Co-founded by Aleksander S. Popel, PhD and Jordan J. Green, PhD at Johns Hopkins University, AsclepiX is building a company and culture focused on transforming the treatment of disease in ophthalmology and oncology.
To date, anti-VEGF treatment has been the gold standard for treating retinal disease; however, many patients do not have a complete and lasting response with currently approved therapies. In patients who do respond, the short duration of action of these treatments requires the additional burden of recurring and frequent intravitreal injections. There is a need for more efficacious medicines that require fewer injections and reduces the treatment burden for patients.
Our mission is to go well beyond the capabilities of today’s therapies. We do this by translating brilliant scientific discovery into tomorrow’s transformative medicines that have the potential to bring better and dramatically lasting health to people throughout the world.
In ophthalmology, we are initially focused on three of the leading causes of blindness in adults: diabetic macular edema (DME), neovascular (wet) age-related macular degeneration (wet AMD), and macular edema following retinal vein occlusion (RVO). In addition to a novel mechanism of action in the treatment of these diseases, we seek to achieve superior efficacy with significantly fewer injections than approved therapies, substantially reducing the treatment burden for patients.
In oncology, we are developing treatments to activate anti-tumor immunity, inhibit metastasis, and enhance efficacy in combination with immunotherapy and chemotherapy. Early results in animal models show inhibition of tumor growth and improved survival in triple-negative breast cancer and hepatocellular carcinoma and inhibition of metastasis in triple-negative breast cancer.
We are dedicated every day to advancing the clinical development of these novel therapeutics to prove their safety and efficacy in fulfilling significant unmet needs in global healthcare.
Innovation Leaders
AsclepiX Leadership
Robert brings more than two decades of domestic and global experience in the ophthalmic space driving successful drug development, business transactions and commercialization. His widespread experience in Ophthalmology stems from diverse Leadership roles across Commercial, Business Development, Medical Affairs and Venture Backed Startups. He brings deep relationships with Key Opinion Leaders and comprehensive knowledge of the ophthalmic ecosystem. Most recently, Robert served as the Chief Executive Officer for TearClear where he accelerated the business and commercial strategies which led to several value inflection points including a successful Series B financing and positive FDA engagements. His amplification of the innovative platform put TearClear on the map in Ophthalmics. Prior to that, he served as the Global Head of Ophthalmology at Shire, then Takeda, responsible for one of the top 10 largest biopharma M&A deals in 2019. The divestiture of Takeda’s lead Ophthalmic asset, Xiidra® (lifitegrast ophthalmic solution) 5%, to Novartis in June 2019 represented a transaction for up to $5.3B from Shire’s initial investment of ~$165M in 2013. Under Robert’s leadership, Shire successfully acquired four companies to accelerate the value creation of the franchise through the addition of innovative early, mid and late-stage pipeline candidates. He has been instrumental with successful early-stage venture capital and strategic fundraising activities as a Board member and advisor to multiple Ophthalmology companies. Additionally, his philanthropic engagement includes serving as Chairman of The Holland Foundation for Sight Restoration and as Co-Director of the Corporate & Surgeon Partners Program for SightLife. He holds a Master’s in Business Administration and a Bachelor of Science from Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts.
Amir has built a career in life sciences as a leader with over two and a half decades of drug development experience, focused on the clinical development, registration and commercialization of biopharmaceuticals and biologics in multiple therapeutic areas. Most recently, Amir served as the Chief Executive Officer for TherOptix, where he was responsible for the business and clinical/medical strategy advancing the novel drug eluting contact lens technology platform of the company to bring innovative products to address unmet medical needs for anterior and posterior segment diseases. While at Theroptix, Amir implemented strategic development on two lead programs, with successfully gaining Orphan Drug Designation (ODD) for one program for prevention of proliferative vitreoretinopathy (PVR) and completing a pre-series A debt financing round for a total of $3.5M.
Prior to TherOptix, Amir served as the Chief Development Officer for TearClear leading clinical development and regulatory strategy of all pipeline and late-stage assets. Before joining TearClear, Amir spent just under 20 years at Shire until it was acquired by Takeda in Jan 2019. At Shire, he helped create the ophthalmology franchise as the Global Therapeutic Area Head in Ophthalmology and was later able to successfully divest the key asset in that franchise, Xiidra, to Novartis for $5.3 Billion. While at Shire, Amir oversaw all aspects of clinical stage ophthalmic pipeline assets. His team brought Xiidra® (lifitegrast) from development through to U.S. FDA filing and approval. Amir’s active engagement in the clinical development around design and implementation of OPUS-3 as well as the analysis of totality of evidence were pivotal in the negotiations with the FDA leading to a US approval in July 2016.
Amir is also an independent Board member at iVeena Inc., ForwardVue Inc., and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Ophthalmology for HTL Biotechnology, France.
Prior to the start of his industry career, Amir was in academia, Texas Tech University and University of Alberta, as tenure track assistant professor teaching and training graduate students as well as post-doctoral fellows in pharmaceutical sciences and transmucosal drug delivery. He earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree and his Doctor of Pharmacy degree (magna cum laude) from the University of the Pacific, Stockton, California and holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada.
Currently, Dr. Pandey is leading the effort to develop novel medicines for diseases that include retinal diseases and cancer. His areas of expertise, in which he has published 40 scientific papers are: ophthalmology, cancer, angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis, immuno-oncology, autoimmunity, yeast and drosophila genetics, tight junction biology, and discovery and development of small molecule and peptide therapeutic agents.. Dr. Pandey was an invited speaker at the Homogeneous Time Resolved Fluorescence conference sponsored by Cisbio, the leader in this technology, in Avignon in 2004. In addition to receiving multiple grants from the National Cancer Institute and the National Eye Institute, he has served on multiple NIH grant review panels. Prior to joining AsclepiX Therapeutics, Dr. Pandey joined the Systems Biology lab of Dr. Aleksander Popel at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine where he led the study of multiple classes of peptides as therapeutics for retinal diseases and cancer and mentored postdoctoral fellows and PhD students. Dr. Pandey previously held the position of Director of Biology at Alba Therapeutics, a position he held for 3 years. He led the discovery and research for the lead clinical candidate larazotide acetate for celiac disease while there and was responsible for characterizing its mechanism of action. At Alba Therapeutics, Dr. Pandey also led the team that uncovered the mechanism of action of peptides that opened epithelial tight junctions to be used as novel drug delivery agents. Prior to joining Alba Therapeutics, Dr. Pandey spent 7 years as a senior scientist in the Cancer Therapeutics Team at Johnson & Johnson developing drugs for metastatic breast cancer. Dr. Pandey graduated magna cum laude with highest honors in biochemistry from Brandeis University. Dr. Pandey received his Ph.D. in molecular biophysics from Florida State University and completed postdoctoral fellowships at Harvard and MIT in genetics and immunology.
Dr. Green was named by Baltimore Business Journal as one of the “40 Under 40” and by Popular Science as one of the “Brilliant Ten.” Dr. Green is also a Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Ophthalmology, Oncology, Neurosurgery, Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, and Materials Science & Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is co-founder and Associate Director of the Translational Tissue Engineering Center (TTEC) at JHU, co-founder and Associate Director of the Johns Hopkins Translational ImmunoEngineering Center (JH-TIE), associate researcher of the Institute for NanoBioTechnology, and member of the Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. Dr. Green received his B.S. in biomedical engineering and in chemical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 2003 and completed his Ph.D. in biological engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2007. Subsequently, Dr. Green was a postdoctoral associate at MIT in Institute Professor Bob Langer’s lab from 2007-2008. Dr. Green is also a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society, and Associate Editor at Science Advances. His research has resulted in the publication of over 130 papers, 80 issued or pending patents, and 100 invited talks, and he has received numerous awards including the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Allan Colburn Award, the Biomedical Engineering Society Rita Schaffer Award, the American Society for Engineering Education Curtis W. McGraw Research Award, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, and is a National Academy of Medicine Emerging Leader in Health & Medicine. Dr. Green is a standing member of the National Institutes of Health NANO study section. His work on advanced therapeutics has been supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, Maryland Technology Development Corporation, Department of Defense, Coulter Foundation, Edward N. and Della L. Thome Memorial Foundation Award in Age-Related Macular Degeneration Research, Thalheimer Foundation, and Research to Prevent Blindness.
Dr. Aleksander S. Popel is also a Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Medicine, and Oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is a member of the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center. His areas of expertise are angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis, immuno-oncology, systems biology, systems pharmacology, and discovery and development of peptide therapeutic agents. He published over 340 scientific papers in these areas; he also holds over 30 issued and pending patents on the peptides and their delivery. He received his Ph.D. in Biofluid Mechanics from Moscow University. He served as a Visiting Professor at MIT, Harvard University, and Imperial College, U.K. He is a recipient of the Eugene M. Landis Award from the Microcirculatory Society, the highest award bestowed by the Society. He delivered keynote addresses for The Virtual Physiological Human (VPH) European Union Physiome Project and Next-Generation Integrated Simulation of Living Matter Project in Japan; he was C. Forbes Dewey Distinguished Lecturer in Biological Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, delivered A.C. Suhren Lecture at Tulane University, Robert M. and Mary Haythornthwaite Distinguished Lecturer at Temple University, and Kawasaki Medical Society Lecturer in Japan. Dr. Popel mentored over 70 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows; many of his trainees are leaders in the field of biomedical engineering and systems biology in academia and pharmaceutical industry. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering, American Heart Association, American Physiological Society, and American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and an Inaugural Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society. He has been a member of editorial boards of leading biological and biomedical engineering journals. He served in an advisory role to biotech and pharmaceutical companies. He has served on grant review boards and advisory panels at the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and other US and international funding agencies. His work at the Johns Hopkins University has been supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Safeway Breast Cancer Foundation, the Maryland Technology Development Corporation, Department of Defense, the Coulter Foundation Translational Partnership, the Edward N. and Della L. Thome Memorial Foundation Award in Age-Related Macular Degeneration Research, and pharmaceutical companies.
Board of Directors
Robert brings more than two decades of domestic and global experience in the ophthalmic space driving successful drug development, business transactions and commercialization. His widespread experience in Ophthalmology stems from diverse Leadership roles across Commercial, Business Development, Medical Affairs and Venture Backed Startups. He brings deep relationships with Key Opinion Leaders and comprehensive knowledge of the ophthalmic ecosystem. Most recently, Robert served as the Chief Executive Officer for TearClear where he accelerated the business and commercial strategies which led to several value inflection points including a successful Series B financing and positive FDA engagements. His amplification of the innovative platform put TearClear on the map in Ophthalmics. Prior to that, he served as the Global Head of Ophthalmology at Shire, then Takeda, responsible for one of the top 10 largest biopharma M&A deals in 2019. The divestiture of Takeda’s lead Ophthalmic asset, Xiidra® (lifitegrast ophthalmic solution) 5%, to Novartis in June 2019 represented a transaction for up to $5.3B from Shire’s initial investment of ~$165M in 2013. Under Robert’s leadership, Shire successfully acquired four companies to accelerate the value creation of the franchise through the addition of innovative early, mid and late-stage pipeline candidates. He has been instrumental with successful early-stage venture capital and strategic fundraising activities as a Board member and advisor to multiple Ophthalmology companies. Additionally, his philanthropic engagement includes serving as Chairman of The Holland Foundation for Sight Restoration and as Co-Director of the Corporate & Surgeon Partners Program for SightLife. He holds a Master’s in Business Administration and a Bachelor of Science from Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts.
Dr. Steven M. Altschuler currently serves as Chairman of the Board of AsclepiX Therapeutics, Inc. He also serves as Managing Director-Healthcare Ventures at Ziff Capital Partners and formerly held the position of Chair, Board of Directors of Spark Therapeutics. At Ziff Capital Partners, he leads the firm’s effort to start up new companies at the intersection of machine learning and cellular and molecular sciences with the goal of democratizing and the enhancing the availability of novel diagnostics and therapies worldwide. He developed this expertise while cofounding Spark Therapeutics to develop and commercialize the preclinical and clinical gene therapy programs advanced at CHOP and other institutions. He has been the company’s board chair since its founding, and helped lead its successful transition to a public company and the first ever approval by both the FDA and European Medicines Agency (EMA) for a gene therapy (LUXTURNA) for an inherited genetic disease (RPE65-associated inherited blindness) in 2017-18. Spark Therapeutics is in the process of being acquired by Roche for $4.8B. Dr. Altschuler is the former Executive Vice President for Health Affairs at the University of Miami and Chief Executive Officer of UHealth – the University of Miami Health System. Previously, Dr. Altschuler served as Chief Executive Officer for The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) from 2000 to 2015. He led CHOP’s transformation from a traditional academic medical center and specialty hospital to a world leader in pediatric health care, research, education and advocacy for children. Under his leadership, CHOP experienced the largest growth since its founding in 1855, building a care network that provides primary, specialty and urgent care at more than 50 locations in the greater Philadelphia area. Dr. Altschuler completed a pediatric internship and residency at Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Boston and completed a fellowship in gastroenterology and nutrition at CHOP. He also served as a faculty member and Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania prior to becoming CEO of CHOP. Dr. Altschuler is also a member of the board of directors of WW (formerly Weight Watchers International) and Adtalem Global Education. Dr. Altschuler received his MD and BA in Mathematics from Case Western Reserve University.
Dr. Askew joined Xontogeny in September 2019 as Partner, Research & Development after a decades long career in the biopharmaceutical industry. Dr. Askew contributed to the discovery of a number of approved drugs and several additional candidates currently in late-stage clinical trials as a result of his leadership roles in research and early development at Merck (1990-2000), Amgen (2000-2005), and Merck Serono (2005-2010). In 2011, Dr. Askew joined Third Rock Ventures, as entrepreneur-in-residence where he provided strategic input and scientific leadership for several of Third Rock’s portfolio companies, most notably Sage Therapeutics and Blueprint Medicines. Dr. Askew joined SciFluor Life Sciences in 2013 as Vice President of Research, where he has led the expansion SciFluor’s pipeline and advanced two compounds into clinical development. Dr. Askew’s academic training began at Gannon University, where he graduated cum-laude with Bachelor of Science degrees in chemistry and biology. He went on to the University of Pittsburgh, where he obtained a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry. Dr. Askew serves on Scientific Advisory Boards for several Boston-area companies.
Josh Barer is Managing Director of Hibiscus BioVentures, as well as Barer & Son Capital, LLC which forms, restructures and funds early-stage cutting edge biotechnology companies.
Prior to HB and B&S, Josh has spent his career at several boutique investment banks and consultancies, including Trout Capital and the Maxim Group, and has a passion for early-stage drug development to serve patients with unmet medical needs. He is also a Venture Advisor at the Israel Biotech Fund.
Josh is on the boards of Asclepix, Inc. and NexImmune, Inc. (board observer). He is also on the Boards of several-not for-profit organizations focused on education and economic development, including Trickle Up, Family Promise, and Getting Out and Staying Out (Action Board).
Josh received a Bachelor of Arts from Rutgers College and studied Conflict Management at Drew University.
Chris Garabedian founded Xontogeny in June of 2016 to support multiple promising technologies from early development through clinical proof of concept. In 2017, Chris joined Perceptive Advisors to develop their Venture Fund strategy and launched the Perceptive Xontogeny Venture Fund in 2018 to support early stage companies seeded and incubated at Xontogeny and other ventures. Chris has a broad base of experience and a track record of success over his decades long experience in the biopharma industry. Chris served as the President and CEO of Sarepta Therapeutics from 2011 to 2015, overseeing the turnaround of a company that is now a commercial stage leader in the genetic technology space after leading the development of the company’s Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy program. Prior to Sarepta, Chris led Corporate Strategy for Celgene from 2007 to 2010. Prior to Celgene, Chris served in several global commercial and corporate development leadership roles at Gilead from 1997 to 2005. Chris serves on several Boards of life sciences companies and speaks at industry conferences on a wide range of important issues. Chris is also on the Board of Directors of MassBio and serves as a Senior Advisor for the Boston Consulting Group.
Dr. Green was named by Baltimore Business Journal as one of the “40 Under 40” and by Popular Science as one of the “Brilliant Ten.” Dr. Green is also a Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Ophthalmology, Oncology, Neurosurgery, Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, and Materials Science & Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is co-founder and Associate Director of the Translational Tissue Engineering Center (TTEC) at JHU, co-founder and Associate Director of the Johns Hopkins Translational ImmunoEngineering Center (JH-TIE), associate researcher of the Institute for NanoBioTechnology, and member of the Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. Dr. Green received his B.S. in biomedical engineering and in chemical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 2003 and completed his Ph.D. in biological engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2007. Subsequently, Dr. Green was a postdoctoral associate at MIT in Institute Professor Bob Langer’s lab from 2007-2008. Dr. Green is also a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society, and Associate Editor at Science Advances. His research has resulted in the publication of over 130 papers, 80 issued or pending patents, and 100 invited talks, and he has received numerous awards including the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Allan Colburn Award, the Biomedical Engineering Society Rita Schaffer Award, the American Society for Engineering Education Curtis W. McGraw Research Award, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, and is a National Academy of Medicine Emerging Leader in Health & Medicine. Dr. Green is a standing member of the National Institutes of Health NANO study section. His work on advanced therapeutics has been supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, Maryland Technology Development Corporation, Department of Defense, Coulter Foundation, Edward N. and Della L. Thome Memorial Foundation Award in Age-Related Macular Degeneration Research, Thalheimer Foundation, and Research to Prevent Blindness.
Dr. Srivastava was most recently the Chief Financial and Strategy Officer for Abide Therapeutics (acquired by Lundbeck). Prior to which she was the Chief Financial and Strategy Officer for Intellia Therapeutics from April 2015 to December 2016. She played an integral role in helping start up Intellia’s financial operations and strategic direction, the Series B private funding, and the initial public offering. Prior to which she has nearly fifteen years of experience as a stock analyst for biotechnology sector on Wall Street. She was the senior analyst and team leader of the biotechnology group at Goldman Sachs. Prior to that role, Dr. Srivastava was the senior biotechnology analyst at Morgan Stanley and ThinkEquity Partners, LLC, and began her career as a research associate at JP Morgan. Dr. Srivastava also has experience as an independent board member and strategy advisor to several therapeutic focused, biotechnology companies and non-profits. Dr. Srivastava received her PhD in neuroscience from New York University and her B.Sc. from St. Xavier's College in India.
