Andrei Floroiu, MBA
President & Chief Executive Officer
Andrei Floroiu has been a member of our board of directors since April 2020 and the CEO since 15th June 2020. Most recently, Andrei was with Agenus, Inc., an immuno-oncology and vaccine pioneer, where he held executive positions and was responsible for structuring strategic partnerships and other transactions, including the origination and execution of a $115 million royalty transaction based on GSK’s Shingrix vaccine.
Prior to Agenus, Andrei was a Managing Director at Exigo Capital providing strategic advice to C-suite executives and Boards. He also brings prior biopharma investment and advisory experience with The Invus Group, a leading healthcare investment firm, and McKinsey & Co, the leading management consultancy.
Andrei holds an MBA from the Wharton School, an MSc. from the University of Maryland, and a degree in Engineering from the Politechnica University of Bucharest.
Dr. Sean Tucker, Ph.D
Senior Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer
Dr. Sean Tucker is the Founder of Vaxart and has served as its Chief Scientific Officer since February 2010. From March 2004 to February 2010, Sean served as Vice President of Research and Director of Immunology. He has held numerous scientific and engineering roles at various biotechnology companies.
Sean has a BSc. in chemical engineering from the University of Washington, an MSc. in chemical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in immunology from the University of Washington.
Edward B. Berg
Senior Vice President and General Counsel
Mr. Berg has served in senior legal positions at prominent healthcare companies for most of his more than 30-year career and has represented Fortune 500 and mid-cap companies in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and life sciences. Prior to Vaxart, he served as VP, Deputy General Counsel for BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc. Mr. Berg previously served as VP Legal and the head attorney supporting Novartis’ biosimilar / complex generic unit, the BioPharm division of Sandoz US. Mr. Berg’s previous roles include Deputy General Counsel, Pharmaceutical Operations for Sanofi-Aventis U.S. and Sanofi NA Pharmaceuticals, and Senior Corporate Counsel, Research & Development, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Inc. He began his career in healthcare as Senior Attorney / Associate Counsel for Merck & Co, Inc. Mr. Berg received a B.A. from Washington University in economics and political science and a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Raymond D. Stapleton, Jr., Ph.D.
Chief Technology Officer
Dr. Stapleton served as CTO and Executive Vice President at Genocea, working to develop next generation personalized immunotherapies in the forms of vaccines and cell therapies. He joined Genocea in January 2021, bringing more than 20 years of industry experience to the company, having led technical, quality and manufacturing operations at commercial and clinical stage biopharmaceutical companies.
Before that, he served as President and Chief Operating Officer of American Type Culture Collection (ATCC), as well as a member of the Board of Directors of both ATCC and ATCC Global.
Prior to ATCC, Dr. Stapleton worked in senior manufacturing and technical operations roles at Iovance Biotherapeutics, Inc. and Synthetic Biologics, Inc. after spending 15 years in positions of increasing responsibility in Merck and Company’s manufacturing organization.
At Merck, Dr. Stapleton led a complex science, technology, and engineering organization at a manufacturing site responsible for supporting Merck’s $5 billion annual revenue vaccine business.
Dr. Stapleton earned a bachelor’s degree in Biology from Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, Virginia and received his PhD in Microbial Ecology from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He has served as peer reviewer for a half dozen scientific journals, co-authored 17 peer-reviewed manuscripts, and holds multiple patents.
Brant Biehn
Senior Vice-President for Business Operations
Brant Biehn is responsible for Business Development and Commercial Readiness of the organization.
Prior to joining Vaxart, Brant served as a consultant in business development, investor relations and general management services for a range of pharmaceutical and medical device companies. Before that he served as chief commercial officer at Dynavax Technologies Corporation, where he helped raise significant capital and was responsible for the development and execution of Dynavax’s commercial strategy. This included global sales, marketing and supply chain management and leading a team of 70 professionals preparing to launch Heplisav®.
Brant has held sales and marketing positions of increasing seniority at Merck, culminating in the position of Global Brand Leader with global responsibility for the manufacturing, commercial, clinical and regulatory activities for vaccines such as ZOSTAVAX®, PNEUMOVAX®, RECOMBIVAX HB® and VAQTA®.
Brant has a BSc. in Computer Science from Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada.
Dr. James F. Cummings
Chief Medical Officer
James Cummings is a Board-Certified Infectious Diseases Physician with a twenty six-year career in the US Army and a proven track record in vaccine, drug and diagnostics development.
James served as Director of the Department of Defense’s Global Emerging Infectious Surveillance and Response System (GEIS), with Bio-surveillance Laboratories in 71 countries, the Director of Translational Medicine & Regulated Activities for the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR), and the Consultant to the Surgeon General for all medical research and development.
Before joining Vaxart, James served as President, Government and Public Health Solutions at ICON GPHS and Vice-President of Clinical Development and Translational Medicine at Novavax.
James has a medical degree from Georgetown University School of Medicine.
Phillip Lee
Chief Financial Officer
Mr. Lee has almost 15 years of strategic finance and advisory experience in the biotechnology industry. During his career, he has helped raise over $1 billion of capital and worked on more than $20 billion of M&A transactions, including partnerships, asset acquisitions, mergers, spin-offs and royalty monetizations.
Prior to Vaxart, Mr. Lee was Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer at Clover Biopharmaceuticals and Vice President, Finance at 4D Molecular Therapeutics. Mr. Lee began his career as an investment banker and was a founding member of Centerview Partners’ healthcare advisory practice.
Mr. Lee earned dual bachelor’s degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences and Business Administration from the University of California, Berkeley.
Sarah Caravalho Khan
Vice President and Head of Human Resources
Sarah Caravalho Khan is Vice President and Head of Human Resources at Vaxart, a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing a range of oral vaccines.
Sarah joined Vaxart from Align Technology, where she served as Director of Culture Transformation, on the Global Customer Success team. In that role, she leveraged the voice of the customer to facilitate culture change and trained teams around the world to use design thinking to improve customer experience.
Sarah has also held senior roles in Global Talent Management, Organizational Development, Training, and Staffing over the past 23 years at Varian Medical Systems, San Jose State University, West Valley-Mission Community College District, and Citibank.
Sarah earned her B.A. degree in English from California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo, and her M.A. degree in Organization and Leadership from the University of San Francisco.
She serves on the Alumni Board of Directors at University of San Francisco and the Dean’s Advisory Council for the College of Liberal Arts at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo.
