Leadership

Vinny Jindal, President & CEO

Mr. Jindal most recently served as the Chief Financial Officer of Reneo Pharmaceuticals through its IPO in 2021. Previously, Mr. Jindal served as the Vice President of Strategy at Reata Pharmaceuticals. Prior to his time at Reata, Mr. Jindal was the Entrepreneur-In-Residence at the University of Texas, Southwestern, and was the founder of several startup companies. Previously, Mr. Jindal was a Managing Director and Head of Healthcare Equity Research at ThinkEquity Partners and served as the Vice President of Biotechnology Equity Research at Wedbush Morgan Securities. He was also a biotechnology and specialty pharmaceuticals research associate at Origin Capital Management and Lehman Brothers. Mr. Jindal earned his M.S. in Pharmacology from the Weill Medical College of Cornell University, an M.S. in Endocrinology, and a B.A. in Integrative Biology from the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Sunjay Kaushal, M.D., Ph.D., Founder

Dr. Kaushal is the Division Head of Cardiovascular Thoracic Surgery at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. Prior to that he was the Professor and Chief of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He is an expert in heart failure both in children and adults. He performs over 200 cardiac surgery operations per year, has published over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles, and has a 10-member post-doctorate research laboratory funded partly through National Institute of Health grants.

Dr. Kaushal received his Ph.D. from Harvard University and his M.D. from Johns Hopkins University.

Bill Niland

Bill Niland is a serial life sciences entrepreneur who has founded and successfully exited four companies including a structural heart start-up, a new treatment paradigm for respiratory patients and what was the largest sleep testing company in the U.S. Most recently, Mr. Niland was President and CEO of Harpoon Medical, Inc. He co-founded Harpoon and successfully exited to Edwards Lifesciences in less than five years for $100M upfront (potentially $250M with milestones) with only $6.5M in dilutive capital, generating >100% IRR for investors. Prior to Harpoon, he founded Vapotherm (NYSE: VAPO) a non-invasive ventilation company that created the field of high flow nasal canula therapy for patients in respiratory distress. Vapotherm devices have been used to treat >1.5M patients since being founded in 1997 and the company recently went public on the New York Stock Exchange. Prior to Vapotherm, Mr. Niland successfully founded and exited two businesses, including National Sleep Technologies which was the largest sleep diagnostic and therapy company in the US when it was acquired by Vital Signs. Mr. Niland also holds 16 patents.

Henrik Rasmussen, M.D., Ph.D. 

Dr. Rasmussen has more than 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. Prior to joining NeoProgen, Dr. Rasmussen was the CMO at ZS Pharma, where he worked from 2010 to 2016. Prior to joining ZS Pharma, he was the President and CEO of Rasmussen Biotech & Pharma Consulting. Dr. Rasmussen has held the positions of Corporate Vice President, Head of Clinical Development, Medical & Regulatory Affairs at Novo Nordisk, and CMO, for Nabi Biopharmaceuticals and GenVec. He was the Senior Vice President for Clinical Research and Regulatory Affairs at British Biotech and Global Study Director for Cardiovascular Drug Development at Pfizer Central Research. Dr. Rasmussen has led numerous global development programs and regulatory filings worldwide, including INDs, clinical trial applications (CTAs), NDAs, supplemental new drug applications (sNDAs), biologic license applications (BLAs), and MMA filings. He has published over 150 peer-reviewed papers in the therapeutic areas of Nephrology, Cardiology, Ophthalmology, Gastroenterology and Diabetes. 

Dr. Rasmussen received his M.D. and Ph.D. from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and is trained in Internal Medicine and Cardiology.

Angela Shen, M.D. 

Angela Shen is currently Vice President, Strategic Innovation Leaders at Mass General Brigham and has served as Chief Medical Officer (CMO) at multiple venture-backed biotech startups including Walking Fish, Arcellx, NKarta, Arvinas, and acting CMO of Tizona. Dr. Shen has led oncology programs in a variety of pharmaceutical settings for over 15 years through all stages of drug development including IND filings, first-in-human trials, registrational trials, and NDA/BLA filings. While working in oncology clinical development at Novartis, Dr. Shen was extensively involved with in-licensing University of Pennsylvania’s CAR-T technology. She assembled and led the clinical team responsible for designing and launching the industry’s first multi-site, registration CAR-T trial, which resulted in the approval of Kymriah® (CTL019, CART-19). Prior to that, Dr. Shen made key contributions to the development of several oncology drugs within Novartis, Exelixis, and Johnson & Johnson that were subsequently approved.

Javed Butler, M.D., Scientific Advisor

Javed Butler is President of the Baylor Scott and White Research Institute, Dallas, TX, and was previously the Patrick H. Lehan Chair of Cardiovascular Research, Chairman of the Department of Medicine, and Distinguished Professor of Medicine at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, MS. Prior to joining the University of Mississippi, he was Charles A. Gargano Professor, Director of the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, and co-Director of the Stony Brook University Heart Institute, NY, USA. Dr. Butler served as Director for Heart Failure Research at Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA, and prior to this served as the director of the heart and heart-lung transplant programs at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA. He also serves on the FDA Cardio-Renal Advisory Committee and on the editorial board of several peer-reviewed cardiovascular journals. Dr. Butler has authored over 650 peer-reviewed publications, and has been listed in Best Doctors in America numerous times.

Shruti Gupta, M.D., Scientific Advisor

Shruti Gupta is the Director of Onconephrology at BWH/Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and the co-president and Founder of the American Society of Onconephrology. Dr. Gupta earned her undergraduate degree from Yale University, her M.D. from the University of Virginia, and completed Residency in Internal Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. She completed Fellowship in Nephrology at the BWH/MGH Joint Program, during which time she earned an MPH from Harvard School of Public Health. She is currently examining therapeutic targets for cisplatin-associated acute kidney injury, and also has additional industry-funded research projects.

Kenar Jhaveri, M.D., Scientific Advisor

Kenar D. Jhaveri, M.D., is Professor of Medicine and Associate Chief in the Division of Kidney Diseases
and Hypertension at Northwell Health and Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell. He
completed his residency training at Yale University New Haven Hospital in Internal Medicine and then
a fellowship in Nephrology at New York Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell campus. His clinical
interests are in glomerular diseases and onconephrology( cancer and its effect on the kidney). He is
the founding member of the American Society of Onconephrology. His most recent projects are in learning about renal toxicities of targeted oncological agents, immunotherapies, and COVID related AKI and glomerular diseases.

Mark A. Perazella, M.D., FASN, Scientific Advisor

Arshed Quuyumi, M.D., Scientific Advisor

Mitch Rosner, M.D., Scientific Advisor

Mitchell H. Rosner, M.D, FASN, is the Henry Mulholland Professor of Medicine and Chair of the University of Virginia Department of Medicine. Dr. Rosner serves as the editor-at-large for the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology and was the recipient of the 2019 Robert Narins Award from the American Society of Nephrology, recognizing his contributions to the field. Dr. Rosner is a Principal Investigator on several trials studying novel compounds for the treatment of PKD and leads a regional PKD clinical center. He has published over 150 peer-reviewed journal articles and 7 books.