Board of Directors
A Leadership Team with Deep Experience
Steve Carpenter
Chair
Office of Entrepreneurship and Commercialization
Steve Carpenter
Chair
Steve Carpenter serves as Director, Research Startups at Penn State University’s Office of Entrepreneurship and Commercialization providing guidance and support to scientists pursuing commercialization of their technology. Mr. Carpenter also serves as an Adjunct Instructor at Penn State’s Smeal College of Business teaching Entrepreneurial Finance and as the Program Administrator for the Garber Fund providing venture investment experiences for MBA students. Mr. Carpenter has served as a director or board observer on more than ten company boards since 2008. Mr. Carpenter has 18 years of experience with Life Sciences Greenhouse Investments providing seed- and early-stage investments in promising life sciences companies in Pennsylvania. In his most recent role as Senior Vice President, Mr. Carpenter provided guidance and support to portfolio companies, evaluated early-stage companies for prospective investments, and managed the organization’s accounting and finances. Prior to joining LSG Investments, Mr. Carpenter served more than 20 years in a variety of management and engineering positions, primarily leading operation start ups and new product launches. Mr. Carpenter earned a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Lehigh University and an MBA from Penn State University where his academic concentration was on venture capital, entrepreneurship, and finance.
Dennis Annarelli
Board of Directors
Dennis Annarelli
Board Of Directors
Dennis Annarelli has over 20 years in senior technical and operational management positions in firms supplying technology-based products used in the manufacture of biopharmaceutical and related products. Most recently Dennis worked with PendoTECH founder, Jim Furey, in a number of roles to grow the company from its start-up phase to successful acquisition in 2021. Prior to PendoTECH, Dennis held managerial positions in product development and engineering in diverse technical industries.
Dennis holds BSc and PhD degrees in chemistry from St Joseph’s University and MIT, respectively.
Alex Chen
Board of Directors
President, Overseas Operations and BD uBriGene Biosciences Inc.
Alex Chen
Board Of Directors
Alex Chen is the President for Overseas Operations and Business Development at uBriGene Biosciences Inc. He is responsible for expanding overseas business and market share. Alex has over 20 years of experience in operational management, investment, acquisitions and strategic partnerships. As part of his responsibilities for managing the North American operations, he oversees corporate projects, commercial developments, and facility operations. Prior to this role, he served as Managing Director of Eastern Capital Inc., where he was responsible for USD $1 billion asset under management portfolio for an array of clients from the mining, commercial and financial services industries. He was also an acting advisor on an investment project for issuing USD $500 million bond for a pharmaceutical company which was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Alex also held several leadership positions at Rio Tinto Alcan, RCI Capital Inc., Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure BC, Worley Parsons and Westmar Advisors. He holds a BSc in Civil Engineering from Hunan University and a Master of Engineering degree from the University of British Columbia (UBC).
Rajiv Datar, Ph.D.
President & CEO
Alfa-Laval/Kabi/Pharmacia, Genentech, Pall Chemical & Biochemical Engineering Post-Doc/Doc MIT/KTH; MIT EDP ‘23
Rajiv Datar, Ph.D.
President & CEO
Dr. Datar obtained his Post-Doctorate in Biochemical Engineering from MIT, Cambridge, MA and his Ph.D. in Bioprocess Technology from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, Sweden. Dr. Datar is an experienced Biotechnology and Bio-Business Professional, of which the first ten years were at Senior Technical Positions covering R&D, technical and financial collaborations either in European or US multinational companies, and four years in independent biotech research based on US SBIR grants. During the past ten years, he has been in Senior Management Positions either as VP, Head of SBU, Founding-CEO or CEO of publicly-traded or startup biotech companies and ventures, where Dr. Datar has had full responsibility for projects, budgets, technology deals and biotech start-ups ranging in size from $15 million to $40 million. Dr. Datar has successfully raised about $40 million for biotech startups over the past 10 years.
Howard L. Levine, Ph.D.
Board of Directors
Howard L. Levine, Ph.D.
Board Of Directors
Howard L. Levine, Ph.D., is a retired biopharmaceutical executive with over 40 years of experience in biopharmaceutical product development and commercialization. Prior to his retirement, Dr. Levine was National Leader of the BioProcess Technology Group, a part of the life sciences practice of BDO USA. Dr. Levine is a pioneer and thought leader in the biopharmaceutical industry with extensive strategic, operational, and regulatory experience in Chemistry, Manufacturing, and Control in the biopharmaceutical industry. Throughout his career, Dr. Levine has assisted numerous companies in developing biological products, provided strategic input in the development of new manufacturing technologies, and participated in the successful commercialization of more than ten biopharmaceutical products.
In 1994, Dr. Levine founded BioProcess Technology Consultants (BPTC), a leading consulting company that provided integrated strategic, technical, and regulatory advice on biopharmaceutical product development to a broad range of companies. He served as President, and CEO of BPTC until its merger with BDO in 2019. Over the next three years, Dr. Levine worked to fully integrate BPTC into the BDO Life Sciences advisory practice while helping to expand the group and increase revenue by over 60%. Prior to founding BPTC, Dr. Levine was Vice President of Manufacturing Operations at Repligen Corporation and previously held positions of increasing responsibility in process development and manufacturing at Genentech, Amgen, and Xoma. He is currently a member of the Board of Directors of Triplebar, Inc. and Chromatan Corp and also sits on the Scientific Advisory Board of Novel Biologics, Inc. and the Board of Advisors of Wheeler Bio, Inc. Dr. Levine holds a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Chicago and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard University.
Frank Li
Board of Directors
Frank Li
Board Of Directors
Feng (Frank) Li obtained his Ph.D. in Bioanalytical Chemistry jointly with Canadian Doping Control Centre and Concordia University. Subsequently, he conducted post-doctoral training at Mayo Clinic. Furthermore, Frank also has a BS in Pharmacy and an MS in Medicinal Chemistry. Professionally, he has held responsible roles in the area of drug discovery at MDS Pharma Services (a major CRO), in the Department of Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics (DMPK) at GSK Pharmaceuticals, and in the Drug Metabolism group at Cephalon (Teva Pharmaceuticals). He has extensive experience in both drug discovery and developmental phases in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. He is a recognized expert in both qualitative and quantitative (PK/TK) drug analysis and has a publication record in the area of drug metabolite identification and quantitation. He has more than 25 years of working experience in the CRO, pharmaceutical, and biotech industries. He is also a board member at Chromatan, a biotech company, and a partner at Hibiscus Capital Management, a venture capital firm.
Frank was the co-founder, CEO/President, and Board Chairman of Alliance Pharma. He led the company’s operation, legal, finance, and corporate development since the inception of the company in 2008. He was awarded top 100 fast-growing companies in 2014 and 2015, top 50 CEOs in 2016 and 2017, and Asian American CEO of the year in 2020. He successfully branded Alliance Pharma as a well-known top specialty CRO globally, has been well-recognized by the industry and competitors, he mentored many young scientists to be industry leaders. Under his leadership, Alliance Pharma has been working with 6 of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies globally, and over 150 clients from pharmaceutical, biotech, and academia. He successfully exited from Alliance Pharma, which is co-invested by two reputable investment firms (Ampersand Capital and KKR).
Oleg Shinkazh
Founder & CTO
Millipore, Pall, Genentech, Biogen Chemical & Biotechnology Engineering, MIT EDP ‘23
Oleg Shinkazh
Founder & CTO
Oleg Shinkazh is a founder of ChromaTan and inventor of “Countercurrent Tangential Chromatography.” He is a chemical and biotechnology engineer with 17 years of experience in R&D and technical support in the biotechnology industry, specializing in downstream processing/purification of human biologics. Oleg has extensive experience with all unit operations in the modern marketplace and has worked and collaborated with such industry leaders as Millipore Corp., Pall Corp., Genentech, Biogen and many others.
Alex Chen
Board of Directors
Alex Chen
Board Of Directors
Alex Chen is the President for Overseas Operations and Business Development at uBriGene Biosciences Inc. He is responsible for expanding overseas business and market share. Alex has over 20 years of experience in operational management, investment, acquisitions and strategic partnerships. As part of his responsibilities for managing the North American operations, he oversees corporate projects, commercial developments, and facility operations. Prior to this role, he served as Managing Director of Eastern Capital Inc., where he was responsible for USD $1 billion asset under management portfolio for an array of clients from the mining, commercial and financial services industries. He was also an acting advisor on an investment project for issuing USD $500 million bond for a pharmaceutical company which was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Alex also held several leadership positions at Rio Tinto Alcan, RCI Capital Inc., Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure BC, Worley Parsons and Westmar Advisors. He holds a BSc in Civil Engineering from Hunan University and a Master of Engineering degree from the University of British Columbia (UBC).
