• Overview
• Board of Directors
• Scientific Advisory Board
• Senior Management
• Partners & Clients
• Business Strategy

Senior Management

Emer Leahy, Ph.D., M.B.A.
President and CEO
Dr. Emer Leahy received her Ph.D. in Neuropharmacology at University College Dublin, Ireland and her MBA from Columbia University.  She has more than 15 years of behavioral research experience, as well as experience in business development for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, including extensive knowledge of technology assessment, licensing, mergers and acquisitions and strategic planning.  Prior to her appointment as CEO, she was PsychoGenics’ Vice President of Business Develop-ment.  In addition to the aforementioned, Dr. Leahy has spearheaded contract negotiations and licensing agreements focusing on Alzheimer’s disease, psychiatry, epilepsy and other neurodegenerative disorders.

Paul McGonigle, Ph.D.
Vice President, External Scientific Affairs
Dr. Paul McGonigle, co-founder and former CEO of NeuroGenix Corporation, received his Ph.D. in Pharmacology from Temple University.  Before forming NeuroGenix, Dr. McGonigle was the Director of Psychiatric Disorder Research at Wyeth where, under his leadership, several compounds for the treatment of depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and cognitive impairment were successfully advanced to the clinic.  Prior to joining Wyeth, he was in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Pennsylvania.  Dr. McGonigle has served on a number of NIH advisory panels and is currently an Adjunct Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Pennsylvania.

William C. Fasnacht
CFO/COO
Mr. Bill Fasnacht is a CPA with more than 20 years of experience in corporate finance and operations.  Prior to joining PsychoGenics, Mr. Fasnacht served as Vice President of Finance, Worldwide Consumer Medicines and Vice President of Finance, Central and Eastern Europe for Bristol-Myers Squibb Company.

Leadership

Mark A. Hofer, M.S., J.D.
General Counsel
Mr. Mark Hofer has more than 20 years of experience in intellectual property and technology law.  Prior to joining PsychoGenics, he was a partner at Brown Rudnick Berlack & Israels, where he initiated creation of the Intellectual Property (IP) Group.  Mr. Hofer also served as General Counsel and Chief Patent Counsel for Genzyme Corporation and patent counsel for Johnson & Johnson.  He is a member of the NY, NJ, MA and US Patent Bars and the ACPC in addition to various courts and bar associations.

Daniela Brunner, Ph.D.
Vice President, Behavioral Research and Development
Dr. Daniela Brunner received a Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology at Cambridge University, England.  She is Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at both Columbia and Yale Universities and possesses more than 20 years of behavioral research experience, including many years devoted to the development of mathematical models of behavior and information processing in animals.

David Pushett, Ph.D.
Vice President, Business Development
Dr. David Pushett received his Ph.D. from Monash University, Australia.  He is a founder of MindGenix, a company in transgenic research focused on Alzheimer’s disease and served as that company’s Chief Operations Officer.  Dr. Pushett brings more then a decade of biotech research and business experience to PsychoGenics, including an extensive knowledge of CNS technology assessment, contract negotiations and strategic planning.

Po-wai Yuen, Ph.D.
Vice President, Medicinal Chemistry
Dr. Po-wai Yuen received his Ph.D in Organic Chemistry from the University of Pittsburgh and completed his post-doctoral training at Harvard University. Prior to joining PsychoGenics, Dr. Yuen was an Assoc. Research Fellow of Neuroscience Chemistry at Pfizer Global Research & Development in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He has more then 17 years of drug discovery experience in both areas of psychiatric disorders and neurondegenerative diseases. He has delivered several development candidates that have advanced into clinical trials.

Bavani Shankar, B.S., M.B.A.
Vice President, Corporate Development
Ms. Bavani Shankar received her M.B.A. at Columbia University, New York and her B.S. in Engineering in India. Ms. Shankar brings over 18 years domestic and international experience working in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, specialty pharma and chemical industries. Most recently, Ms. Shankar was employed at Emisphere Technologies where she was Director of Corporate Development responsible for deal structure and negotiation for all in-licensing and out-licensing activities and strategic alliances.

Vadim Alexandrov, Ph.D., Ph.D.
Senior Director, Informatics and IT
Dr. Vadim Alexandrov received his Ph.D. in Quantum Chemistry from the University of Arizona and a subsequent Ph.D. in BioInformatics from Yale University. He has more than 15 years of experience in computational chemistry and bioinformatics.  Dr. Alexandrov also has years of industry experience having worked as a Senior Bioinformatics Scientist at Curagen Corporation and as a Senior Informatics Consultant for Sanofi–Aventis Pharmaceuticals.

Mark Day, Ph.D.
Senior Director, Cognitive Neurosciences
Dr. Mark Day joined PGI, from Discovery Translational Neuroscience at Wyeth Research, Collegeville where he was responsible for the development and implementation of biomarkers to attenuate clinical attrition rates in Phase II. Co-chairing the Psychiatric Early Clinical Team he championed the biomarker strategies for several drug candidates ensuring transitions into discovery, pre-development, and development. Prior to this he led and supported several programs aimed at developing cognitive treatments for Schizophrenia within Wyeth Neuroscience and for Alzheimer’s at GSK. He received his PhD from the University of Cardiff, UK.

Sylvie Ramboz, Ph.D.
Senior Director, Pre-Clinical Research
Dr. Sylvie Ramboz received her Ph.D. in Neuropharmacology at the Institute for Genetics and Cellular and Molecular Biology, Strasbourg, France.  Dr. Ramboz has extensive experience in the biotechnology industry, first at Memory Pharmaceuticals, then at Xenogen Biosciences Corporation before joining PsychoGenics.  While at Xenogen, she was responsible for creating and phenotyping more than 70 transgenic mouse models of CNS and sexual function disorders. 

Taleen Hanania, Ph.D.
Director, Pharmacology
Dr. Hanania received her Ph.D. in Pharmacology at the University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston.  She completed her post doctoral training and was a faculty member of Department of Pharmacology at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.  Dr. Hanania has extensive pharmacology and be-havior experience in all neuropsychiatric areas and has been instrumental in establishing and validating many of PsychoGenics’ behavioral tests. 

Afshin Ghavami, Ph.D.
Director, Research Operations
Dr. Ghavami obtained his Ph.D in Neuroscience, from Université de Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg, France, in conjugation with Columbia University. After receiving his Ph.D., he joined Memory Pharmaceuticals as Research Scientist. In May 2000, Afshin joined Wyeth's CNS subdivision where he led, evaluated and set up assays for several drug discovery programs including PDE4, RGS, and various GPCR Receptors 

Christina Leahy, M.S.
Director, Quality Assurance
Ms. Christina Leahy has more than 20 years of laboratory experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, including extensive knowledge of AAALAC and IACUC procedures and Federal regulatory and compliancy requirements.  Prior to joining PsychoGenics, Ms. Leahy served as Quality Assurance Auditor for a Ciba-Geigy (now Novartis) GLP toxicology lab.  At Bristol-Myers Squibb, she worked on in vivo testing for CNS drug discovery.