Leadership
Meet the Team
We are led by a team with deep experience in oncology drug development, clinical research and building companies from early stage to commercial scale, supported by a board of directors and a scientific advisory board of cancer researchers and clinicians.
Brian Sullivan
Chief Executive Officer & Co-founder
Brian has over 25 years of experience founding and building successful technology companies. Before co-founding Celcuity, he was chairman and CEO of Sterilmed, a medical device company, from 2003 until its sale to Johnson & Johnson for $330 million in 2011. Previously he was co-founder and CEO of Recovery Engineering, a filtration company that he took public and subsequently sold to Procter and Gamble for $265 million in 1999. He has received 11 U.S. patents. Brian graduated magna cum laude with distinction from Harvard College with an AB in economics.
Lance Laing, Ph.D.
Chief Science Officer & Co-founder
Lance’s career spans more than 30 years in drug discovery research and technology development. He received his doctorate in biophysics and biochemistry from Johns Hopkins University and completed a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellowship at Washington University Medical School. He has received multiple U.S. and international patents. His drug discovery research has led him to work with many major pharmaceutical companies. Lance has built a world-class R&D team that includes drug discovery, cell signaling, high-throughput drug screening, molecular oncology, cell physiology, and human primary cell culture scientists.
Vicky Hahne
Chief Financial Officer
Vicky has more than 20 years of financial leadership experience, including the past 10 years in the healthcare industry. Prior to joining Celcuity, Vicky served as controller of Respiratory Technologies Inc., a medical device manufacturer. While at Respiratory Technologies, she played a key role in the due diligence process to sell the company to Koninklijke Philips. Prior to Respiratory Technologies, she served as controller of Ability Network Inc., a healthcare information technology company. From September 2007 through June 2012, Vicky served as controller of Sterilmed Inc., a medical device reprocessing company, where she played a key role in the sale of the company to Johnson & Johnson. Prior to these roles, Vicky held several senior financial positions at SimonDelivers Inc., including chief financial officer. Vicky has extensive experience in early-stage, high-growth companies with responsibilities including financial controls and stewardship, financial analysis, mergers and acquisitions, building infrastructure, and systems. She received a BS in finance and accounting from Northern State University and received her CPA certificate in 1990.
Igor Gorbatchevsky, M.D.
Chief Medical Officer
Igor has over two decades of hands-on oncology drug development experience, including successful regulatory IND and NDA/BLA filings across several drug classes. Prior to joining Celcuity, Igor worked for MEI Pharma, an oncology-focused biopharmaceutical company, where he was the vice president (VP) of clinical development. MEI’s pipeline included zandelisib, an oral PI3K-delta inhibitor. He had previously served as the VP of clinical science at Iovance Biotherapeutics, as a global clinical leader at Bayer Pharmaceuticals, and as a senior medical director at Daiichi-Sankyo, a global pharmaceutical company. At Bayer, his responsibilities included leadership of the global clinical development team for Aliqopa®, a pan-PI3K inhibitor approved by the FDA for treatment of patients with follicular lymphoma. Prior to joining industry, he was a practicing clinician treating a broad range of tumor types in adults and children. Igor received his medical training at Omsk State Medical Academy with specialty training in clinical immunology at Chelyabinsk State Medical Academy.
Eldon Mayer
Chief Commercial Officer
Eldon has over 30 years of biopharma commercial experience in companies ranging from early stage biotechs to full-scale pharmaceutical companies across many therapeutic areas, including oncology. Prior to joining Celcuity, Eldon was chief commercial officer at Eiger Biopharmaceuticals, where he led the commercial planning and execution of several pipeline assets including the global launch of Zokinvy® for progeria and progeroid laminopathies. Before Eiger, Eldon was chief commercial officer at Rigel Pharmaceuticals, where he built the commercial organization from the ground up and successfully launched Tavalisse® for chronic immune thrombocytopenia. Eldon had previously served as senior vice president of commercial operations at Questcor Pharmaceuticals, where he built a large commercial team that generated over $1 billion in annual sales of Acthar®. Earlier in his career, Eldon held positions of increasing responsibility at companies such as Schering-Plough, ALZA, Chiron, and Connetics in strategic planning, marketing, sales, market research/analytics, and finance. Eldon has served as a member of the board of directors for Eiger BioPharmaceuticals, Promet Therapeutics, and the National Community Oncology Dispensing Association. Eldon holds a BS from Fairleigh Dickinson University and an MBA from Syracuse University.
Byron Robinson, Ph.D., J.D.
Chief Strategy Officer
Byron is a senior executive with more than 30 years of leadership experience across drug discovery, global clinical development, program leadership, asset and portfolio strategy and management, market intelligence and competitive analytics. He has held C suite and senior executive roles at both small and large biotech and pharma companies including Janux Therapeutics, Merck KGaA, Bayer HC, Amgen, and Miravant Medical Technologies. During his career he has developed over 30 clinical assets with diverse MOA’s and modalities (SM’s, ADC’s, TCE’s, Mabs, Bispecifics, peptibodies) across oncology, immuno-oncology, inflammation, autoimmune, nephrology, ophthalmology, muscle wasting and Bone disorders. Launched products developed include: Aranesp, Epogen, Aliqopa and Bavencio. He received his PhD in chemistry from the University of New England, Australia and a JD from the Santa Barbara College of Law.
Brent Eilefson, J.D.
General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer
Brent has over 29 years of legal experience, including 20 years in the pharmaceutical industry. Prior to joining Celcuity, Brent was vice president, legal affairs, chief compliance officer, and secretary at Upsher-Smith Laboratories, where he held positions of increasing responsibility within management including leading the legal, compliance, and corporate secretarial functions. As a member of the senior management team at Upsher-Smith, Brent managed all legal activities to support the R&D, clinical, regulatory, manufacturing, marketing, and sales teams. His experience also included in- and out-licensing transactions, acquisitions and divestitures, and managing complex litigation related to antitrust, commercial disputes, and products liability. Brent’s legal experience outside of the pharmaceutical industry includes a private law firm practice advising clients in regulated industries and trial/appellate practice. Brent holds a BA in history and philosophy from St. Olaf College and a JD from Mitchell Hamline School of Law.
Bernhard Lampert, Ph.D.
Vice President, Pharmaceutical Development
Bernhard has over 30 years of drug development experience in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, including 10 years in large, fully integrated pharmaceutical companies, including Gilead and GSK. He received his PhD in medicinal chemistry from the University of Georgia. Bernhard has authored/co-authored publications in peer-reviewed journals and is the co-inventor on patents on the manufacture of antiviral drugs.
David Bridge
Vice President, Quality Assurance & Process Development
David has over 30 years of experience as a quality assurance leader, including quality oversight responsibilities for laboratory, manufacturing, and clinical functions. Prior to joining Celcuity, David was director of quality assurance at the Duke University Clinical Research Institute, one of the world’s largest academic clinical research organizations. He had previously served as senior director, quality assurance for Chimerix, a biopharmaceutical company developing antiviral therapies, and clinical quality assurance leader at EMD Pharmaceuticals, the U.S. affiliate for Merck KGaA.
Brian Sullivan
Chief Executive Officer & Co-founder
Brian has over 25 years of experience founding and building successful technology companies. He was chairman and CEO of Sterilmed, a medical device company, from 2003 until its sale to Johnson & Johnson for $330 million in 2011. Previously he was co-founder and CEO of Recovery Engineering, a filtration company that he took public and subsequently sold to Procter and Gamble for $265 million in 1999. He has received 11 U.S. patents. He graduated magna cum laude with distinction from Harvard College with an AB in economics.
Lance Laing, Ph.D.
Chief Science Officer & Co-founder
Lance’s career spans more than 30 years in drug discovery research and technology development. He received his doctorate in biophysics and biochemistry from Johns Hopkins University and completed a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellowship at Washington University Medical School. He has received multiple U.S. and international patents. His drug discovery research has led him to work with many major pharmaceutical companies. Lance has built a world-class R&D team that includes drug discovery, cell signaling, high-throughput drug screening, molecular oncology, cell physiology, and human primary cell culture scientists.
Richard Buller, M.D., Ph.D.
Director
Richard most recently served as head oncology clinical development and vice president (VP) of translational oncology at Pfizer, Inc., one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, until he retired in 2016. He had previously served as VP of translational medicine at Exelixis, a leading biopharmaceutical company, where he led efforts to study patients selected by molecular testing for inclusion in their phase II and phase III clinical trials. He began his pharmaceutical company career at GlaxoSmithKline as director of the Oncology Medicine Development Center. Prior to his leadership positions in drug development, he was professor of gynecologic oncology at the University of Iowa, where he led laboratory research focused on identifying genomic variants involved in ovarian cancer. He received his MD from Baylor College of Medicine, where he also received his PhD in cell biology.
David F. Dalvey
Director
Dave has served as a member of Celcuity’s board of directors since February 2014. Dave has more than 30 years of experience in the fields of corporate finance and venture capital, working primarily with growth-oriented technology and life science businesses. He has over 10 years of corporate finance advisory experience with two national investment banks, completing over 150 individual transactions. He has been the general partner of Brightstone Venture Capital, a venture capital management company, since September 2000. Brightstone is a 25-year-old venture capital management company that has raised and managed 10 venture partnerships. Dave received a BS in business/management economics from the University of Minnesota and an MBA–business & finance from the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management.
Leo Furcht, M.D.
Director
Leo is Allen-Pardee Professor of Cancer Biology and head of the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at the University of Minnesota and a member of the Division of Molecular Pathology and Genomics. He served as chairman of the board of directors for University of Minnesota Physicians, the medical school practice plan with approximately 700 physicians, from 2004–2014. He was also the founding director of the Biomedical Engineering Center from 1990–2001, where he led efforts to establish stem cell and molecular diagnostics expertise at the University of Minnesota. He has published more than 180 scientific papers and holds more than 30 patents in the fields of polypeptides, biomaterials, and adult stem cells. His business experience includes co-founding two medical technology companies, South Bay Medical, a medical device company that was acquired by Mentor Corporation, and Diascreen, a diagnostics company, which was later acquired by Chronimed.
Polly Murphy, D.V.M., Ph.D.
Director
Polly has over two decades of business development and commercial strategy experience at leading global pharmaceutical companies, including 12 years in leadership positions with increasing responsibility at Pfizer. She is currently chief business officer of Avadel Pharmaceuticals and is a member of Atea Pharmaceuticals’ board of directors. Prior to Avadel she was chief business officer at UroGen Pharma from September 2020 to May 2024. While at Pfizer, she led business development for worldwide R&D and the global Specialty Care business unit, and later global marketing and commercial development for the Pfizer Oncology business unit. Polly was also vice president and head, strategy and business development for Pfizer China. Prior to Pfizer, Polly held senior leadership positions at several pharmaceutical and academic research entities, including the Scripps Research Institute, Salk Institute, and Aurora Biosciences. Polly received her DVM and PhD in veterinary pathology from Iowa State University and an MBA from Nova Southeastern University.
Richard (Dick) J. Nigon
Director
Dick is currently senior vice president of Cedar Point Capital, LLC, a private company that raises capital for early-stage companies, where he has served since 2007. Dick has also been a board member for Tactile Systems Technology since September 2012 and Northern Technologies International Corp. since February 2010, including its non-executive chairman of the board of directors since November 2012. Dick also serves as a director of several private companies. He previously served as a board member for Vascular Solutions, Inc. until it was acquired by Teleflex, Incorporated in 2017 and as a board member for Virtual Radiologic Corporation until it was acquired in 2010. From February 2001 until December 2006, Dick was a director of equity corporate finance for Miller Johnson Steichen Kinnard, a privately held investment firm, which was acquired in December 2006 by Stifel Nicolaus, a brokerage and investment banking firm. After that acquisition, Dick became a managing director of private placements of Stifel Nicolaus until May 2007. From February 2000 to February 2001, he served as the chief financial officer of Dantis, Inc., a web hosting company. Prior to joining Dantis, Dick was employed by Ernst & Young LLP from 1970 to 2000, where he served as a partner from 1981 to 2000. While at Ernst & Young, he served as the director of Ernst & Young’s Twin Cities Entrepreneurial Services Group and was the coordinating partner on several publicly traded companies in the consumer retailing and manufacturing sectors.
Charles (Chip) R. Romp
Director
Chip has served as a member of Celcuity’s board of directors since February 2026. Chip has over 25 years of experience building the pharmaceutical commercialization process from development stage to successful global product. He is currently Chief Executive Officer at Secura Bio. Previously, Chip was Executive Vice President, U.S. Commercial for Seagen, Inc., prior to the company’s acquisition by Pfizer, where he oversaw the entire Seagen Commercial organization in addition to broader roles in corporate communications, investor relations, and business development as a member of the executive committee. Prior to Seagen, he spent 12 years at Genentech in a wide range of sales, marketing, and development roles spanning their entire oncology and immunology product portfolio. Chip received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Florida and an MBA from Saint Leo University in Florida.
Manfred Auer, Ph.D.
Dr. Auer is research professor of chemical and translational biology of the Scottish Universities Life Sciences Alliance at the University of Edinburgh. In his lab, he links basic research and applied science by developing and running new miniaturized target, compound, and technology platforms comprising all steps from design, theoretical and experimental target analysis, high-throughput chemical synthesis and screening to quantitative mechanistic studies of compound action in cells and model organisms. Before moving to academia, Dr. Auer spent 20 years in the pharmaceutical industry, including service as executive director of the Innovative Screening Technologies unit within the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research.
Adam Brufsky, M.D., Ph.D.
Dr. Brufsky is professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and serves as the associate division chief for the Division of Hematology/Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine’s Department of Medicine. Dr. Brufsky is the medical director of the Magee-Women’s Cancer Program, part of the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center, and UPMC Hillman Cancer Center; associate director for clinical investigations at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center; and co-director of the Comprehensive Breast Cancer Center. An active researcher, Dr. Brufsky has numerous abstracts and research articles in leading journals, and is principal investigator on several research grants funded by the National Institutes of Health, Susan G. Komen Foundation, and U.S. Army Breast Cancer Research Program.
Edward Greeno, M.D.
Dr. Greeno is medical director of the Hematology/Oncology Clinic at the University of Minnesota and an associate professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School. He has been listed as one of the Best Doctors in America for a number of years.
Sara Hurvitz, M.D.
Dr. Hurvitz is director, Breast Cancer Clinical Research Programs at the Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and an assistant professor of medicine, Division of Hematology/Oncology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. She is also the co-director of the Santa Monica-UCLA Outpatient Hematology/Oncology Practice and medical director of the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center Clinical Research Unit. Dr. Hurvitz is interested in designing and implementing phase I and II (translational) breast cancer clinical trials. Dr. Hurvitz is also interested in studying the gene expression patterns in a variety of breast cancer populations and evaluating these patterns to detect new subtypes of breast cancer that may be more accurately targeted by novel therapies.
John Katzenellenbogen, Ph.D.
Dr. Katzenellenbogen is research professor of chemistry at the University of Illinois, an affiliate of the Beckman Institute and Department of Bioengineering, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His research has focused on aspects of the structure, function, and the use of steroid receptors, and includes biochemical and biophysical studies on the dynamics of estrogen receptors and their interaction with coregulator proteins.
Hung Khong, M.D.
Dr. Khong is an associate professor, medical oncology at the University of South Florida College of Medicine Moffitt Cancer Center. He specializes in the treatment of breast cancer of all stages. He is interested in combining treatment methods such as chemotherapy or radiotherapy with immunotherapy and chemotherapy with targeted therapy. Dr. Khong has developed several innovative clinical trials for the neoadjuvant treatment of stages II and III breast cancer, and first-line therapy for metastatic breast cancer. He leads an innovative clinical trial that is the first in the country to combine endocrine therapy and checkpoint inhibitors in the neoadjuvant treatment of hormone receptor-positive breast cancer.
Carol Lange, Ph.D.
Dr. Lange is professor of medicine and pharmacology at the University of Minnesota. She is also Endowed Chair of the Tickle Family Land Grant in Breast Cancer Research and director of the Women’s Cancer Program at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Lange studies the molecular biology of breast cancer. Her laboratory is focused on the study of crosstalk between peptide growth factors and steroid hormone receptors in human breast cancer cells, with the goal of developing better strategies for the treatment of breast and other hormonally influenced and/or epithelial cell-derived cancers.
Bora Lim, M.D.
Dr. Lim is an assistant professor of breast medical oncology in the Section of Translational Breast Cancer Research at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. She is a translational investigator researching novel therapeutic strategies to halt or treat aggressive breast cancer by apoptosis (effective cancer cell killing) induction. She studies new ways of delivering these novel agents and determining target populations using new diagnostic methods such as liquid biopsy and single-cell genomics. Dr. Lim actively runs five active investigator-initiated clinical trials and associated biomarker studies.
Stanley Marks, M.D.
Dr. Marks is chairman of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) Hillman Cancer Center and serves as chief of the division of hematology/oncology at UPMC Shadyside. Dr. Marks also is the medical director of Forbes Hospice and clinical associate professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Dr. Marks served as president of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and president and chairman of the Allegheny County Medical Society. He served on the board of directors of the American Cancer Society. Dr. Marks has authored numerous publications.
Ron McGlennen, M.D.
Dr. McGlennen is president and medical director of Access Genetics, a molecular diagnostics company he cofounded in 2001. Previously, he was an associate professor at the University of Minnesota. He also serves as Celcuity’s laboratory medical director.
Alberto Montero, M.D., M.B.A, C.P.H.Q.
Dr. Montero is clinical director of the Breast Cancer Medical Oncology Program at University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center and an associate professor of medicine at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. He has experience designing and performing cost-effective decision analyses in the oncology field. Dr. Montero has over a decade of experience in all aspects of clinical research from clinical trial design, protocol development, and in the capacity as a principal investigator.
Ben Ho Park, M.D.
Dr. Park, an internationally renowned breast cancer expert, was recently appointed as the co-leader of the Breast Cancer Research Program, associate director for translational research and director of precision oncology at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center. Dr. Park is from Saginaw, MI, and received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago and then completed a dual MD-PhD training program at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. After completing a residency in internal medicine and hematology/oncology fellowship training at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, he finished a postdoctoral research fellowship in cancer genetics in the laboratory of Dr. Bert Vogelstein at Johns Hopkins University, and then joined the faculty in 2002 in the breast cancer program. At Hopkins, he was professor of oncology, associate director for education and research training, as well as associate dean for postdoctoral affairs prior to joining the faculty at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Mark Pegram, M.D., Ph.D.
Dr. Pegram is the first director of the Breast Cancer Oncology Program at Stanford Women’s Cancer Center, and the co-director of Stanford’s Molecular Therapeutics Program. Dr. Pegram’s commitment to translational science includes having played a major role in developing the drug Herceptin® as a treatment for HER2-positive breast cancer. His laboratory experiments demonstrated that combining Herceptin with chemotherapy effectively killed cancer cells that overproduced the growth factor HER2. Dr. Pegram and others then conducted clinical trials showing that Herceptin improved survival rates and even cured some breast cancer patients. Dr. Pegram’s current research efforts include a continued focus on the cancer-associated gene that encodes HER2 and developing new ways to target cancer cells expressing this protein. Dr. Pegram has numerous publications to his credit.
Mothaffar F. Rimawi, M.D.
Dr. Rimawi is an associate professor and director of clinical research at the Lester and Sue Smith Breast Center at Baylor College of Medicine. He also serves as the executive medical director and co-leader of the Breast Cancer Program at the Dan L. Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center at Baylor College of Medicine. His research is focused on translating laboratory findings to the clinic to develop new treatments for breast cancer.
Lee S. Schwartzberg, M.D., F.A.C.P.
Dr. Schwartzberg is the executive director of West Cancer Center and founding member of West Clinic, a multispecialty oncology practice affiliated with the University of Tennessee. He also serves as professor of medicine and division chief of hematology/oncology at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. His major research interests include new therapeutic approaches to breast cancer, targeted therapy, and supportive care. He has published more than 150 research papers during his oncology career.
