To help us orient our long-term decisions and strategy, we rely on an experienced and dependable board of seasoned industry professionals, investors and health care specialists:
Shannon A. Fairbanks, Board Chair
Shannon Fairbanks is a venture capital investor with a distinguished career spanning U.S. government service, a decade of private equity investing and service on significant non-profit boards. Over the last 20 years she has founded and led The Fairbanks Investment Fund.
Currently Shannon is Chair of Invectys, Inc., whose spin-out from the Pasteur Institute, Paris, she co-led and co-financed; and Chair of the Board of ProteoNic, a biopharma spin-out from the University of Leiden, the Netherlands. Shannon was formerly Executive Director of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board; served in the first term White House domestic policy staff for President Ronald Reagan, and was a Presidential appointee of President George H.W. Bush to the board of the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (FHLMC).
Among her numerous non-profit Boards, Shannon has served for 10 years on the Board of the French American Foundation, in both New York and Paris, and, currently, is on the Board of The Fund for the Endowment of the Diplomatic Reception Rooms of the U.S. Department of State.
Shannon and her late husband, Ambassador Richard M. Fairbanks III, have two sons.
Jonathan Fairbanks, Board Director
Jonathan Fairbanks is the Managing Partner of GEC. He was the founder and former Board member of five public companies, and currently chairs the Board at Flowco, Inc., a leading company in global oil and natural gas production.
Jonathan is a member of the board of the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation in Indianapolis. He previously served as a trustee of the Center for Strategic & International Studies and the Middle East Investment Initiative in Washington.
He holds a B.A. degree in political science from Denison University in Ohio.
Steven J. Giacona, Board Director
Steven Giacona currently holds the position of Partner and Market Leader at Cerity Partners, a financial management advisory company. There, he focuses on estate planning, income tax strategies, investment management, philanthropic objectives, retirement planning, and family financial dynamics.
He founded and served as the CEO of Round Table Wealth Management, which later merged with Cerity Partners, and was a member of the firm’s Investment Committee. Prior to this, he served as a Tax Manager at PwC and Senior Vice President at U.S. Trust.
Steven holds a B.S. in Accounting from Marist College and a M.S. in Taxation from Fordham University in New York.
Janna Webber, The McNair Interests, Board Observer
Janna Webber is the Senior Vice President and General Counsel of McNair Interests in Houston, Texas.
She previously served in senior counsel positions for several companies: as Senior Corporate Counsel at Hines, a global real estate management company, Senior Counsel at Kimco Realty Corporation, a real estate investment trust, and Principal at Charlton Webber PLLC, a commercial real estate and telecommunications law firm. Before these positions, she was a Partner at Singleton Cooksey PLLC, a law firm specializing in financing, expansion, reorganization, dispute resolution and winding-up.
Janna earned her B.A. in Political Science and Government from the University of Houston, and a J.D. in law (Magna Cum Laude) from the University of Houston Law Center in Texas.
Dr. Jake Kushner, President & CEO, Invectys Inc., Member of the Strategic Advisory Board
Dr. Jake Kushner is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Invectys, Inc. Dr. Kushner also serves as Medical Director for McNair Interests, a private equity firm in Houston, Texas.
A graduate of UC Berkeley, Dr. Kushner completed his MD at Albany Medical College, pediatric residency at Brown, pediatric endocrinology fellowship at Harvard, and a research fellowship at the Joslin Diabetes Center. He then held full-time medical school faculty appointments at Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and lastly Baylor College of Medicine, where he was Chief of Pediatric Endocrinology and also a McNair Scholar. Dr. Kushner is an internationally renowned type 1 diabetes researcher with extensive previous NIH and JDRF funding. He has served on numerous review panels for industry, the NIH (DDK-B study section chair), and foundations including the JDRF and the ADA. Dr. Kushner has received numerous honors, including awards from the March of Dimes, the Hood foundation, and the NIH, elected membership to the ASCI, and served as President of the Society of Pediatric Research.
Maurizio Zanetti, M.D., Immunologist, Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board, Member of the Strategic Advisory Board
Maurizio Zanetti is currently Professor of Medicine, since 1993, at the University of California, San Diego, where he directs the Laboratory of Immunology at the UCSD Moores Cancer Center. Among his numerous accomplishments, in 2003 he launched the first transgenic cell-based therapeutic vaccine for cancer. Over his long career, he has served on numerous reviewing panels for the NIH, Nation Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society and others.
Dr. Zanetti obtained his M.D. degree (summa cum laude) from the University of Padova (Italy) in 1974 and soon after became a Visiting Fellow at the Hôpital Necker/University of Paris VI (France) where he trained in clinical transplantation under Professor Jean Hamburger, who performed the first successful organ transplant into humans in 1952.
Dr. Zanetti is named inventor in numerous patents in fields such as antibody engineering, methods to program immunity using transgenic lymphocytes etc. In 2000 he was the first to report the immunogenic properties of telomerase reverse transcription (TERT) in cancer patients, reported in PNAS and highlighted by The Lancet as a major scientific/medical accomplishment.
Dr. Zanetti has been an advisor to Invectys since its founding and currently serves both on its Board of Directors and also as the Director of the Company’s Scientific Advisory Board.
Pierre Langlade-Demoyen, M.D., Ph.D., Invectys Founder, Immunologist, Member of the Strategic Advisory Board
Pierre Langlade-Demoyen, MD, PhD has recently returned to the scientific company he founded as the Distinguished Scientific Advisor to the board of Invectys. Prior to founding Invectys, SAS in 2010, Pierre spent 20 years at Institut Pasteur, Paris, including 10 years as Head of Laboratory in the Virology Department where he pioneered the T cell responses to telomerase reverse transcriptase in cancer patients, paving the way for the scientific beginnings of Invectys.
Subsequently, under his leadership as CEO of the company, the Invectys scientific team developed a First in Class breakthrough advance for a CAR-T treatment for solid tumor cancers by targeting the HLAG molecule which is expressed by multiple cancers. This advance has now entered an FDA-approved Phase 1 clinical trial led by the superb clinical development team at MD Anderson Cancer Center, the largest cancer treatment center in the U.S.
Dr. Langlade is the author of over 70 scientific publications in the field of immunology. He recently recovered successfully from quadruple open heart surgery and is gallantly back as a Strategic Advisor to the Invectys board.
Cooper Collins, MBA, Member of the Strategic Advisory Board
Cooper Collins is the CEO of Dominion Aesthetics Technologies. Headquartered in Texas, Dominion develops and commercializes innovative laser aesthetic medical devices. His leadership responsibilities also include chairing the Board at Fortis BioPharma, a position he has been holding for 11 years, and Board Member at Therapeutics MD, since 2012. He has also been Director of Oncternal Oncology since 2014.
In parallel, he has been hedge fund manager – specialized in biotech – at Sigma Bleyzer for the past 10 years, where he assesses the potential for return on investment of biotech and pharma companies.
Previously, he held executive positions at Pernix Therapeutics for over 7 years as CEO & President, and CSO, identifying merger, acquisition and partnership opportunities to carry out Pernix’ long-term strategic goals.
He holds an MBA from the Nicholls State University of Louisiana.
