February 5, 2013 Program

Andres Liivak, Co-Chair, Life Sciences Industry Group at Kaye Scholer LLP moderated a panel discussion on

Why, How and When: Private Foundations work with proof of concept, early and late stage companies and fund their research and drug development.

Members of the panel:
  • Page Snow, Chief Philanthropic Officer at Foundation Source
  • Diane Goetz, Director of patient and professional advocacy, PTC Therapeutics
  • Robert Lorette, Senior Vice President, Business Development of TB Alliance

Foundation Source

Foundation Source supports and advises more than 1,100 private foundations nation­wide, ranging from $250,000 to $500 mil­lion in assets. Now in our second decade, we are the nation’s largest provider of compre­hensive support services for private founda­tions, bringing unparalleled knowledge and expertise to clients across the country.  Foundation Source provides 1) administrative support, 2) online management tools, and 3) philanthropic advisory services under one suite of services to offer a total outsourced solution for private foundations.  With Foundation Source, each private foundation client gets a an entire team of foundation experts under one roof, all coordinated by a dedicated Private Client Advisor who knows each client and their foundation. Foundation Source is the only  single-source provider focused on the diverse and complex needs of donors and their foundations.  The result for our clients is a better run, more effective foundation; and more enjoyable philanthropy for our clients.

Private foundations turn to Foundation Source for help with everything from compliance to philanthropic strategy.  The only functions that we do not offer are asset management and legal counsel, and we coordinate closely with our clients’ designated advisors in these areas.  With our full suite of services, we are also able to grow with our clients as they and their foundations evolve on their philanthropic journey.

Foundation Source provides services directly to philanthropic families and institutions and, while we are and remain an independent organization, we have had the privilege over the years to partner with some the nation’s leading private wealth management firms, law firms and accounting firms.  We are also very proud that we are able to offer clients of ours a ready-made community of some of the nation’s top philanthropists to enable them to collaborate, learn from, share ideas with, and join forces together with each other, as they may choose.

Foundation Source has over 100 employees and are headquartered in Fairfield, CT, with our Tax and Legal Affairs Team located close by in Lynnbrook, NY.  We have auxiliary locations in NYC, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. , Atlanta, South Florida, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Please note: Foundation Source provides administrative support and philanthropic advisory services to private foundations. We do not provide funding or assist with fundraising activities, nor do we provide investment advice or legal counsel.

About Page Snow
Page Snow is Chief Philanthropic Officer at Foundation Source, where she is responsible for working with the company’s more than 1000 foundation clients to provide education and resources through its team of highly experienced Philanthropic Advisors.
Prior to joining Foundation Source, Ms. Snow spent over 10 years with The Pew Charitable Trusts, one of the nation’s top 10 foundations, with assets of $4 billion and annual grant commitments of over $300 million. As the Trusts Chief Officer of Institutional Planning, she was instrumental in developing the strategy driving the foundation’s commitment to results-based philanthropy. Subsequently, she worked with senior management at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on the creation of their evaluation department. Ms. Snow has expertise in strategic planning, program design and evaluation of multi-million dollar grant investments.
Ms. Snow has served on advisory committees for several prestigious philanthropic
Knight Foundation, the White Oak Cultural Policy Conference, the Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies, the Arts Organization Stabilization Initiative and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Ms. Snow holds a B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and an M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania.

  • Diane Goetz, Director of patient and professional advocacy, PTC Therapeutics  
PTC Therapeutics, Inc. (PTC) is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of orally administered, proprietary small-molecule drugs that target post-transcriptional control processes. PTC’s current pipeline of clinical and preclinical product candidates addresses multiple indications, including genetic disorders, oncology, and infectious diseases.

About Diane Goetz

Diane Goetz is director of patient and professional advocacy for PTC Therapeutics, a New Jersey-based biopharmaceutical company that applies its expertise in RNA biology and drug development to pioneer novel oral treatments for patients living with serious and life-threatening conditions.  Ms. Goetz serves as liaison with patient advocacy groups primarily those focused on rare disorders. She is also the point of contact with individual patients and families regarding clinical trial participation.

Before joining PTC in 2007, Ms. Goetz was vice president at Mark Krueger & Associates, a health care constituency relations consulting firm, where she counseled pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer, Novartis, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca on building partnerships with patient advocacy groups.

Ms. Goetz has over 40 years of experience in health and medical communications and marketing, the majority for patient advocacy groups.  She has served as the director of communications and marketing for the National Kidney Foundation and in various positions with the American Heart Association and the Muscular Dystrophy Association.  She has also been an editor of six multi-author health books for consumers, in conjunction with Yale University School of Medicine, Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, and Good Housekeeping magazine, as well two newsletters on women’s and children’s health.

Ms. Goetz has an MBA from New York University and a BA in journalism from the University of Wisconsin.

  • Robert Lorette, Senior Vice President, Business Development of TB Alliance

The TB Alliance is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the discovery and development of better, faster-acting, and affordable tuberculosis drugs that are available to those who need them.

About Robert Lorette

Robert C. Lorette, Esq. is Senior Vice President of Business Development for the TB Alliance. In this role,
Mr. Lorette helps lead the TB Alliance’s efforts to establish agreements and strategic alliances within the context of the product development partnership (PDP) business model, and thus play an integral role in achieving the portfolio development and related resource mobilization goals of the TB Alliance.

Before joining the TB Alliance, Mr. Lorette founded and was President and CEO of Boston Life Science Advisors, a corporate development consulting firm dedicated to serving biotech, medical device and other life science organizations. He also co-founded and served as Managing Director of Transform Ventures LLC, a firm that brings capital, executive leadership, and engineering and manufacturing resources together to rapidly advance medical device technologies to a significant value inflection point.

Before founding these two companies, Mr. Lorette served as Chief Business Officer and Senior Vice President of Dynogen Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a clinical-stage drug development company focusing on gastrointestinal and genitourinary disorders. Earlier in his career, Mr. Lorette served in various management, corporate development, and legal roles for organizations such as Boston Healthcare Associates, Inc., UroMed Corporation, and Bausch & Lomb Incorporated.

Mr. Lorette received his law degree from Syracuse University College of Law and is admitted to practice law in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York. Additional accreditations include a Masters in Public Administration from the Maxwell School of Syracuse University and a Bachelor’s degree in economics from the College of the Holy Cross. Mr. Lorette also attended the Program for Management Development at the Harvard Business School.

 

Presenting companies:

  • Mico Biopharma – Jason Fisher, CEO & Founder

Mico Bio, Inc. (Mico) a biotechnology research company has pivotal survival data for development of an aerosolized vaccine to prevent tuberculosis. Mico, a privately held company and sole owner of its intellectual property, has partnered with a leading U.S. academic institution to research its concepts while building its intellectual portfolio. Mico’s first multi-national patent was allowed in the U.S. in November 2012.

Jason Fisher

Jason D. Fisher is CEO and Founder of Mico Bio. As a sole inventor, has filed more than 10 other patent applications for vaccine technology improvements. His track record to foster his companies’ research with NIH funding in collaboration with Colorado State University are evidence of his ability to develop research worthy concepts that may improve immune-protection and create a safe and effective vaccine.

In 2012, Mr. Fisher served as an NIH grant reviewer for NIAID Special Emphasis Panel, Partnerships for Development of Vaccines Technologies and prior to Mico, Mr. Fisher was an executive at Pfizer Inc. for 12 years where he was involved in product development. Mr. Fisher is a graduate of Columbia Business School and the London Business School and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Biological Basis of Behavior Neural Systems from the University of Pennsylvania.

  • Matinas Biopharma – Roelof Rongen, CEO

Matinas BioPharma is focused on developing omega-3 based prescription therapeutics for cardiovascular indications. The Company’s main development candidate, MAT9001 is targeted at hypertriglyceridemia and mixed dyslipidemia, a therapeutic area comprising 30-40 million patients in the US alone. Matinas BioPharma is developing MAT9001 at the best-in-class omega-3 product and is pursuing two differentiation avenues for MAT9001 versus other omega-3 based therapies: (1) superior efficacy and (2)differentiating clinical performance features.

Roelof Rongen 


Mr. Rongen is the Chief Executive Officer and a Co-Founder of Matinas BioPharma. He is also the Founder and Chairman of Essential Fatty Acid Therapeutics, a biotech company focused on the development of innovative fatty acid derivatives. Prior to Matinas BioPharma, Mr. Rongen was Executive Vice President North American Operations for EPAX/Trygg Pharma and Vice President of Life Cycle Management and Intellectual Property at Reliant Pharmaceuticals, acquired by GlaxoSmithKline. While at Reliant, Mr. Rongen held various earlier positions, including head of the Omacor®/Lovaza® launch team, Executive Director of Marketing for Lescol® and Executive Director of Business Development. Before Reliant, Mr. Rongen was Global Product Director for Humira® at BASF Pharma, later acquired by Abbott. He was also a consultant at The Wilkerson Group in New York and Arthur D. Little in Amsterdam. Mr. Rongen earned an MBA from Kellogg GSM at Northwestern University, and a graduate degree in Molecular Sciences from Wageningen Univerisity in the Netherlands.

Cancer Prevention and Cure Ltd., Thomas C. Long – Chief Operations Officer

Cancer Prevention and Cure, Ltd. (CPC) is the newest member of a conglomerate representing diverse industries including telecommunications, hospitality, real estate development, dietary supplements, and others.  The first of these companies was started in 1934.

CPC is a company dedicated to biomarker research leading to the development of diagnostic medical devices that are unique, novel, and currently unavailable to the medical community.  CPC’s mission is to create powerful and useful medical devices for the diagnosis of disease states, resulting in saved lives and reduced healthcare costs.

To achieve this mission CPC uses an In Vitro Diagnostic Multivariate Index Assay (IVDMIA) approach to identify associations between proteins and diseases that translate into meaningful information about disease states. The purpose is to use this information to create and commercialize high-value diagnostic tests that are currently unavailable. This strategy is based on the belief that in the population any specific disease is heterogeneous; therefore, relying on a single disease marker to provide a simple “yes-no” answer is likely to fail.

Thomas C. Long 

Thomas C. Long is Chief Financial Officer and Board Member of Mussman Enterprises, a conglomerate representing diverse industries that include telecommunications, hospitality, real estate development, herbal supplements, and others.

As a member of the family of companies with Mussman Enterprises, Mr. Long serves as Chief Operations Officer of Cancer Prevention & Cure.  Since 2008 he has managed the operations of the company’s laboratory that conducted the feasibility studies of in vitro diagnostic medical devices in preparation for commercialization.

Before managing Cancer Prevention & Cure, Mr. Long served for 15 years as Chief Operations Officer and Chief Financial Officer of the telecommunications company of Mussman Enterprises, successfully transitioning that company from a monopoly operation to a successful competitive telecommunications and broadband provider. Mr. Long earned a Master of Business Administration from Texas State University and holds a degree in Finance from the University of Texas at Austin.  Mr. Long also passed the CPC exam in Texas.