Leadership
George Mahaffey
President and CEO
Mr. Mahaffey brings over three decades of pharmaceutical, biotech, and device industry experience including thirteen years of developing and commercializing dermatological products and services. His prior role was President and CEO of Clarify Medical which commercialized a novel connected home phototherapy device used by chronic skin disease patients. He previously served as President and CEO of Lithera, Inc., later renamed Neothetics, a specialty pharmaceutical aesthetics company, where he successfully completed an IPO in November 2014. Mr. Mahaffey served as CEO of Peplin, Inc. after its acquisition by LEO Pharma A/S in 2009. His prior role at this skin cancer company was Peplin’s Chief Commercial Officer. Mr. Mahaffey also served as Sr. Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Cotherix, Inc. where he led commercialization of Ventavis® (iloprost), an orphan drug to treat Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension. He was instrumental in the acquisition of the company by Actelion Ltd. in 2007. Mr. Mahaffey worked at Scios, Inc. where he led the commercial launch of Natrecor® (nesiritide) to treat acutely decompensated heart failure. The company was acquired by Johnson and Johnson in 2003. A prior role was Director of Marketing at Neurex, Inc. which was acquired by Elan Pharmaceuticals in 1999. He held various sales and marketing positions at DuPont Pharmaceuticals. Mr. Mahaffey has a BS Chemical Engineering degree from the University of Delaware and an MBA from the University of South Florida.
Tobin Dickerson, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer and Co-founder
Tobin Dickerson joined MiNDERA from the The Scripps Research Institute where he was an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry and the Worm Institute for Research and Medicine from 2005-2019. He completed his BS with high honors in Chemistry from the University of Virginia in 1999, and subsequently was awarded his MA in Chemistry in 2000. At that time, he matriculated to TSRI where he completed his PhD in 2004 in Chemical Biology. Toby was promoted to the TSRI faculty in 2005 where he has established a research program aimed at developing disruptive platform technologies for problems of emergent clinical significance. In addition to the MiNDERA technology platform, his laboratory has developed technologies that allow for the prediction of protein evolution, a universal screening system for protein-ligand interactions, and a metabolomics platform for the diagnosis of infectious disease in resource-limited areas.
Toby has >85 publications, and has served as PI of both governmentally and corporately sponsored research from small biotech companies as well as major pharmaceutical firms. His scientific expertise includes diagnostic platform development, small molecule and vaccine discovery, metabolomics, scientific algorithm and software development, phage display, and neglected tropical diseases.
Linh H. Le
Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer
Board of Directors
George Mahaffey
President and CEO
Mr. Mahaffey brings over three decades of pharmaceutical, biotech, and device industry experience including thirteen years of developing and commercializing dermatological products and services. His prior role was President and CEO of Clarify Medical which commercialized a novel connected home phototherapy device used by chronic skin disease patients. He previously served as President and CEO of Lithera, Inc., later renamed Neothetics, a specialty pharmaceutical aesthetics company, where he successfully completed an IPO in November 2014. Mr. Mahaffey served as CEO of Peplin, Inc. after its acquisition by LEO Pharma A/S in 2009. His prior role at this skin cancer company was Peplin’s Chief Commercial Officer. Mr. Mahaffey also served as Sr. Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Cotherix, Inc. where he led commercialization of Ventavis® (iloprost), an orphan drug to treat Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension. He was instrumental in the acquisition of the company by Actelion Ltd. in 2007. Mr. Mahaffey worked at Scios, Inc. where he led the commercial launch of Natrecor® (nesiritide) to treat acutely decompensated heart failure. The company was acquired by Johnson and Johnson in 2003. A prior role was Director of Marketing at Neurex, Inc. which was acquired by Elan Pharmaceuticals in 1999. He held various sales and marketing positions at DuPont Pharmaceuticals. Mr. Mahaffey has a BS Chemical Engineering degree from the University of Delaware and an MBA from the University of South Florida.
Tahir Mahmood, PhD
Co-founder, Mindera Health; CEO, Applied Molecular Transport
Tahir Mahmood is co-founder of Mindera Health and co-invented and developed the company’s core technology platform. He is Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder at Applied Molecular Transport (NASDAQ: AMTI), a clinical stage biotech developing oral targeted biological therapeutics for treating immune-mediated inflammation, metabolic and other diseases. Previously, Tahir was a leader in the US West Coast Life Sciences practice at the management consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton and was Managing Director at Lake Sherwood Partners. He was Visiting Investigator in the Department of Chemistry and Worm Institute for Research and Medicine at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA and was previously Principal Business Analyst at Amgen, supporting R&D, and BD, M&A and strategic corporate venture fund transactions. Earlier, he was at Chienna (acquired by OctoPlus) and IsoTis S.A. (acquired by Integra Life Sciences).
Tahir has authored peer-reviewed publications and is inventor on issued and pending patents. He received a BASc in Mechanical Engineering and MSc in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Toronto, and holds a PhD in Chemical & Biomedical Engineering from a collaborative program between the University of Twente (The Netherlands) and MIT at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology and Children's Hospital Boston.
Joseph Cook, III
Managing Director, Mountain Group Partners
Joseph Cook III has served as a member of our board of directors since August 2019. Since February 2003, Mr. Cook has served as a Managing Director at Mountain Group Partners, an investment firm with investments in the Life Sciences, AgTech and Technology sectors. From January 2001 until February 2003, Mr. Cook served as a Director, Private Placements in the Investment Banking Group of Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated. Mr. Cook also previously served as a Vice President in the Investment Banking Group at J.C. Bradford & Co. Mr. Cook serves on the board of directors of Castle Biosciences (NASDAQ:CSTL), a dermatologic cancer diagnostic company, and Cerebrotech Medical Systems, Inc., a machine learning cerebral diagnostic company. Mr. Cook holds a B.A. degree in Economics from Davidson College.
Andrew Offer
Managing Director, Scientific Health Development
Andrew Offer has been a member of the MiNDERA Board of Directors since 2015. He is a General Partner and the Chief Executive Officer of Scientific Health Development. With over 15 years of healthcare investment experience, Mr. Offer serves on the board of directors for most active SHD portfolio companies including Sight Sciences (Nasdaq: SGHT), in addition to historically acting in the capacity of Chief Financial Officer for multiple portfolio companies. Prior to joining SHD, he spent more than 3 years at VMG Health, where he excelled in business valuation exclusively in the healthcare industry. Mr. Offer graduated Magna Cum Laude with multiple honors distinctions earning a B.B.A. in Finance from Texas A&M University. In addition, Mr. Offer earned the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation in 2009 and is a member of the CFA Institute and the CFA Society of Dallas-Fort Worth.
Deborah L. Rice-Johnson
CEO of Diversified Businesses for Highmark Inc.
Scientific Advisory Board
Dr. Alan Menter, MD – Chairman
Co-Chair, AAD/NPF guidelines
Dr. Alan Menter was born in England and is a graduate of the Medical School of the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa. He completed his dermatology residency at Pretoria General Hospital at the University of Pretoria, also in South Africa, and two fellowships in London at Guy's Hospital and St. John's Hospital for Diseases of the Skin.
A fellowship with the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas brought Menter to the United States in 1975. Since then, he has held several positions within the UT and Baylor University Dallas systems. In 1992, he was appointed chairman of the Division of Dermatology at Baylor University Medical Center and still holds that position. In 2007, he was appointed director of the Baylor Research Center and in 2010, Program Director of the newly formed Dermatology Residency Program at Baylor University Medical Center.
Dr. Menter has a long-held interest in psoriasis and psoriatic disease research. In 1994, he co-authored the first gene discovery for psoriasis, published in Science in 1994. His research on psoriasis has examined everything from ultraviolet phototherapy, new biologic therapy to the mapping of genetic patterns to predict if a person is at risk of developing psoriasis pharmacogenomics.
In August 2004, Dr. Menter helped found the International Psoriasis Council to raise international awareness of psoriasis as a serious autoimmune disease that can significantly impact quality of life. His clinical practice includes more than 1,800 patients on systemic and biologic therapy.
Dr. Menter held the position of clinical director of the National Psoriasis Foundation Gene Bank from 1996 to 2002. His resume lists some 385+ articles, 6 books and 21 book chapters. He serves as a member of the editorial board for several medical journals, including the Journal of Clinical Dermatology and Clinical and Experimental Dermatology. He is Dermatology Chair at Baylor Scott & White, Dallas and Program Director our Dermatology Residency Program as well as clinical professor of dermatology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas and professor at Texas A&M Health Science Center, College of Medicine.
Dr. Menter has been listed in the Best Doctors in America since 1994 and Who’s Who in Medicine and Healthcare since 1996. He also represented the South African National Rugby team, the Springboks, in 1968. In 2013, Dr. Menter received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Psoriasis Foundation. In March 2015, he received the Dermatology Foundation annual Clark W. Finnerud award at the AAD meeting in San Francisco. Dr. Menter also received the Preseidential Citation March 2016 and 2018 at the AAD meetings.
Mark Lebwohl
Chairman of Nat'l Psoriasis Foundation Med. Board
Dr. Mark Lebwohl graduated summa cum laude from Columbia College in 1974 and graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1978. He completed residencies in internal medicine and dermatology, both at Mount Sinai.
Dr. Lebwohl has been practicing dermatology since 1983. He is the Waldman Professor and Chair of the Kimberly and Eric J. Waldman Department of Dermatology of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Lebwohl is past President of the American Academy of Dermatology.
Dr. Lebwohl is chairman emeritus of the Medical Board of the National Psoriasis Foundation. He is the founding editor of the NPF’s Psoriasis Forum and of the recently launched Journal of Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis. He has served on the editorial board of the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology and has served as editor of the Dermatology Section of Scientific American Medicine. Dr. Lebwohl has chaired numerous symposia and has written, edited, or co-edited several books including the first atlas devoted entirely to cutaneous manifestations of systemic disease, and the leading book on dermatologic therapy, Treatment of Skin Disease. The second edition of The Skin and Systemic Disease has been published in English and in French, and English, Chinese, Portuguese, Spanish, and Polish versions of Treatment of Skin Disease have been published. Five editions of Treatment of Skin Disease have been published, and the sixth is in development. Other books include Difficult Diagnoses in Dermatology, Psoriasis, Mild-to-Moderate Psoriasis and Moderate-to-Severe Psoriasis. He has authored or co-authored over 500 peer-reviewed articles, and many invited articles and book chapters. Dr. Lebwohl is actively involved in clinical trials of many new dermatologic treatments. He introduced the use of imiquimod for the treatment of actinic keratosis; the use of topical calcineurin inhibitors for facial and intertriginous psoriasis; and many topical, systemic and combination therapies for psoriasis.
Craig L. Leonardi, MD
Board, Int'l Psoriasis Council
Dr. Leonardi is Adjunct Professor of Dermatology at St. Louis University Medical School in St. Louis, Missouri, where he also has a private practice. He received his medical degree from the University of Miami School Of Medicine in Florida and completed an internship in pediatrics and residency in dermatology at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Hospital.
Dr. Leonardi is certified by the American Board of Dermatology. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Dermatology and member of the American Dermatological Association. He is a co-founder and vice president and president-elect of the International Psoriasis Council. He is a member of the National Psoriasis Foundation’s medical advisory board.
Dr. Leonardi has extensive experience using the new biologics in the treatment of psoriasis. He has been an invited speaker at national, regional, and state venues and serves on the advisory boards of several pharmaceutical companies. He has been involved in more than 200 clinical trials and has published more than 250 original articles and abstracts in such journals as the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, the British Journal of Dermatology, the Archives of Dermatology, the Journal of the American Medical Association, the New England Journal of Medicine and the Lancet. He is a member of the American Academy of Dermatology Psoriasis Guidelines committee.
Bruce E. Strober, MD, PhD
Board, Int'l Psoriasis Council
Clinical Professor, Department of Dermatology Yale University, New Haven, CT USA and Central Connecticut Dermatology Research, Cromwell, CT USA
- Co-Scientific Director of the Corrona Psoriasis Registry
- Secretary-Treasurer of the International Psoriasis Council
- Editor in Chief of the Journal of Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis
Dr. Strober earned both his medical degree and his doctorate from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, New York. He completed his residency in dermatology in the Department of Dermatology, NYU School of Medicine. He is board certified by the American Board of Dermatology and a Fellow in the American Academy of Dermatology.
David M. Pariser, MD, FACP, FAAD
Former President, AAD
Dr. Pariser is a Professor in the Department of Dermatology at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Virginia, where he is also the senior physician at Pariser Dermatology Specialists, Ltd., a private group practice of 17 dermatologists, 6 PAs and nurse practitioners, with multiple locations in Southeastern Virginia and is the President and Principal Investigator for Virginia Clinical Research, Inc. He is a former president of the American Academy of Dermatology and of the American Dermatological Association.
Dr. Pariser obtained his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania, his MD degree from the Medical College of Virginia, and trained as a dermatology resident in Florida at the University of Miami. Dr. Pariser is Board Certified in both Dermatology and Dermatopathology. He holds Fellowships from the American Academy of Dermatology, the American Society of Dermatopathology and the American College of Physicians.
An active clinician and teacher, he has participated as a principal investigator in over 550 clinical trials. Dr. Pariser has been a guest speaker at over 600 CME events all over the world, and has recently been on the Board of Directors of the International League of Dermatologic Societies, the body that sponsors the World Congress of Dermatology and is a major supporter of the Regional Dermatology Training Centre in Moshi, Tanzania.
His primary clinical and research interests include atopic dermatitis, psoriasis, hyperhidrosis, acne, and photodynamic therapy. He has served on the Medical Advisory Board of the National Psoriasis Foundation, and was the founding president and is currently the Secretary and a board member of the International Hyperhidrosis Society. Very active in the affairs of the American Academy of Dermatology Dr. Pariser was President in 2009-2010, and was a board member of the Academy for 14 years and has served on over 130 councils, committees and task forces of the AAD. He is a long-time advocate for the Dermatology Team Care approach and for education, training and proper supervision of Physician Assistants and Nurse Practitioners.
He is the author of 3 textbooks, multiple textbook chapters, nearly 50 invited papers, over 200 scientific poster presentations and over 220, original works in peer-reviewed journals, with additional co-authorship of 22 American Academy of Dermatology publications on Guidelines of Care. Dr. Pariser is or has been on the Editorial Board of the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology and Managed Care magazine, and is a reviewer for both of these publications and for Pediatric Dermatology, the American Journal of Managed Care, the Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology, and the Archives of Dermatology, now JAMA Dermatology and others.
Awards and honors presented to Dr Pariser include the Gold Triangle Award from the American Academy of Dermatology in 2001 for advocacy issues surrounding isotretinoin, 9 Presidential Citations from the American Academy of Dermatology, honorary membership in the American Academy of Dermatology, the Walter B. Shelley MD Leadership Award for outstanding dedication to the field of dermatology and contributions toward supporting women in dermatology from the Women’s Dermatologic Society and the Clinical Educator of the Year award from both the Fall and Winter Clinical Dermatology Conferences.
Dr. Pariser is the 2017 awardee of the Gold Medal of the American Academy of Dermatology, its highest award. The Gold Medal is presented on a highly selective basis in recognition of outstanding and exceptional service to the specialty of dermatology in the science, teaching and practice of cutaneous medicine, surgery, as well as those who have made an outstanding and exceptional contribution to the administrative aspects of this specialty; nationally or internationally.
