Team and Advisors

Founder and CEO: Dr. Larry Zisman

Dr. Zisman has dedicated his career to developing new treatments for pulmonary hypertension. He spent many years taking care of patients with this disease, and saw the need for better treatments. Calling on his background in molecular biology, he embarked on a quest for new ways to address PAH and other as yet incurable pulmonary diseases via drug discovery and research. His passion to make a difference is the driving force behind Pulmokine.

Dr. Zisman founded Pulmokine, Inc. in 2007 as a spin-off of Cytopia, Inc., to develop novel therapeutics for pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). While at Cytopia, as VP of cardiovascular therapeutics, he championed the development of its kinase inhibitors for PAH, and he has continued that work at Pulmokine.

Dr. Zisman was formerly the VP for cardiovascular research at Cytopia, and has additional experience in IND enabling studies, and phase I, II, and III clinical trials. He is Board Certified in Cardiovascular Diseases, and has extensive experience as a clinician caring for patients with PAH.

Co-Founder and Executive Chair: Dr. Shreefal Mehta

Shreefal Mehta has a mission to transform scientific research into successful commercial products.
As the founding CEO of PRC Tech LLC (www.prctechllc.com), he has brought high-energy, next-generation supercapacitors for backup power to the market, for diverse applications such as servers, medical devices, board net stabilization, robotics and others.
He is co-founder, Executive Chair and board director of Pulmokine, which is successfully demonstrating a public-private model for bringing innovative much-needed therapies to patients.
Previously, he was Vice President of Business and Corporate Development, at Cytopia Inc. It was during his time at Cytopia that Australia’s largest biotech-pharma alliance was announced between Cytopia and Novartis. Cytopia’s lead compound was last purchased by Gilead for $0.5B (from YM Bio).
As a senior executive, Dr Mehta was an invited speaker in international conferences, including the Indian Science Congress and Australian Biotech Summit. He also served for two years as Executive Director of the Radical Innovation program at RPI. In 2006 he received a “40 under 40” business award for rising business leaders in NY.
Dr. Mehta’s research career resulted in over 30 publications in leading science journals, book chapters, and invited talks.
He is a book author of a biotech commercialization book (see www.shreefalmehta.com/menu) recognized as “the bible” and the “roadmap” for bio-entrepreneurs and executives.

VP Regulatory Affairs and Toxicology: Ron Wolff, Ph.D.

Ron Wolff, Ph.D. was appointed vice president of regulatory affairs and toxicology in 2015 following several years as Pulmokine’s consultant on regulatory affairs. He will assist Pulmokine with regulatory matters and preparation of the company’s Investigation New Drug (IND) application for an inhaled PDGFR inhibitor.

Dr. Wolff is president of RK Wolff Safety Consulting Inc. He is a former executive director of preclinical safety assessment for Novartis; senior fellow in toxicology at Nektar Therapeutics in San Carlos, California; group leader of inhalation toxicology at Eli Lilly; and senior scientist at Lovelace Inhalation Toxicology Research Institute. He has experience in toxicology in a wide range of areas, including respiratory, oncology, endocrine, infectious disease, and biologics with special expertise in inhalation toxicology with applications to pharmaceuticals and environmental and occupational health.

He has also served as chair of the Occupational Exposure Level (OEL) Committee of Eli Lilly, and is a co-author on the Product Quality Research Institute (PQRI) publication on safety qualification thresholds for leachables and extractables. He has published more than 100 articles on topics including inhalation toxicology, pharmaceutical aerosols, leachables and extractables, and oncology. He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Toxicology (DABT), a former member of the Board of Directors of the International Society of Aerosols in Medicine, and is a past-president of the American Association for Aerosol Research.

Scientific advisory board

Pulmokine’s scientific advisory board consists of thought leaders and experts in the field of PAH.

Rubin Tuder, MD at the University of Colorado, who has been a key driver in understanding the pathogenesis of PAH, is our advisor on PAH pathogenesis, and preclinical studies.

Aaron Waxman, MD, Director of the Pulmonary Vascular Disease Program at the Brigham and Woman’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, is our clinical advisor who will assist in the design and implementation of clinical trials.