Michael Gargano joined the Coferon board in 2009 as a founder of the Company was founded
and continues to serve as the representative of the Series A investors. Michael is a Managing
Director at Argent Ventures LLC, where he is responsible for structuring and financing new
acquisitions and for overseeing development, leasing and management of the firm's properties.
Prior to joining Argent, Mr. Gargano was a real estate attorney with the law firm of Shearman &
Sterling, where he represented institutional and government clients on major real estate
development and financing transactions. At Argent, he has acted as advisor to the NYS Empire
State Development Corp. in connection with the 42nd Street Development Project and the
Shubert Organization in connection with Broadway theatre air rights. He is a member of the
Board of Directors of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and the Hollywood Property Owners
Alliance (BID). Mr. Gargano earned a B.A. from the State University of New York at Stony Brook
and a J.D. from Boston University.
Michael has experience as both a corporate and private venture capital investor prior to joining
MedImmune Ventures in September 2011. Before MV, Dr. Gutch was a Director with H.I.G.
BioVentures, a life-science focused investment fund and prior to that was a Principal with Lilly
Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of Eli Lilly & Company. While at Eli Lilly, Dr. Gutch
was also in the Corporate Financing and Investment Banking group, where he focused on
mergers and acquisitions and licensing transactions. Dr. Gutch earned his Ph.D. in Cellular and
Molecular Pathology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and was a post-
doctoral research fellow at both UCSF and the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories. He earned his
M.B.A. in finance from Indiana University. Mike currently serves as a member of the Board of
Directors for Southeast BIO, a member of the Johns Hopkins Alliance for Science & Technology
Development, and a member of the Business Advisory Board for the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery
Foundation.
Douglas Reed is a General Partner at Hatteras Venture Partners based in the Research
Triangle in NC. Hatteras invests in early-stage biotechnology and medical technology companies
with a particular emphasis on new company formation in the southeastern United States. Prior
to Hatteras, he had been with two other healthcare-focused venture firms, serving as Managing
Director at Vector Fund Management and also as a partner at SR One. He has held senior
management positions in two biotechnology companies, serving as Vice President of Business
Development at GelTex Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Genzyme) and NPS Pharmaceuticals. Dr.
Reed trained in interventional radiology and neuroradiology and held appointments as Assistant
Professor of Radiology at the University of Washington and at Yale University. He earned B.A.
and M.D. degrees at the University of Missouri – Kansas City and an M.B.A. from The Wharton
School at the University of Pennsylvania. He completed residency training in Diagnostic
Radiology at the University of Washington and a fellowship in neuroradiology at the University of
British Columbia. He currently serves on the board of directors of Coferon, Viamet
Pharmaceuticals, TetraLogic Pharmaceuticals, SpineAlign Medical, and SEBIO (Southeastern BIO).
Geoffrey W. Smith is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Ascent Biomedical Ventures, a
venture capital fund focused on early-stage life sciences investments. He has been an active
founder, manager, and investor in healthcare and technology companies since 1995. He currently
serves on the Board of Directors of Azevan Pharmaceuticals, Anterios, BackBeat Medical,
Biomerix, Caliber Therapeutics, Coferon, TargAnox, and Vivasure Medical. Mr. Smith is a Visiting
Scholar at Rockefeller University where he founded and directs the University’s Science &
Economics Program and is an adjunct faculty member at the RU Center for Clinical and
Translational Science. He is active in a number of other groups at Rockefeller including being a
member of the Rockefeller University Council. At the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Mr. Smith
is a member of the External Advisory Committee for the Institutes for Translational Sciences.
Mr. Smith is also a member of the Leadership Council of the Biomedical Research Institute at
Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston. Earlier in his career, Mr. Smith was a corporate attorney
in New York City. Prior to receiving his law degree, he served as a Research Associate at Harvard
Business School. Mr. Smith received a B.A. (with honors) from Williams College and a J.D. from
the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Homer Pearce has chaired the Coferon Scientific Advisory Board since 2010. He was awarded a
PhD in organic chemistry from Harvard University in 1979, the year he joined Lilly Research
Laboratories as a medicinal chemist. Dr. Pearce held several positions of increasing
responsibility at Lilly, all of which were directed at the discovery and development of new drugs
to treat cancer. He served as Vice President of Cancer Research and Clinical Investigation from
1994-2002 and became a Distinguished Research Fellow, Cancer Research in 2002. He retired
from Lilly in 2006, and now serves in several board, consulting and advisory roles in the
academic, government and biopharmaceutical communities. During his tenure, Lilly’s cancer drug
discovery group introduced 25 investigational drugs into clinical trials and 3 new drugs were
approved for the treatment of cancer by worldwide regulatory agencies including Gemzar® and
ALIMTA®. A novel protein kinase inhibitor, Enzastaurin, was brought to clinical trials and is now
undergoing Phase III trials. In 2001 Pearce was named a Distinguished Graduate of the College
of Science, Texas A&M University, and in 2006 he was named a Hero of Chemistry by the
American Chemical Society.
