Rahul Aras, Ph.D. (President and Chief Executive Officer) is the founding CEO for Juventas and has raised nearly $10 million in venture capital and grant funding to transition the company from concept to its current stage. Prior to Juventas, Rahul was the Director, Life Science Commercialization at Cleveland Clinic Innovations (CCI) where he is managed commercialization of all biotechnology and pharmaceutical related technologies. Prior to CCI, he worked at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory where he developed and implemented a commercialization strategy for their RNA interference (RNAi) technology platform that led to several strategic partnerships with industry leaders including Merck, Genentech and OSI Pharmaceuticals. During his career, Rahul has been responsible for negotiating and managing dozens of partnerships resulting in several million dollars of revenue. He received a B.S. from Tufts University and a Ph.D. in biomedical research from New York University and has held research positions at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Massachusetts General Hospital publishing articles in several leading scientific journals.
Marc Penn, MD, PhD (Founder and Chief Scientific Officer) Dr. Penn is a Cleveland Clinic cardiologist, Director for Skirball Cardiovascular Cell Therapy Laboratory and Senior Medical Director for CCF Emerging Businesses. He has published more than 70 peer reviewed articles and is a recognized international leader in the field of cardiovascular regenerative medicine. In addition to clinical duties, Marc manages an NIH-funded laboratory focused on identifying and optimizing molecular pathways involved in myocardial repair in order to optimize cardiac function and improve patient outcomes. Marc is a serial entrepreneur having authored dozens of patents that have resulted in the founding of 4 companies. Among his many awards, he has been recognized as the 1999 Irvine H. Page Young Investigator and the 2006 Cleveland Clinic Innovator of the Year. Dr. Penn received a B.S., M.D. and Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from Case Western Reserve University and completed his cardiovascular training at Cleveland Clinic.
Joseph Pastore, Ph.D. (Director, Product Development) leads Juventas’ product development. He joined Juventas after 8 years at Guidant (acquired by Boston Scientific) where he was a key member of the Emerging Therapies Division. Joe was responsible for translating novel cardiac therapies from concept to clinic. He managed pre-clinical, first-in-man, and Phase 2 clinical trials, and worked cross-functionally with business development, marketing, reimbursement and regulatory teams to build and execute development strategies for early stage products. An inventor on more than 40 issued and pending patents, he has experience with strategic patent writing and portfolio development. He was recognized with awards for 2003 CRM Patent of the Year and a President’s Award (granted to the top 1% of the company).
