Leadership
Our leadership team is a highly successful and uniquely experienced group of clinicians, scientists, investment professionals, and health policy experts.
Our focus: deliver novel antiviral treatments to the right patients at the right time, to significantly reduce morbidity, mortality, and costs associated with viral infections.
Altesa’s world-class scientific founders and team have significantly benefited human health against the two greatest pandemics of the past 100 years. Specifically, Altesa’s DRIVE/Emory partners invented some of the most acclaimed, lifesaving, and impactful antiviral drugs worldwide, including emtricitabine (Emtriva®), which combats HIV/AIDS, and molnupiravir (Lagevrio®), which prevents hospitalization and death from COVID-19. Altesa’s clinical, regulatory, and scientific teams also have helped develop and market critical antivirals like brincidofovir (Tembexa®), to treat smallpox, and enfuvirtide (Fuzeon®), the first HIV fusion inhibitor to treat HIV/AIDS.
Management Team
Brett P. Giroir, MD
CEO and Acting Chief Medical Officer
- Former US Assistant Secretary for Health and Admiral, USPHS
- Former Acting FDA Commissioner
- Former CEO, ViraCyte (now AlloVir)
John M. Clerici, JD
Founder and Chief Operating Officer
- Founder, Tiber Creek Partners LLC, Raised over $6B in Non- Dilutive Capital
- Former Partner & Life Sciences Chair, McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP
- Former Board Member, Aeolus Pharmaceuticals Inc.
Dan Geffken, BS, MBA
Katherine Laessig, MD
Chief Medical and Regulatory Officer
- Board certified infectious disease physician
- Industry, consulting, and FDA experience
- Expertise in antimicrobial regulatory strategy and trial design
Katherine Squires, PhD
Sr. Dir. of Nonclinical & Translational Devt.
- R&D, Antios Therapeutics
- Experience in preclinical antiviral programs
- Led acquisition of novel antiviral asset
Laura K. Smart, BA, MA
VP Corporate
Affairs
- Former Principal and Co-founder, Tiber Creek Partners, LLC
- Former Policy Advisor, McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP
Erica Bitten
Acting Senior Director, Human Resources
- Human Resources and Program leader
- Specialist in employee relations, employee engagement and HR compliance
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Brett P. Giroir, MD
Altesa CEO and Acting Chief Medical Officer
- Former US Assistant Secretary for Health and Admiral, USPHS
- Former Acting FDA Commissioner
- Former CEO, ViraCyte (now AlloVir)
Ittai Harel, BSc, MSc
Managing General Partner Pitango
- Former Director of Corporate Development at Nektar Therapeutics
- Previous management roles with IDEXX Laboratories and IDGene Pharmaceuticals.
Seth Rudnick, MD
Altesa
Co-Founder
- Chairman, DRIVE Advisory Board
- Former Canaan Partners, General Partner
- Former CytoTherapeutics, CEO & Chairman
- Forbes Midas List: top deal makers in biotechnology (named twice)
Moncef Slaoui, PhD
Previously, U.S. Operation Warp Speed
- Chief Scientist on US response to COVID-19 pandemic
- Leader and board member, GlaxoSmithKline
- Named one of Fortune’s “50 Greatest World Leaders”
SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARD
George R. Painter, PhD
Altesa Co-Founder and Chair
- Co-Founder & CEO, Drug Innovation Ventures at Emory (DRIVE)
- Executive Director of the Emory Institute for Drug Development
- Co-Inventor brincidofovir and Molnupiavir
James F. Donohue, MD
No Title
- Former Professor of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary Diseases and Critical Care Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Gary Ferguson, MD
No Title
- Clinical Professor of Medicine, Michigan State University
- Director Emeritus, Pulmonary Research Institute of Southeast Michigan
- Former Director of the Emphysema/COPD program, National Jewish Medical Center
MeiLan K. Han, MD, MS
No Title
- Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care at the University of Michigan
Dennis C. Liotta, PhD
Altesa Co-Founder
- Co-founder, Pharmasset
- Co-founder, DRIVE and Emory Institute for Drug Development
- Co-inventor emtricitabine and lamivudine
Richard Whitley, MD
No Title
- Professor of Microbiology, Medicine and Neurosurgery, University of Alabama, Birmingham
- National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Collaborative Antiviral Study Group
Our
Partners / Collaborators
Altesa has an innovative relationship with Drug Innovation Ventures at Emory (DRIVE), formed by Emory University, to discover and advance drug candidates for critical global viral diseases. DRIVE is both a key scientific collaborator and a founding shareholder of Altesa.
Altesa’s DRIVE/Emory lead scientists, George R. Painter, PhD, and Dennis C. Liotta, PhD, are Altesa scientific co-founders and serve on the firm’s Scientific Advisory Board. Drs. Painter and Liotta were instrumental, respectively, in the successful commercialization of molnupiravir, which combats COVID-19, and emtricitabine, which combats HIV/AIDS.
The unprecedented partnership agreement between Altesa and DRIVE led to the licensing of a late-stage, preclinical, antiviral drug (ALT-2023) in January 2022. ALT-2023 is a broad-spectrum nucleoside analog that is active against most enteroviruses and flaviviruses, including rhinovirus and hepatitis C. Altesa has a unique, preferred relationship with DRIVE/Emory, giving Altesa exclusive access to up to five additional DRIVE molecules to combat other deadly viruses.
