Our Team
We use a project team approach and we have a highly experienced leadership team and advisors - collectively instrumental in the development of nearly twenty marketed drugs.
Leadership
Barry A. Berkowitz, PhD, Bessor Founder & CEO
Barry is Bessor’s Founder and CEO. Barry has founded and led highly successful drug discovery and development organizations in start-up and large pharmaceutical environments for nearly 40 years. He has built value around the companies he has led through numerous strategic transactions, including alliances with major pharma companies, such as Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Wyeth and Bristol Myers Squibb as well as M&A. Companies he has co-founded and or led as CEO include: Myco/Chemgenics (acquired by Millennium Pharmaceuticals); New Chemical Entities (acquired by Albany Molecular); and Fibrogen. Earlier in his career, he held senior research positions at Smith, Kline & French, and the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology. Barry holds a BS degree in Pharmacy from Northeastern University and a PhD in Pharmacology from the University of California San Francisco.
Allan M. Cohen, Esq, CPA, General Counsel and VP Licensing
Allan leads Bessor’s licensing, business, and legal activities. He has over 25 years of experience as a corporate lawyer, accountant, and management team member. Previously, he was part of the leadership team and headed the legal function at Auven Therapeutics and Celtic Pharma, hybrid private equity and virtual drug development firms. Prior to joining Celtic, he worked in the general counsel’s offices at Goldman Sachs and American Express, served as general counsel of a publicly-traded technology incubator, and was a corporate attorney at McDermott, Will & Emery. Allan earned a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law and a B.S. in Accounting from Penn State.
Martin D Hynes III, PhD, VP Project Management and Quality Assurance
Marty joined Bessor following a more than 35-year career at Eli Lilly and Company, where he was most recently Director of Product Research and Development and Six Sigma Champion at Lilly Research Laboratories. He led multiple development teams for drugs including human growth hormone (Humatrope®), atomoxetine (Strattera®) and pergolide (Permax®). He joined Lilly Research Labs after completing a post-doctoral fellowship at the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology. He holds a BA degree in Psychology from Providence College, and MS and PhD degrees in Pharmacology and Toxicology from the University of Rhode Island. Marty also served as a Vice President of Quality Assurance and Regulatory Affairs at Mapp Biopharmaceutical, a biotech developing novel pharmaceuticals for the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases, focusing on unmet needs in global health and biodefense for more than 6 years. Dr. Hynes teaches as an adjunct professor of Biotechnology Innovation and Regulatory Science at Purdue University.
Eliot Ohlstein, PhD, VP Pharmacologic R&D
Eliot has held senior research, and research leadership positions drug discovery and development in the pharmaceutical industry for more than 35 years. Previously, he served at GlaxoSmithKline, most recently as a Senior Vice President Drug Discovery and Development, where he was involved in cardiovascular, metabolic, renal and oncology therapeutics, with both small, large and peptide molecules. Under Eliot’s leadership GSK discovered and advanced into clinical development and market, Coreg® (carvedilol) for heart failure, the HER2 receptor inhibitor Tykerb® (lapatinib) for metastatic breast cancer, and the tyrosine kinase angiogenesis inhibitor Votrient® (pazopanib) for advanced renal cell carcinoma. Eliot is an author on more than 275 publications on drug discovery and development for new therapeutic targets and active in the field of Pharmacology as an Adjunct Professor Pharmacology at Drexel University College of Medicine and Editor in Chief of journals of the International Union Basic and Clinical Pharmacology (IUPHAR) and Frontiers in Pharmacology Cardiovascular Disease & Urology. Eliot holds a BS in Pharmacy from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and a PhD in Pharmacology from the Tulane University School of Medicine.
Mark Roffman, PhD, Drug Development and Regulatory Affairs
Mark has more than 30 years of experience in drug development and project management, and with both large and small pharmaceutical companies. He has led numerous project teams, overseeing drug development. Prior to Bessor, he served as Vice President for Drug Development at several companies, including XTL Biopharmaceuticals and Relox Medical, and served in a number of roles at Smith, Kline & French and Ciba-Geigy. Mark holds an AB degree in Biology from Boston University's MBA degree in Management from Fairleigh Dickinson University and MS and PhD degrees in Pharmacology from the University of Rhode Island. He is a Fellow of the American College of Clinical Pharmacology.
Lauren Berkowitz, JD, MBA, Advisor
Lauren has over 15 years of experience in innovation and transformation leadership. Prior to joining Bessor she served as Chief Business Officer and Chief of Staff at Bridgewater Associates’ artificial intelligence spin-out, Elemental Cognition. She has worked with numerous startups and held leadership positions at Western Digital, IBM and Sony. Lauren holds JD and MBA degrees from Suffolk University and a BS degree from Boston University.
Scientific Advisors
James Abbrruzzese, MD
Professor of Medicine, D. C. I. Distinguished Professor of Medical Oncology, Chief, Division of Medical Oncology Duke Cancer Institute
https://medicine.duke.edu/faculty/james-abbruzzese-md
Mansoor M. Amiji, PhD
Distinguished Professor and Chair, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Bouvé College of Health Sciences, Northeastern University
https://web.northeastern.edu/amijilab/people/prof-amiji/
Anthony Barrett, FRS, FMedSci
Tony Barrett is Sir Derek Barton Professor of Synthesis, Glaxo Professor of Organic Chemistry and Director of the Wolfson Centre for Organic Chemistry in Medical Science, Imperial College London
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/agm.barrett
Gary V. Desir, MD
Vice Provost for Faculty Development and Diversity; Chair, Department of Medicine; and Paul B. Beeson Professor of Medicine, Yale University
https://medicine.yale.edu/profile/gary_desir/
George Demetri, MD
Professor, Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Director, Center for Sarcoma and Bone Oncology and Quick Family Chair, Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
https://www.dfhcc.harvard.edu/insider/member-detail/member/george-d-demetri-md/
John Edwards, Jr, MD
Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and Emeritus Chief, Division of Infectious Disease at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center
http://www.harboruclaid.org/john-e--edwards--jr-.html
Arthur Felix, PhD
Professor Emeritus of Chemistry and Biochemistry and former Director of Peptide Research at Hoffmann-La Roche
Gerald Fink, PhD
Margaret and Herman Sokol Professor; American Cancer Society Professor of Genetics; Founding Member, Whitehead Institute, MIT
https://wi.mit.edu/people/member/fink
Armand Keating, FRCPC, MD
Scientist, Krembil Research Institute (Krembil), Clinician Scientist and Cancer Clinical Research Unit (CCRU), Princess Margaret Cancer Centre
https://www.uhnresearch.ca/researcher/armand-keating
Philip Parsons, PhD, FRSC
Professor, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Department of Chemistry, Imperial College London. Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/p.parsons