundraising, strategic planning, and legal affairs. He is a past Board member of the Great Lakes Entrepreneur’s Quest, a state-wide educational group that provides business plan development and a yearly business plan competition for startup companies. Dr Long has spoken at numerous business functions locally, nationally, and internationally, including the 2005 International Patent Licensing Seminar in Tokyo, Japan held by Japan Institute of Invention and Innovation.
Dr. Long has worked in the area of cell and molecular biology for more than three decades He has received approximately $20 million in funding for his research from the National Institutes of Health, and other agencies. As a professor at the University of Michigan, he developed the technology for bone cell analysis and for forming human bone outside the body, ultimately generating 15 patents (Primary & Divisional) of which he is the primary inventor. The University of Michigan has exclusively licensed these patents to Velcura.
During his career, Dr. Long served on multiple national grant review committees at the National Institutes of Health and has reviewed grant applications for the American Cancer Society and other national organizations. He has been a reviewer for Science, Nature, Nature Biotechnology, and ~25 other scientific publications. He is often invited to speak at national scientific conferences and is the author of over 70 publications. Dr. Long received his B.Sc. degree in biology and M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in human physiology from Wayne State University School of Medicine. He completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Sloan Kettering Memorial Cancer Center NY, NY and sabbatical training in the laboratory at one of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute laboratories.
| AWARDS & HONORS: | |
| 2008 | Grant Thornton Leader & Innovator of the Year |
| 2008 | John D Kenny Award from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in recognition of dedicated service to the Board of Directors and Mission of the Society |
| 2007 | Velcura named one of Michigan’s 50 Companies to Watch |
| 2002 | Velcura awarded “Best Business Idea of 2001” from the New Enterprise Forum. |
| 2002 | Velcura named among the Top 50 emerging technology companies by I-Street Magazine. |
| 2002 | Velcura receives the Michigan Investment and Commercialization Success award from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation |
| 2001 | Winner Great Lakes Entrepreneurs Quest competition and $60,000 of prize money. |
| 1991 | Established Investigator, American Heart Association |
| 1984 | Scholar, Leukemia Society of America |
Richard D. Dyer, Ph.D., Executive Vice President Product Development
Dr Dyer has over 27 years of research in pharmaceutical discovery experience. Prior to joining Velcura, Dr. Dyer was Vice President, Scientific Affairs and Development at TCH Pharmaceuticals where he planned and coordinated the development of novel inhibitors of NF-kB processing. Before TCH, he was at Pfizer Global Research and Development (formerly Parke-Davis Pharmaceutical Research Division, Warner-Lambert Company) where he served in a number of leadership positions. As Director of Inflammation Molecular Sciences and Technologies his administrative role in Pharmaceutical Discovery carried both line management and discovery research responsibilities.
In the area of line management, Dr. Dyer coordinated and managed the establishment of the Inflammation Molecular Sciences Department, focused on the application of various molecular technologies to characterize and validate potential discovery targets, biomarkers and molecular mechanisms. Dr Dyer coordinated ongoing Inflammation research between all Pfizer research sites and across therapeutic areas. He previously had managed the establishment of a Biochemistry Department focused on mechanistic research overlapping multiple drug discovery strategies and initiated in-house molecular virology research and high capacity robotics screening.
Dr. Dyer’s discovery research involved the biochemical pharmacology of various enzyme targets within the arachidonic acid cascade and the family of matrix metalloproteinases. He developed and implemented cell-based and isolated enzyme assays for high-volume robotics-based screening and championed identification and development of non-competitive enzyme inhibitors that often focused on previously unappreciated binding sites on the target enzymes. He led development through Phase II clinical studies for projects originating from research in his laboratory.
Jeffery Fellows, Vice President of Regulatory Affairs
Mr. Fellows has 20 years experience in Regulatory Affairs. Most recently, Mr. Fellows was at Cell Therapeutics, Inc where he was Vice President Regulatory Affairs. He headed the global regulatory affairs function for the oncology focused company and developed global corporate regulatory development strategies. Prior to CTI, he was a Director Regulatory Affairs (Global Regulatory Team Leader) at Amgen Inc. Mr Fellows also was a member of Amgen’s Corporate Global Product Strategy Teams for early and late stage development compounds (Endocrine, Inflammation, Neurology), as well as the Leader of Global Regulatory Teams (US, Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan). Functionally, these teams developed global product development strategies and implemented regional registration strategies.
During his time at Amgen, Mr. Fellows was involved in numerous new product approvals and line extensions and had overall responsibility for all of Amgen’s regulatory submissions. He was responsible for overall staff and department development. He was responsible for day to day running and planning of the Regulatory Affairs department and led the team responsible for designing and implementing a major department re-organization in support of a corporate focus on global commercialization. He also led the Regulatory Affairs and Clinical Safety integration team for a major acquisition. Prior to Amgen, he was at Synergen, Inc. and NeoRx., Inc.
Daniel Chagnovich, Ph.D., M.B.A., Vice President Corporate Development and Acting Director of Research
Dr. Chagnovich has over a decade of business, research and pharmaceutical industry experience. He directs Velcura’s business development efforts and is acting directoy of Velcura’s research operations. Prior to joining Velcura, he was in the Molecular Technologies group at Pfizer Global Research and Development. While at Pfizer, he was Team Leader and Bioinformatics Lead for target discovery in Cardiovascular Disease. He also was Co-leader on Pfizer’s genome annotation database a global Pfizer genomics tool. Previous to Pfizer, Dr. Chagnovich was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research Associate at the Skirball Institute in New York where he previously completed his post-doctoral training. Dr. Chagnovich is an MBA candidate in the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.
Linda Thompson, Director of Finance
Ms Thompson has more than 20 years experience in leading businesses in their accounting, administrative and operations functions. She has extensive experience in assisting startup and high growth companies to build their financial infrastructure, including implementation and support of all financial reporting requirements. Previously, she was at Vector Research, an information technology services company, where she served as the company’s controller. During her tenure there, she was an integral part of Vector's annual budget preparations, tracking and reporting programs. Prior to Vector, Linda was a senior auditor at the Defense Contract Audit Agency. Linda is a Certified Public Accountant and received her Bachelors in Business Administration from Eastern Michigan University.
