Team

Mr. Mayes is the Chief Executive Officer and a board member of Antios Therapeutics. Prior to Antios and drawing on inspiration from his son’s epilepsy diagnosis, he raised $40 million from prominent investors and founded the clinical-stage pharmaceutical company, Engage Therapeutics, to develop a product candidate for seizures. Upon approval, Staccato® Alprazolam will be the first and only drug-device-combination for the rapid termination of an active epileptic seizure. Engage was sold to UCB in 2020 in a deal valued at $270 million following the successful completion of its randomized, phase 2b clinical study.

Prior to Engage, Mr. Mayes played an integral role in the growth of Advaxis Immunotherapies (NASDAQ: ADXS), a biotech company developing immuno-oncology therapies for patients with hard-to-treat cancers through its bacterial vector system, Lm Technology™. As its Chief Operating Officer, he was instrumental in helping to secure in excess of $200 million in follow-on funding and developing partnerships with companies such as Amgen, AstraZeneca and Merck & Co.

From 2004 to 2010, Mr. Mayes served as Vice President, General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer at ImClone Systems Corporation. During his tenure at ImClone, Mr. Mayes supported the clinical development and commercialization of ERBITUX® and contributed significantly to activities that resulted in its acquisition by Eli Lilly for $6.5 billion in 2008.

Mr. Mayes is a cum laude graduate of Syracuse University where he was recognized as a Remembrance Scholar and he earned his J.D. degree magna cum laude from the Temple University School of Law where he was the Articles Editor on the Temple Law Review.

Dr. Mayers is the Chief Medical Officer and a co-founder of Antios Therapeutics. He was most recently Chief Medical Officer at Cocrystal Pharma (NASDAQ: COCP) developing antiviral drugs against Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C and influenza viruses. Notably, in 2007, Dr. Mayers was named Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at Idenix Pharmaceuticals where he was responsible for drug safety and clinical development for therapies targeting HIV, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C. After Idenix was acquired by Merck Pharmaceuticals (NYSE: MRK) in 2014, he served for a year as a Principal Investigator at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases coordinating efforts to develop drugs against Ebola and MERS coronavirus. Dr. Mayers was commissioned into the United States Navy in 1981 and retired after 38 years of service as a Captain, initially serving as a Staff Internist and rising to Department Head, Division of Retrovirology, where he was responsible for directing HIV natural history studies and clinical trials at Army, Navy and Air Force sites domestically. In 1998, Dr. Mayers left Navy active duty to become the Head of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Henry Ford Hospital. He served as Principal Investigator for the NIH-funded clinical trials unit and conducted NIH-funded clinical trials of antiviral drugs and the clinical implications and management of HIV drug resistance. In 2001, he moved to Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals as the International Head/Vice President of the Therapeutic Area Virology where he was responsible for the therapeutic area strategy and global clinical development and support for antiviral drugs including Nevirapine and Tipranavir.

Dr. Mayers has served as a consultant to the Food and Drug Administration, as a member of numerous Federal and National Institute of Health committees, study sections, and advisory groups. He has authored numerous publications and is the editor for the two-volume textbook, Antimicrobial Drug Resistance, and is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and the Infectious Disease Society of America.

He received the Jay P. Sanford Award for lifetime professional achievement from the Armed Forces Infectious Disease Society. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from Penn State University, and an M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.

Ms. Adams has more than 25 years of experience in accounting and financial management. Before joining Antios, she founded Accounting Concepts, Inc., a firm that provided CFO, accounting and financial services to emerging growth companies in the biopharmaceutical and information technology industries, including Engage Therapeutics, a company that was sold to UCB in 2020. Before that, Ms. Adams was a senior financial executive at Silverstorm Technologies, Inc., where she was responsible for financial and human resources functions and participated in an acquisition of the company by QLogic. Prior, she was the Controller of Starcite, Inc., an internet company, where she was responsible for financial reporting, business model development and internal control systems. Ms. Adams began her career at Ernst & Young, LLP, as a Senior Auditor specializing in entrepreneurial services, and later at Goldman Sachs as a Senior Accounting Officer.

Ms. Adams earned her B.S. in Accounting at State University of New York, Albany and was a certified public accountant in New York.

Dr. Laessig has more than 20 years of experience in pharmaceutical regulatory roles both in industry and for the U.S. FDA. Before joining Antios, she served as Vice President, Therapeutic Strategy, Strategic Drug Development at IQVIA where she delivered strategic regulatory and clinical development planning for pharmaceuticals and biologics, including support for regulatory interactions, across a range of therapeutic areas for the IQVIA’s biotechnology and pharmaceutical customers. Before that, she was SVP, Regulatory Affairs, Medical Safety and Quality Assurance at RRD International, LLC, where she provided strategic and tactical regulatory, clinical, and development evaluation and direction to product development programs undertaken by RRD for its client companies. From 1999 to 2015, Dr. Laessig served in multiple roles of increasing responsibility at the U.S. FDA including Medical Review Officer and Medical Team Leader, Division of Antiviral Products, and Deputy Director, Division of Anti-Infective Products. From 2000-2016, she volunteered once weekly at the Whitman Walker Clinic in Washington, DC, the city’s largest provider of HIV/AIDS care.

Dr. Laessig earned her M.D. from the University of Maryland School of Medicine and a B.A. in Biology from Cornell University.

Ms. Fusaro spent more than 20 years managing and leading execution of clinical trials from Phase 1 through Phase 3 in several therapeutic areas including infectious disease. Prior to joining Antios, she held several positions of increasing responsibility at Melinta Therapeutics where she oversaw all clinical, regulatory and pharmacovigilance activities for four antibiotic programs. Before that, she was responsible for clinical operations and clinical project management at The Medicines Company and contributed to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approvals of two antibiotics, ORBACTIV® and VABOMERE®. Additional experience included managing global clinical development of diabetes and cardiovascular programs at Novartis and managing global clinical trials for neuropathic pain, HIV, liver fibrosis and migraine candidates for GlaxoSmithKline.

Ms. Fusaro earned a B.A. in Psychology from State University of New York at Binghamton.

Dr. Lockwood has 20+ years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry in both process and medicinal chemistry. He began his pharmaceutical career at Abbott Laboratories, where he was part of the process chemistry group responsible for bringing Kaletra to market. He moved from large pharma to be a part of several startup biotech companies in the Atlanta area, including Somatacor Pharmaceuticals, Atherogenics, Metastatix and the Emory Institute for Drug Development, where he developed a process for the manufacture of Molnupiravir, an antivral drug licensed to Ridgeback (and later Merck). Molnupiravir is currently in phase 2/3 clinical trials for the treatment of COVID-19. Dr. Lockwood is currently Director of Process Research and Manufacturing at Antios Therapeutics and is the coauthor on numerous scientific publications and patents.

Dr. Lockwood received his PhD from Purdue University and was a post-doctoral associate at the University of Washington.

Dr. Squires started as a Research and Development Project Manager at Antios before her current position as Director of Research and Development. Prior to joining Antios, she served as an Associate Project Manager at Q² Solutions, where she managed over $43 million in Phase I-III clinical trial startup projects and led global project teams through the design phase of study-specific databases. During Dr. Squires’ time at Emory University as a Ph.D. student and Laboratory Researcher, she managed molecular genetics projects, authored 10 publications and collaborated with leading research teams across the Southeast, resulting in over $800k in new funding. As an undergraduate student, she held a Junior Laboratory Researcher position across 3 summers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and North Carolina State University.

Dr. Squires earned a Ph.D. in Molecular Pharmacology at Emory University and a bachelor’s in Textile Engineering at North Carolina State University. She has volunteered as a member of Emory’s Molecular & Systems Pharmacology Recruitment Committee, facilitating planning of the annual Pharmacology recruitment weekend.

Dr. De La Rosa is the Chairman of the board of directors and a co-founder of Antios Therapeutics. He was most recently Antios’ Chief Executive Officer and led it from an early stage idea to a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company. Prior to Antios, Dr. De La Rosa was Chief Scientific Officer of Drug Innovation Ventures at Emory (DRIVE) and the Emory Institute for Drug Development (EIDD), focused on the discovery and development of antiviral drugs for the treatment of viral diseases of unmet medical need and global concern. During his nearly 6-year tenure at Emory University, he helped raise over $40 million in funding and was a co-inventor on technologies licensed to AbbVie and Antios.

Prior to joining Emory University, Dr. De La Rosa was Senior Vice President of Business Development and Scientific Affairs at Pharmasset. From 2002 until its acquisition by Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ: GILD) for $11 billion in 2012, he was responsible for licensing, strategic transactions, and alliance management of collaborations and partnerships with pharmaceutical companies and universities. He provided business and scientific leadership to drug development programs for the treatment of HIV, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C, including Sofosbuvir. Prior to Pharmasset, Dr. De La Rosa held both scientific and business positions at Visible Genetics, where he was responsible for the development and improvement of genotyping tests for HIV, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C, including the first sequencing-based HIV drug resistance test to receive FDA approval. He also held scientific positions at Innogenetics, Boston Biomedica, and Digene, developing molecular diagnostic tests for infectious diseases. He is an inventor and author on several U.S. patents and publications relating to molecular diagnostic methods, techniques and therapeutics for infectious diseases and cancer.

Dr. De La Rosa has served on Scientific Advisory Boards and Board of Directors of biotechnology companies.

Dr. De La Rosa earned a Fogarty Fellowship and an Intramural Research Training Award Fellowship from the National Institutes of Health, where he completed post-doctoral training in the Laboratory of Biochemistry and the Laboratory of Pathology of the National Cancer Institute. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Microbiology from the University of California, San Diego, and a Ph.D. in Microbiology from Miami University.

Dr. Benjamin Rovinski has 30 years of investment, operational, managerial and research experience in the healthcare sector. Beni joined Lumira Ventures in 2001, where he is a Managing Director, with an investment focus on early- to late-stage private and public life sciences companies. With a proven track record of delivering results, both as a senior scientist and a business executive, Beni has held several senior management positions in the biotechnology sector, including 13 years at Sanofi Pasteur (formerly Aventis Pasteur) where he was a senior scientist and director of molecular virology, with a particular focus in the areas of virology, vaccine development, recombinant protein production, and functional genomics. While at Aventis, Beni led global research and development programs in the areas of HIV/AIDS and therapeutic cancer vaccines, bringing several of them through to clinical stage. Beni received a PhD in biochemistry from McGill University in Montreal and did post-doctoral studies in molecular oncology and retrovirology at the Ontario Cancer Institute in Toronto. He obtained his undergraduate degree from Rice University in Houston.

Beni’s current and past board roles and investment responsibilities include several private and public companies, such as Aurinia Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: AUPH); Antiva Biosciences; G1 Therapeutics (NASDAQ: GTHX); KAI Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Amgen); Morphotek (acquired by Eisai); Health Hero Network (acquired by Bosch); Avalon Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: AVRX; acquired by Clinical Data, Inc.); and SGX Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: SGXP; acquired by Eli Lilly). He also serves on the board of directors of Ontario Genomics and Life Sciences Ontario; and he is also a member of the investment committee of the Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine (CCRM) and the advisory board of the TO Health! industry-led initiative to promote the profile of the Toronto region’s Human Health & Sciences cluster. Beni is fluent in English, French and Spanish. He has published over 25 scientific articles and reviews and is the recipient of 32 issued patents.

Mr. Mayes is the Chief Executive Officer and a board member of Antios Therapeutics. Prior to Antios and drawing on inspiration from his son’s epilepsy diagnosis, he raised $40 million from prominent investors and founded the clinical-stage pharmaceutical company, Engage Therapeutics, to develop a product candidate for seizures. Upon approval, Staccato® Alprazolam will be the first and only drug-device-combination for the rapid termination of an active epileptic seizure. Engage was sold to UCB in 2020 in a deal valued at $270 million following the successful completion of its randomized, phase 2b clinical study.

Prior to Engage, Mr. Mayes played an integral role in the growth of Advaxis Immunotherapies (NASDAQ: ADXS), a biotech company developing immuno-oncology therapies for patients with hard-to-treat cancers through its bacterial vector system, Lm Technology™. As its Chief Operating Officer, he was instrumental in helping to secure in excess of $200 million in follow-on funding and developing partnerships with companies such as Amgen, AstraZeneca and Merck & Co.

From 2004 to 2010, Mr. Mayes served as Vice President, General Counsel, and Chief Compliance Officer at ImClone Systems Corporation. During his tenure at ImClone, Mr. Mayes supported the clinical development and commercialization of ERBITUX® and contributed significantly to activities that resulted in its acquisition by Eli Lilly for $6.5 billion in 2008.

Mr. Mayes is a cum laude graduate of Syracuse University where he was recognized as a Remembrance Scholar and he earned his J.D. degree magna cum laude from the Temple University School of Law where he was the Articles Editor on the Temple Law Review.