The Xomix Team
Gary Keller
CEO
Gary Keller is CEO of Xomix, a Chicago-based accelerator and consultancy in medical, life science, biotechnology, energy and environmental technologies for companies and research organizations. Xomix provides intellectual asset management, commercialization, and global businesses development services. Since 1998 the company has worked for industry, federal laboratories, universities, and quasi-government organizations.
Keller is Vice President, Managing Director of the Midwest University Research Network (MRUN), a not for profit consortium of commercialization stakeholders of academic research institutions and Federal laboratories, angel and venture capitalists, and technology accelerators across 14 Midwest States and 2 provinces of Canada. As founding Executive Director of The Florida Institute for Commercialization of Public Research, he established a statewide, quasi-government, not-for-profit corporation for the State of Florida focused on economic development through the commercialization of new discoveries generated from publicly-funded research.
He is Director of Corporate Development and Licensing for Conkwest, Inc., a San Diego based biopharmaceutical company he founded in 2002 that is developing cancer treatment products based its proprietary natural killer (NK) cell line, NK-92. Keller has more than 25 years of experience in business development for leading biotechnology companies including launching products into the United States market for Fison’s and Sanyo Scientific through national sales forces and direct sales for biologics and genomics for the Midwest and as National Manager of Cell Therapy for Lonza Walkersville.
Keller is an international delegate for LES and VP of Knowledge Management for LESI and Co-Chair of the LESI GTIF/ Invent for Humanity. He has served as co-chair of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) Technology Transfer Committee. He serves on multiple organizations and is a board director for Sinai Health System – Chicago. He has Masters of Biotechnology-Cell Biology & Bioinformatics from Northwestern University’s Center for Biotechnology and a Bachelors of Science-Biochemistry from Pennsylvania State University.
Dr. Clarisse Croteau-Chonka, Ph.D
Senior Associate Technology Led Economic Development and Grant Funding
Clarisse Croteau-Chonka, Ph.D. has been an associate of Xomix Ltd since 2003 and served in roles related to workforce development and education, technology-led economic development, project management, and grant funding. She is known for her work with business, education and nonprofit organizations in the design and development of new initiatives and in implementing technological innovation into program and development planning. Dr. Croteau-Chonka’s special areas of expertise are in biological technologies, high-tech manufacturing, information and communication technology, and transportation infrastructure.
Dr. Croteau-Chonka leads efforts to devise funding and budget strategies for new and existing programs providing clients with planning, writing and submission consultation as well as direct administration and supervision of economic development programs and grant awards. Her achievements include over $24 million in successful grants awarded by private, corporate, foundation, state and federal funders. Key to her success is the development of collaborative efforts engaging business, industry and educational sectors to design workforce preparation programs, coordinated development initiatives and integrated business processes. Her work is targeted at populations in a variety of employment pathways, including biotechnology, bioinformatics, health information technology, telecommunications, holistic health, clean energy, distance learning, and custom manufacturing.
She was previously the Director of the Chicago Consortium of Higher Education, one of the first distance learning initiatives linking nonprofits and education. Her grant and program development achievements include serving as one of the developers of the Summer Biotech Institute — a biotechnology pipeline program, BiTmaP — a bioinformatics training program, Health Information Technology for Urban Medical Practices.
Dr. Croteau-Chonka received her B.Sc. (Biology-Chemistry) from Loyola of Montreal, M. Ed. and C.A.E.S. from Boston College, and Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary. Her community activities include being on the Board of the Africa Circle of Hope Foundation and the Board of Trustees for Pacific College where she heads the Academic Affairs subcommittee. She is co-author of The Nonprofit Factor: Gathering at the Table for the Common Good (Hampton Press, 2013).
Elie Geisler, Ph.D.
Senior Associate
Dr. Eliezer (Elie) Geisler holds over 40 years of experience in the development of innovation, technology transfer, and knowledge management and is a distinguished professor in the Stuart School of Business at the Illinois Institute of Technology. His research was funded by, among many others, NASA, NSF, and IBM. His current research, teaching, and consulting activities focus on the organization and commercialization of technology, and on the nature, progress and diffusion of human and organizational knowledge, and the management of knowledge systems.
He was the founder and editor of the department of information technology for the IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management and is the co-founder and associate editor of the International Journal of Healthcare Technology and Management. He co-founded the international Health Care Technology Management Association and the series of Conferences on the Hospital of the Future. Since 2001 these conferences were held in the Netherlands, U.S.A., United Kingdom, Denmark, Austria, and Italy.
At the Illinois Institute of Technology, in 2003-2012, he founded and directed the IIT research Center for the Management of Medical Technology. Dr. Geisler consulted for major corporations and for many government departments and agencies. He served on over a dozen editorial boards for major journals in the fields of technology management and organizational behavior. He was chair of the College of Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship (COLIME) of the Institute of Management Sciences (INFORMS).
He is the author and co-author of 14 books, including: Managing the Aftermath of Radical Corporate Change (1997); The Metrics of Science and Technology (2000), also translated into Chinese; Creating Value with Science and Technology (2001); Installing and Managing Workable Knowledge Management Systems (2003, with Albert Rubenstein), Knowledge and Knowledge Systems: Learning from the Marvels of the Mind (2007), and Change in Organizations (2013).
Dr. Geisler has served on the board of directors of Mount Sinai Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois. He holds a doctorate in organizational behavior from the Kellogg School at Northwestern University (1979). Dr. Geisler is the author and co-author of over 120 papers in the areas of the management, evaluation and metrics of R&D, innovation, science & technology, knowledge management and the management of medical technology.
Hulusi Tezcan
Senior Associate
Mr. Tezcan has thirty plus years of expertise working with early-stage entrepreneurs and established companies building partnerships, helping raise capital, and commercializing ideas and concepts. Mr. Tezcan is an industry and technology expert, consultant, facilitator, and executive leader with domestic and international experience in building, expanding, operating, servicing startups and established businesses.
With access to a vast and proven professional network, Mr Tezcan is able to test, validate and advance business models and ideas at each step of development, helping new ventures move forward, achieve financial clarity and scale their companies in a profitable way.
He is a founding member of the first Turkish-American Chamber of Commerce for the Midwest (2000-2001). He has provided advice on Business and Trade related issues to Turkish NGOs and other Chambers throughout the US. He mentors for several “innovation” startup incubator networks here in the US and abroad. Founding partner of One2consult, Inc. a specialized consulting firm and CEO of Sigma Business Services.
Mr. Tezcan has resided in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East prior to taking up residence in the US. He has successfully completed large scale international projects in Canada, the US, Brazil, Australia and Turkey, and is fluent in English, Turkish and French.
Janet E. Scholz
Senior Associate
Mrs. Scholz is an acknowledged leader with more than 30 years of experience in intellectual asset management and technology transfer including the successful licensing of technologies in all fields, start-up business development, and strategic planning. She has not only built and managed a thriving university technology transfer office, she has competed successfully for national and international grants and contracts related to regional and national professional networks, international development and intellectual asset management.
Current activities focus on the diversification of traditional research relationships with local, regional, national and international business, industry and government organizations. Janet is also a Senior Associate with Xomix Ltd., a Chicago based accelerator and consultancy in medical, life science, biotechnology, energy and environmental technologies for companies and research organizations.
Janet has significant experience in strategic planning, workforce development, transactional and policy work in the technology transfer field, identification & development of start-up companies, identification and securing pre-seed and seed investment as well as dissemination and promotion of opportunities for pre-competitive research programs with industry.
Mrs. Scholz is a Past President of the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) an organization of 3500+ technology transfer professionals in business and academia in more than 30 countries in the world. Mrs. Scholz was the first President of AUTM from outside the United States. As part of her consulting activities, Janet has most recently served as the President & CEO of ACCT Canada (Alliance for Commercialization of Canadian Technologies – www.acctcanada.ca) a national not for profit association for academic and private sector organizations partnering to commercialize Canadian technologies. Janet is a member of AUTM, Licensing Executives Society (LES), Society of Research Administrators (SRA), Canadian Society of Association Executives (CSAE).
Vince La Terva, J.D.
Commercialization and Startups
Vince La Terva, J.D. is an experienced biotech entrepreneur with a successful track record of creating value for investors and improving treatment options for patients. Vince was a cofounder of an Emory University spin off company called Octagen. Octagen developed a FVIII product for hemophilia A patients with inhibitors called OB1. After OB1 successfully completed Phase 2 clinical testing; Octagen was acquired by French drug maker Ipsen in 2008. Last year Baxter acquired OB1 and filed a BLA for it in December 2013. The BLA was granted fast track review.
La Terza was also the first business hire for NeurOp, Inc. another Emory spin off bio-pharmaceutical company. While Vince was NeurOp’s CEO, the company accessed seed financing, several major research grants and entered into an alliance with Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) to co-develop novel medicines for depression and pain. Before helping to launch NeurOp, Vince cofounded Abeome, Inc. a monoclonal antibody platform company based in Athens, GA. While at Abeome, Vince co-invented a key technology which has emerged as a centerpiece technology, the Abeo-Mouse, for Abeome.
Early in his career, La Terza worked as a technology transfer professional for several major research universities in Georgia, including UGA and Georgia Tech. He was the first Director of Emory’s Office of Technology Transfer. During his tenure at Emory, Vince was involved in licensing and equity arrangements for numerous start-up pharmaceutical companies, such as Pharmasset (acquired by Gilead). Vince also negotiated several license agreements for Emory compounds that are now approved or in human clinical trials. He was Emory’s primary business and legal representative for the negotiation of a license agreement between Emory and Triangle Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Gilead) for the antiviral drug Emtriva, aka FTC. This arrangement yielded a one-time royalty payment in the amount of $540 million (lump sum royalty stream buy-out) to Emory by Gilead Sciences and Royalty Pharma.
Matthew J Raymond, MBA, PhD, CLP™
Senior Associate
Dr. Matthew (Matt) Raymond has a deep background as a technology manager and medical entrepreneur with over twenty years of experience in research, business development and intellectual property management in the biomedical sciences. Matt worked in academic technology transfer for three institutions including serving as the Director for the office at Rush University Medical Center. During his term at Rush, he led the growth of licensing revenues from $200,000 to over $7 million per year through an aggressive and careful effort at identifying, assessing and licensing inventions created by Rush researchers. He has been involved in the organization and licensing for more than 20 academic start-up companies. He has also served as co-founder for three companies: SportTech, Inc., an orthopedic medical device company spun out of the University of Virginia, ApiRx, LLC, a drug development company focused on the Apicomplexan family of parasites using technology spun out of the University of Chicago and Meridian CRDB, a medical records company that evaluated a database developed by Loyola University Medical Center.
Matt has managed the filing and prosecution of patent applications for over 600 inventions. He is a registered Patent Agent with the United States Patent and Trademark Office and has worked with many of the top IP law firms in the country. Matt earned his MBA from the University of Virginia’s Darden Graduate School of Business and the PhD in Molecular Biology from the University of Wyoming. He is a Certified Licensing Professional™ and has been training towards certification as a patent valuation analyst.
David L. Gulley, PhD, RTTP, CLP
Advisor
For more than 25 years, Dr. Gulley has provided leadership in developing and implementing innovation-based and technology-led economic development. Since1989 he provided leadership at the University of Illinois, especially at its Chicago campus, to promote academic-industry collaborations, research engagements, technology transfer and commercialization in order to raise the University’s regional, national and international reputation for excellence. He retired in 2012 to continue his work as a consultant in promoting best practices in technology transfer around the world and to serve in key positions with associations and on boards that support the profession.
He currently leads a team of senior professionals in establishing and supporting more than 20 university technology transfer offices in Chile and serves as an international faculty member for the Association of University Technology Managers. He is past president of the Certified Licensing Professionals, Inc., past vice-president of the Association of University Technology Managers, and a founding director and council member of the Alliance of Technology Transfer Professionals.
Vladimir Yossifov
Advisor
Vladimir Yossifov M.Sc. is an international intellectual property expert with over 35 years of experience in intellectual property and innovation infrastructure and policy development, technology transfer and licensing. He has a special focus on Innovation and the Transfer of Technology related projects and relationships with patent offices.
Yossifov served as a Director of the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) Division for Infrastructure Services and Innovation Promotion and the Division for Cooperation with Certain Countries in Europe and Asia. He is known for his work related to the development of national and regional promotion of IP information and innovation systems in including countries within Europe, Asia and Africa. He is a member Licensing Executives Society -Switzerland.
Denis Detzel
Advisor
Denis Detzel has written, Managing To Keep The Customer, With Bob Desatnick and founded his own organization consulting firm, Eastlake. While with Eastlake, he served as a Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for Secura Insurance and Financial Services and Vice President, Eastern Operations for U.S. Cellular Corporation.
Detzel has also taught and consulted with Northwestern, Mundelein, American and Rutgers Universities and has served on the boards of directors of several not-for-profit and for-profit organizations. He studied at Northwestern University’s Center for Urban Affairs and Policy.