About >> Management Team

Management Team

Rajiv Khosla, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer
Dr. Khosla is an accomplished Business Executive with over 25 years of success in various sectors of the Life Sciences industry, including Pharmaceuticals, Medical Devices, and Specialty Chemicals. His career includes senior positions in General Management, and Business & Corporate Development, as well as a proficiency in International business from having lived and worked in the US, Europe, and Asia. Most recently, Dr. Khosla was Vice President Business Development at Biovail Pharmaceuticals, Inc., where he successfully led and concluded several specialty CNS transactions in Neurology and Psychiatry. Prior to this, Dr. Khosla led and managed the Pharmaceutical and Medical Device businesses at ISP Inc., ICI, and Sensient Technologies. He began his Pharmaceutical career in drug delivery and formulation development in the UK at Merrell-Dow, and Tillotts Pharma. Dr. Khosla has a Ph.D. in pharmaceutical science and a Bachelor of Pharmacy from the University of Nottingham (UK), an MBA from Henley Management College (UK), and is a registered Pharmacist (UK).

Dallas Steiner, Chief Financial Officer
Mr. Steiner has held finance and accounting roles in a variety of industries and both public and private companies for the past 15 years. His experience includes developing organizational strategy and structure, merger and acquisition activity, building finance and accounting structure and process, debt and equity capital transactions and financial and operational turnarounds. Mr. Steiner's industry experience includes software-as-a-service providers, managed health care and manufacturing. From July 2006 to November 2007, Mr. Steiner served as contract CFO for HotGigs, Inc. an early-stage provider of internet-delivered human capital sourcing and management solutions. Prior to that, he was Director of Finance for ePredix Holdings, Inc., a provider of technology-based pre-employment assessments and part of a team that grew the company from $4 to $25 million at the point of the sale of the company in 2005. Mr. Steiner has a Master's Degree from the University of South Dakota and received his CPA certification while with Deloitte and Touche, LLP in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Steve Lebow, MD., Chief Medical Officer
Dr. Lebow is a Board Certified Adult Neurologist with thirty years of clinical practice. He continues to care for patients at the Noran Neurological Clinic. He has served on the Medical Services Review Board at the Minnesota Department of Labor and has been on the Medical Advisory Board of the MS Society. Dr. Lebow was the clinical research director at the Noran Clinic and participated in several FDA supervised pre-release clinical drug trials. Dr Lebow obtained his medical degree from the University of Minnesota.

Sarah Haecker, Ph.D.,Vice President Pharmaceutical Business Development
Dr. Haecker was an independent business strategist for the biotech industry. She has nearly 20 years of senior-level management experience combining technical and business knowledge with emphasis in strategy, business development, licensing, opportunity assessment, market analysis and partnering early to late stage technologies in the private and public sectors. Her past client list ranged from big pharma to emerging biotech and stem cell based companies, investment banking and venture to academia. From 2005-2007, she served as the Vice President of Business Development for BioE, Inc. She has both published and spoken to a worldwide audience broadly in the area of progressive, innovative stem cell science and specifically on business modeling in the regenerative medicine industry. She holds a doctorate degree in molecular biology and bioethics from the University of Minnesota and a bachelor of science degree in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin. She has continued education in the MBA program at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.

Michael Cassano, MBA, Vice President of Information Technology
Mr. Cassano previously owned a web design/software programming firm based in the Twin Cities, and managed IDC WebDev for six years, while also getting a BS in Computer Science at the University of Minnesota: Institute of Technology. While getting his BS, Mr Cassano was an undergraduate research assistant with Grouplens, the leading research group on collaborative filtering technology. Mr Cassano has worked with many new ventures building web technology, and has had the opportunity to work alongside many seasoned entrepreneurs assisting them in their new ventures. Michael has also directly assisted in the authorship of a book published by John Wiley & Sons. With a concentration in entrepreneurial studies and finance, Michael graduated from the Fulltime MBA program at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota in 2007.