Connie Matsui - Chair
Connie Matsui has served as our Chair of the Board of Directors since May 2017. She brings to her role over 16 years of general management experience in the biotechnology industry. Ms. Matsui retired from Biogen Idec in January 2009 as Executive Vice President, Knowledge and Innovation Networks. She served as an Executive Committee member at both Biogen Idec and IDEC Pharmaceuticals, a predecessor of Biogen Idec. Among the major roles she held after joining IDEC in November 1992 were: Senior Vice President, overseeing investor relations, corporate communications, human resources, project management and strategic planning; Collaboration Chair for the late stage development and commercialization of rituximab (tradenames: Rituxan®, MabThera®) in partnership with Roche and Genentech; and Project Leader for Zevalin®, the first radioimmunotherapy approved by the FDA. Prior to entering the biotechnology industry, Ms. Matsui worked for Wells Fargo Bank in general management, marketing and human resources. Ms. Matsui currently serves as the Chair of the Board at Halozyme and has been active on a number of not-for-profit boards. She was National President/Board Chair of the Girl Scouts of the USA from 1999 to 2002. Ms. Matsui earned BA and MBA degrees from Stanford University.
Douglas Blayney, MD
Douglas Blayney, M.D. was elected to our Board in July 2017. Dr. Blayney is a Professor of Medicine (Oncology), Emeritus at Stanford University and former Medical Director of Stanford Cancer Center. Dr. Blayney is a past president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and a founder of the ASCO Quality Symposium. He was previously a Professor of Internal Medicine and Medical Director of the Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Michigan, and prior to that practiced and led Wilshire Oncology Medical Group, Inc. a physician owned multidisciplinary oncology practice in southern California. Dr. Blayney served on the Food and Drug Administration’s Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee and is Founding Editor-in-Chief and Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of ASCO’s Journal of Oncology Practice. He has over 120 scientific publications with expertise on clinical trial development, use of oncology drugs in clinical practice, and information technology use. Dr. Blayney earned a degree in electrical engineering from Stanford, is a graduate of the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine, and received post graduate training at UCSD and at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland.
Martin Emanuele, PhD
Dr. Emanuele was appointed as a member of our board in September 2017. He has more than 30 years of bio-pharmaceutical industry experience including over 20 years at the senior executive level at companies including CytRx Corp., Avanir Pharmaceuticals, Kemia Inc, DaVita Inc, and Mast Therapeutics (now Savara). Dr. Emanuele has been a successful independent scientific investigator and awarded several US patents and drug development grants from the National Institutes of Health and the US Food & Drug Administration. During his career he has led four original IND’s for new chemical entities and been a key participant in the NDA approval for two first-in-class drugs. Dr. Emanuele also has extensive experience with collaborative drug development and has established and led partnerships with global pharmaceutical companies including Merck, GSK, AstraZeneca and Novartis. He earned a PhD in pharmacology and experimental therapeutics from Loyola University of Chicago, Stritch School of Medicine and a BS in biology from Colorado State University. He also holds an MBA with an emphasis in healthcare and pharmaceutical management from the University of Colorado.
Gregory Gorgas
Gregory D. Gorgas has served as our President, Chief Executive Officer and on our board of directors since April 2017. He holds three decades of successful drug development and commercialization experience in both pharmaceutical corporations and biotech companies, including more than a dozen product launches, four of which were first-in-class. Before leading Artelo, Mr. Gorgas served as Senior Vice President, Commercial and corporate officer at Mast Therapeutics, a publicly held biotechnology company, where he had commercial leadership accountability and business development responsibilities for the hematology, oncology and cardiovascular programs. Previously, Mr. Gorgas was Managing Director at Theragence, a privately held company he co-founded, that provides superior drug development insights through the application of proprietary computational intelligence data mining tools. Prior to that, Mr. Gorgas worked at Biogen, a publicly held biotechnology company, as Senior Director, Global Marketing with responsibility for the strategic vision and operational commercialization of the company’s worldwide cancer business. Previously he held leadership positions of increasing responsibility with IDEC Pharmaceuticals, Chiron, Cetus and Upjohn, all publicly held companies. Mr. Gorgas currently serves as member of the board of directors at Theragence and on the advisory board of Klotho Therapeutics. Mr. Gorgas earned a BA in economics from California State University, Northridge and, from the University of Phoenix, an MBA.
Steven Kelly
Steven Kelly has served on our Board of Directors since May 2017. He brings nearly thirty years of experience in Pharma/Biotech at all phases of the business across multiple therapeutic categories. Mr. Kelly is currently CEO at Carisma Therapeutics, a venture backed biotech pioneering the development of CAR macrophages, a disruptive approach to immunotherapy in cancer. Previously, Mr. Kelly was the founding CEO of Pinteon Therapeutics, an early stage oncology and CNS development company. Prior to this he held a number of leadership positions in the biotechnology industry including: CEO, Theracrine; CCO, BioVex; CEO, Innovive Pharmaceuticals; as well as various commercial and manufacturing roles at Sanofi, IDEC Pharmaceuticals and Amgen. Mr. Kelly holds a BS from the University of Oregon and an MBA from Cornell University.
Greg Reyes, MD, PhD
Greg Reyes, MD, PhD, was elected to our board November 2020. Dr. Reyes brings 35 years experience in biotech and large pharma to Artelo. Past leadership positions include overseeing Drug Discovery at Celgene, leading the Oncology franchise at Biogen Idec, heading Discovery Biology at the Pfizer’s Ann Arbor campus and leading Tumor Biology and Infectious Diseases at Schering-Plough Research Institute. His teams have progressed over 50 small molecules and biologics from discovery into preclinical and clinical development. One compound, developed under his preclinical leadership, was Victrelis™ (boceprevir) approved as one of the first small molecule antiviral treatments for chronic hepatitis C. This seminal work led to the 2012 Prix Galien Award shared by Victrelis™ and Vertex’s Incivek™ as the ‘best pharmaceutical agent’ in both the UK and US.
Dr. Reyes obtained his MD and PhD at The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, trained in medicine at Stanford University Hospital, and was awarded a Damon Runyon Cancer Research Fellowship for studies at Stanford’s Cancer Biology Research Lab. He has nearly 100 scientific publications and 50 US and foreign patents and applications. Dr. Reyes currently serves as advisor to Cancer Research UK’s New Agents Committee and previously served on NIH’s National Advisory General Medical Sciences Council, and the Standing Review Committee for the Research Centers in Minority Institutions, National Center for Research Resources.
Tamara A. (Seymour) Favorito
Tamara A. (Seymour) Favorito was elected to our Board in March 2021. Ms. Favorito has more than 30 years of life sciences industry experience including 20 years as Chief Financial Officer. Ms. Favorito currently serves as Chairman of the Board and chairman of the audit committee of Zevra Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: ZVRA), a publicly-traded commercial-stage rare disease therapeutics company. Ms. Favorito served as Interim CFO of Immunic Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: IMUX), a publicly-traded clinical-stage drug development company in 2019. She served as CFO of several companies including Signal Genetics, Inc., a then publicly-traded molecular diagnostics company which was acquired by Viridian Therapeutics Inc., from 2014 to 2017, HemaQuest Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (now known as Viracta Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: VIRX)), a clinical-stage drug development company, from 2010 to 2014 and Favrille, Inc. (now known as MMR Global, Inc.), a clinical-stage drug development company, from 2001 to 2009. While at these companies, Ms. Favorito led multiple private and public financings, including Favrille’s IPO. In addition, Ms. Favorito was instrumental in M&A transactions and led the finance, investor relations, human resources, administration and managed care and payor reimbursement functions. Earlier in her career, Ms. Favorito spent eight years in public accounting with Deloitte & Touche LLP and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, including three years as audit manager. Ms. Favorito is a Certified Public Accountant (inactive). Ms. Favorito received an MBA, emphasis in Finance, from Georgia State University, and a BBA, emphasis in Accounting, from Valdosta State University. Ms. Favorito served on the Board of Directors of Beacon Discovery, Inc. from 2018 until their acquisition in 2021 and served as a board member and audit committee chair of Kintara Therapeutics, Inc. a publicly-traded clinical-stage drug development company from 2021 until its merger with TuHura Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: HURA) in 2024.