Mr. Hansen is a senior corporate executive with diverse and in-depth experience in the biopharmaceutical business. David has proven leadership abilities in creating, building, and directing small start-up operations and key departments in both large and small biopharmaceutical companies. He has broad therapeutic area expertise including oncology and immunology. He has had direct responsibility for corporate and commercial development functions including in and out licensing, product acquisition, strategic planning and new product planning. Most recently, Mr. Hansen was Senior Vice President of Corporate Development at AVANIR Pharmaceuticals, a company focused on develop on developing and commercializing novel therapeutic products for the treatment of chronic diseases. Prior to that David was a founder, President, and COO of Xenerex Biosciences, a monoclonal antibody company focusing on development of fully human antibody products.

Dr. Livingston is a member and Attending Physician, Melanoma and Sarcoma Service, Department of Medicine at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. He is the Head of the Laboratory of Tumor Vaccinology at MSKCC where Dr. Livingston has treated cancer patients and conducted research for the past 31 years. He is a Professor of Medicine at the Weill Graduate School of Medical Sciences of Cornell University. It is Dr. Livingston’s, patents and associated intellectual property that MabVax will be licensing from MSKCC. Dr. Livingston has led the development of multiple cancer vaccine therapies and has extensively published in the subject area. His work continues to be supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, MSKCC, the US Army, and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

Dr. Ragupathi has been at MSKCC for the past 14 years where he is an Associate Attending Immunologist, Department of Medicine, Melanoma and Sarcoma Service, Memorial Hospital for Cancer and Allied Diseases and is an Associate Laboratory Member, MSKCC. Dr. Ragupathi has been involved in the development of cancer vaccines with Dr. Livingston since the early 1990’s. He is a recognized expert in methods for conjugating different antigens to carrier molecules and in immunological assays to determine antibody specificity and effector functions. Dr. Ragupathi is a co-inventor for many of the patents the company is licensing from MSKCC. His work has been supported by grants from the US Army, National Institutes of Health, MSKCC, and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

Dr. Scholz has extensive drug discovery experience in multiple therapeutic categories and has collaborated with major pharmaceuticals companies in several projects. Dr. Scholz earned his Ph.D. in Microbiology/Immunology from the University of Kiel, Germany and completed his postdoctoral training at the Research Institute of Scripps Clinic, La Jolla. He held positions with increasing responsibilities at Tanabe Research Laboratories and most recently he was Senior Director at Avanir Pharmaceuticals, where he led research and development efforts for the past 8 years. He is a founder of Xenerex Biosciences, a subsidiary owned by Avanir Pharmaceuticals, and under his leadership, the antibody discovery group developed monoclonal antibodies to multiple infectious disease targets using in vitro and SCID mouse antibody generation technologies. Dr. Scholz’s work has been supported by multiple grants from the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, including a $2 million grant to perform GMP manufacturing and IND-enabling activities for Avanir’s anti-anthrax monoclonal antibody program which was divested recently to a third party for continued clinical development. Dr. Scholz is an inventor on three pending antibody patents, three issued small molecule patents, and author on thirty-two peer-reviewed publications.