Board of Directors
David Sidransky, M.D.
was appointed the Chairman of the Board of Directors in October 2007. Dr. Sidransky is a renowned oncologist and research scientist named and profiled by TIME magazine in 2001 as one of the top physicians and scientists in America, recognized for his work with early detection of cancer. Since 1994, Dr. Sidransky has been the Director of the Head and Neck Cancer Research Division at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Professor of Oncology, Otolaryngology, Cellular & Molecular Medicine, Urology, Genetics, and Pathology at John Hopkins University and Hospital. Dr. Sidransky is one of the most highly cited researchers in clinical and medical journals in the world, in the field of oncology during the past decade, with over 300 peer-reviewed publications. He has contributed more than 40 cancer reviews and chapters. Dr. Sidransky is a founder of a number of biotechnology companies and holds numerous biotechnology patents. He has served as Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors, and was, until the merger with Eli Lilly, a director of ImClone Systems, Inc., a global biopharmaceutical company committed to advancing oncology care. He is the Chairman of Alfacell Corporation and serves on the Board of Directors of Xenomics. He is serving and has served on scientific advisory boards of MedImmune, Roche, Amgen and Veridex, LLC (a Johnson & Johnson diagnostic company), among others. Dr. Sidransky served as Director (2005-2008) of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). He was the chairperson of AACR International Conferences (2006 and 2007) on Molecular Diagnostics in Cancer Therapeutic Development: Maximizing Opportunities for Personalized Treatment. Dr. Sidransky is the recipient of a number of awards and honors, including the 1997 Sarstedt International Prize from the German Society of Clinical Chemistry, the 1998 Alton Ochsner Award Relating Smoking and Health by the American College of Chest Physicians, and the 2004 Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Award from the American Association of Cancer Research.
Abba David Poliakoff
is a member of the law firm of Gordon, Feinblatt, Rothman, Hoffberger & Hollander, LLC, in Baltimore, Maryland, Chairman of the Firm’s Business Department, and a Member of the Firm’s Electronic Discovery Practice Group. Mr. Poliakoff received his J.D. degree, magna cum laude, in 1977 from the University of Baltimore Law School, where he was an editor of the University of Baltimore Law Review and Associate Editor of The Forum Law Journal. After law school, Mr. Poliakoff joined the staff of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington, D.C., where he became a senior attorney in the Division of Corporation Finance. Mr. Poliakoff is currently a member of the Maryland State Bar Association's Business Law Section and former Chair of its Committee on Securities. Formerly he was a member of the Business Regulations Article Review Committee of the Committee to Revise the Maryland Annotated Code. He has been listed in Chambers USA, Leading Business Lawyers since its inception in 2003. Mr. Poliakoff is a member of the Board of Directors of the Greater Baltimore Technology Council (GBTC) and Chair of its Legislative Committee. He is a former Chair of the Maryland Business & Technology Coalition, member of the Technology Council of Maryland, and member of the MIT Enterprise Forum. Mr. Poliakoff is currently the Chairman of the Maryland Israel Development Center, a joint venture between the State of Israel and the State of Maryland collaborating through the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development and the Israeli Ministry of Industry and Trade.
Ana I. Stancic
has served as Director of the Company since 2008. Ms. Stancic has over twenty years of extensive and diversified finance, accounting and operational experience in the healthcare industry. She is currently the CFO of Enzon Pharmaceuticals Inc. Prior she had been the Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of M2Gen, a wholly owned for-profit subsidiary of the Moffitt Cancer Center. From 2008 to 2009, sheserved as Chief Financial Officer of Aureon Laboratories, Inc., a life science company dedicated to enabling the advancement of predictive and personalized cancer treatment options. From 2007 to 2008, she was Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Omrix Biopharmaceuticals, Inc., an international publicly traded biopharmaceutical company with marketed products in the biosurgical and passive immunotherapy fields, which was acquired by Johnson & Johnson. From 2004 to 2007, Ms. Stancic was at ImClone Systems, Inc., a publicly traded biotechnology company, where she served in various financial roles, including Senior Vice President of Finance. Prior to joining ImClone, she was Vice President and Controller at Savient Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Ms. Stancic began her career at PricewaterhouseCoopers in the Assurance practice where she had responsibility for international and national companies in the pharmaceutical and services industries. Ms. Stancic is a Certified Public Accountant and holds an M.B.A. degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Business. She also serves as a member of the Board of Directors of KV Pharmaceutical Co.
Joel Ackerman
was appointed CEO of Champions Oncology in October 2010. Prior to Champions he spent 15 years at Warburg Pincus, a leading private equity investment firm, from 1993 to 2008. While at Warburg Pincus, he was a partner of the firm, a member of the executive management group and ran the healthcare services group. He invested in start-ups and early-stage companies as well as later stage growth investments and management-led buyouts. For most of these companies, Mr. Ackerman served on the board of directors and worked closely with the respective management teams on strategy, financing, M&A and organizational development. Currently, Mr. Ackerman sits on the board of directors of Coventry Health Care, a publicly traded managed care company, and Kindred Healthcare, a publicly traded company that owns hospitals and nursing homes. He is also Chairman of the Board of One Acre Fund, a non-profit microfinance organization in Western Kenya. He received a BA in physics from Columbia University and an MA in physics from Harvard University.
Ronnie Morris, M.D.
was appointed President of Champions Oncology in October 2010. Most recently he was one of the founders of MDVIP, the national leader in personalized healthcare. Serving as a board member, medical director, and part of the executive management team, Dr. Morris helped build and manage MDVIP, a company that grew to a network of 400 doctors within 29 states servicing 125,000 consumers/patients. In December 2009, MDVIP was acquired by the Procter and Gamble Co. (NYSE:PG). Prior to MDVIP, Dr. Morris was the Chief Medical Officer and Executive V.P. of AllianceCare, a 1500+ employee company that provided home healthcare, physical therapy and doctor visits for homebound patients. At AllianceCare, Dr. Morris developed and operated the physician house call division of the business, and he was the general medical director for the company. He was the managing partner of a large multispecialty group that was acquired in 1998 by Promedco. Dr. Morris is a board certified internist and up until 2004 he had a private practice in Boca Raton, Florida. He has been a consultant for many pharmaceutical companies including Pfizer, Merck, and AstraZeneca.
Scott R. Tobin
has served as Director of the Company since June 2011. Mr. Tobin joined Battery Ventures, a venture capital firm, in 1997 where he has been a managing partner of various funds affiliated with Battery Ventures since May 2000. Prior to joining Battery, Mr. Tobin held positions at First Albany Corp. and at Future Vision, a software company that was sold to Softkey International. Mr. Tobin has invested in and been active in the management of Battery’s investments in ActivePath, Akamai Technologies (NASDAQ: AKAM), Anobit Technologies, @stake (acquired by Symantec), Istra Research, ITA Software (acquired by Google), Kashya (acquired by EMC), The London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange (LIFFE; acquired by Euronext), MetroPCS (NYSE: PCS), ProfitLogic (acquired by Oracle), Pursway, Sabre, The Tennis Channel, Ximian (acquired by Novell), and ZeRTO.