Mr. Quang Pham
Chairman and CEO
Quang Pham is a biopharmaceutical entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in founding, financing, and growing companies. He has served as our Chief Executive Officer and Chairman since he founded Espero in 2014.
Previously, Quang was a partner with D+R LATHIAN, a life sciences multichannel marketing agency. Prior to D+R LATHIAN, he was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Lathian Systems, Inc., a provider of online data and marketing services to pharmaceutical and biotech companies. Quang founded Lathian, raised venture capital funding, developed products, grew revenues, and led its eventual sale to D&R Communications in 2012. After serving as a U.S. Marine Corps pilot in the Persian Gulf War, he began his pharmaceutical sales career with Astra Merck and Genentech BioOncology. He is a published author and holds a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles. Quang has received the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2018, BioFlorida’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and named a Veteran of Influence by the Jacksonville Business Journal. He currently serves on the Board of BioFlorida and is a past director of InHouseUSA, Inc. and the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation.
Dr. Lee Golden, M.D.
Chief Medical Officer
Lee Golden, M.D., has served as Chief Medical Officer since October 2018. Prior to joining the company, Dr. Golden served as the Chief Medical Officer at Gemphire (NASDAQ: GEMP), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company that is developing and commercializing therapies for cardiometabolic disorders, where he oversaw clinical development and regulatory activities.
Prior to his tenure there, he served as Senior Vice President, Therapeutic Head for Cardiovascular, Pulmonary and Central Nervous System at Mesoblast (NASDAQ: MESO). Dr. Golden is an expert in the field of cardiovascular trials and development of novel cardiovascular/blood therapeutics. He has also served as Executive Director of Neuroscience and Ophthalmology at Novartis, Cardiovascular Executive Director at Eisai Medical Research, and Cardiovascular Team Leader/Medical Director at Pfizer Pharmaceuticals.
Dr. Golden has extensive experience managing global cross-functional teams responsible for creating and deploying strategic development and commercial plans. He is a graduate of New York University School of Medicine and is formally trained as an interventional Cardiologist.
Mr. Jeff Cole
President and CFO
Mr. Cole has over 23 years of experience in finance, business development and commercial operations at public and privately held companies. This includes more than 15 years in the pharmaceutical industry holding various senior executive roles at companies such as Valeant Pharmaceuticals (NYSE: VRX), Solco Healthcare US, MarcasUSA, and Legacy Pharmaceuticals. His positions at Valeant included CFO North America, VP of Corporate Development, and General Manager of the US Specialty Division.
During his tenure, Valeant’s revenue in North America increased more than 300%, and while General Manager, Mr. Cole managed a US commercial portfolio of prescription and OTC products across multiple therapeutic areas. As President of Solco Healthcare US, Mr. Cole launched and managed this US commercial pharmaceutical subsidiary of Legacy Pharmaceuticals while serving as the company’s international CFO. Prior to Espero, Mr. Cole founded J. Scott Capital, a firm that provides capital resources to early stage pharmaceutical companies. He also spent six years at PwC Consulting, and served as a principal in the financial management consulting practice. Mr. Cole is a CPA and received his MBA with honors from the University of Michigan. He holds a BS in Accounting from the University of Southern California.
Dr. Pascal Druzgala
Pharm.D., Ph.D.
Senior Vice President,
Research & Development
Dr. Druzgala was a co-founder of Armetheon, where he served as Senior Vice President, Research & Development. He was in charge of all discovery programs. Dr. Druzgala was also a co-founder and board member of Optivia Biotechnology, and a co-founder of ARYx Therapeutics (NASDAQ:ARYX), where he served as senior VP and CSO from 1997 to 2011 as well as chairman of the scientific advisory board.
Dr. Druzgala has a long history of successful pre-clinical drug research and development and is the main
author and co-author of more than 40 issued patents in the United States and 150 patents worldwide, including patents
covering Armetheon’s clinical drugs.
Dr. Druzgala received a Pharm.D. degree in 1978 from the University of Montpellier, France, and then went on to earn a diplôme d’études approfondies degree (DEA) at the European Institute of Industrial Pharmaceutical Sciences (IPIM), also in Montpellier, France. Dr. Druzgala later graduated in 1985 from the University of Florida with a doctorate in medicinal chemistry. He completed his post-doctorate work at the Center for Drug Design and Discovery at the University of Florida, where he first experimented with various drug discovery programs utilizing retrometabolic techniques. These techniques, pioneered by Dr. Nicholas Bodor in the late 1970s, are the basis for the research into enhanced safety for Espero BioPharma’s clinical-stage drug candidate: tecarfarin.
Mr. Andrew Lam
Vice President, Product Development
Mr. Lam is currently Vice President of Product Development at Espero BioPharma, where he leads the CMC development and pharmaceutical operations. Prior to joining Espero, Mr. Lam has more than 24 years of experience in pharmaceutical product development, with a primary focus in the development of controlled release products.
Mr. Lam was most recently Vice President of Product Development at Altheos, where he headed the pharmaceutical product development activities and developed novel Rho Kinase Inhibitors products for glaucoma clinical studies. Prior to joining Altheos, Mr. Lam was the Executive Director of Formulation Development at Exelixis, where he advanced numerous discovery compounds in late-stage optimization to first-in-human clinical studies.
Prior to Exelixis, Mr. Lam served as Senior Director of Liquid OROS® Technology Development at ALZA, a Johnson & Johnson company, where he developed the liquid delivery technology for poorly soluble compounds and advanced a number of new molecular entities to human studies. During his tenure at ALZA, Mr. Lam held numerous positions in pharmaceutics research, formulation, process scale-up and development, and served as project team leader for the development of three commercialized products from early compound development to product launch. Andrew received the 2002 Johnson Medal, the most distinguished award at Johnson & Johnson, for development of CONCERTA®, a multi-billion dollar product for attention deficit hyperactive disorder. As pharmaceutical development leader, Mr. Lam filed 29 INDs, 3 NDAs, 2 MAAs and 1 JNDA, and managed the post-approval changes of marketed products.
Andrew is an inventor on 20 issued US patents and 4 additional US published patent applications. He holds a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Davis.