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William L. Robbins		Rivka Sherman-Gold, Ph.D.

Calisra Biotech's Co-Founders are Mr. William L. Robbins, located in Los Angeles, and Dr. Rivka Sherman-Gold, located in Palo Alto.

Mr. Robbins and Dr. Sherman-Gold bring to Calisra Biotech and its portfolio companies a lifetime of experience in all aspects of the life science industry. Mr. Robbins and Dr. Sherman-Gold have led and participated in the funding, development, and management of more than a dozen companies in fields including drug discovery, pre-clinical and clinical research, advanced materials, medical imaging, scientific software and services, laboratory instruments, and high-throughput screening technologies. They have been company founders and have held senior executive positions including Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, Chief Business Officer, and President.

Mr. Robbins and Dr. Sherman-Gold combine scientific and industry expertise gained in academia, privately-held start-up companies, successful IPOs, and global pharmaceutical companies, including Abgenix, Athena Neurosciences, Axon Instruments, Bio-Imaging Technologies, Diatos, Neurion Pharmaceuticals, Encode Bio, and Warner-Lambert.

Mr. Robbins and Dr. Sherman-Gold also have extensive international business experience. Mr. Robbins has conducted business with the Israeli government and with Israeli start-up life-science companies and research institutions since 2000. Dr. Sherman-Gold was raised and educated in Israel. She has conducted business with Israeli life science start-up companies and academic institutions. Her network in the academic, business, and financial communities around the world and her first-hand knowledge of Israeli culture are of significant benefit to Calisra Biotech.

For individual biographies please see:
William L. Robbins
Rivka Sherman-Gold, Ph.D.

William L. Robbins, has 25 years of experience as a seed-stage investor, entrepreneur, start-up executive and manager in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical technology industries. Mr. Robbins was a co-founder and is a Managing Member of Convergent Investors, LLC, a seed-stage fund with portfolio companies from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He serves as Chairman of the Board, President and CEO of Neurion Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and is a co-founder of ORFID Corporation and Encode Bio, Inc. Mr. Robbins' international business experience includes Israel, Europe, Canada, and Japan.

In 1997, Mr. Robbins founded Convergent Management, Inc., a consulting firm providing business development and management services to seed-stage and late-stage life science companies. The firm has consulted with more than 25 clients in the U.S., Canada and Israel. From 1992 to 1997, he served as Director, and then VP, Business Development, at Bio-Imaging Technologies, a medical imaging and clinical research company that went public during his tenure. Previously, he held marketing and new product development positions at Warner-Lambert Company, in New Jersey, and account management positions at Grey Medical Advertising, in New York.

Mr. Robbins has consulted for the Israel Export Institute in Tel Aviv and the Government of Israel Economic Mission in Los Angeles on U.S.-Israel strategic partnering and investing in the life science industry. He has advised numerous Israeli life science entrepreneurs and scientists on business strategy and fundraising.

In the not-for-profit sector, Mr. Robbins is a member of the Board of Directors of the American Technion Society, Southern California Chapter, and previously was Chairman of the Israel Cancer Research Fund – Los Angeles Chapter.

Mr. Robbins earned his M.B.A. in marketing at Columbia Business School and his A.B. in psychology, modified with biology, at Dartmouth College.

Mr. Robbins is the author of Seed-Stage Venture Investing: The Ins and Outs for Entrepreneurs, Start-ups, and Investors on Successfully Starting a New Business.

Rivka Sherman-Gold, Ph.D., has 25 years of operational experience in biotech R&D, business development, marketing, executive-level management, seed-stage fund-raising, and investing in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical technology industries.

Dr. Sherman-Gold obtained her work experience in the biotech industry of the San Francisco Bay Area. She has also worked as a senior executive and as an advisor to biotech companies in Europe and Israel, thus bringing a multi-cultural experience together with a worldwide network of biotech professionals to Calisra Biotech. Furthermore, having been raised and educated in Israel, her familiarity with Israeli culture and her contacts in academia, industry, and financial communities benefit Calisra Biotech.

Dr. Sherman-Gold has directed business strategy, and led and executed multi-million dollar transactions (in-licensing, out-licensing, co-development, R&D and commercial collaborations, alliances) for technology platforms and therapeutic products, involving U.S. and European pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies ranging from seed-stage start-ups to Fortune 100 and multi-national large pharma. Her experience also includes industry-academia collaborations/licenses and M&A transactions. Dr. Sherman-Gold is currently a member of the Board of Directors of Neurion Pharmaceuticals, an advisor to several young companies, and a member of several prominent angel investment groups in the San Francisco Bay Area.

She has held management positions in the biotech and pharmaceutical industry, including Chief Business Officer of Diatos, a European biotechnology company; President, CEO and member of the BOD of Alydar Pharmaceuticals, a seed-stage Israeli biotech company; Director of Business Development at Abgenix, one of the most successful young biotech companies and the leader in the commercialization of human antibody technology for the treatment of cancer and other diseases that did its IPO only two years after being founded and subsequently acquired by Amgen in 2006; Associate Director of Business Development at Athena Neurosciences, a neurology-focused U.S. public company that was acquired by Elan Pharmaceuticals in 1996; and Director of Marketing and Scientific Applications at Axon Instruments, a leading electrophysiology instrumentation company that was acquired by Molecular Devices in 2004.

Dr. Sherman-Gold has published research papers in peer-reviewed journals, and opinion and journalistic articles. She was the editor of the Axon Guide for Electrophysiology & Biophysics Laboratory Techniques, and an invited speaker and panelist at academic and industry conferences.

In the not-for-profit sector, Dr. Sherman-Gold is a Director of the American Technion Society – Silicon Valley Chapter. She has been an invited speaker at donor events for the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science, and has served as a mentor to scientists at early stages of their career and during career transitions. She was the founder of AWIS Palo Alto, the Palo Alto chapter of the Association of Women in Science, and its first president. The rapid growth of AWIS-PA resulted in the establishment of two additional chapters in the San Francisco Bay Area. Dr. Sherman-Gold was awarded the 1986 Syntex Community Service Award for her contributions to the San Francisco Bay Area scientific and biotech community.

Dr. Sherman-Gold earned her B.Sc. in chemistry with honors and M.Sc. in biophysics and physiology from the Technion and a Ph.D. in life-sciences from the Weizmann Institute of Science. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University School of Medicine and earned an M.B.A. from California State University at San Jose.