Alan J. Lewis, Ph.D.
President, CEO and Board Member
DiaVacs

Dr. Alan J. Lewis is the President, CEO and board member of DiaVacs, a Type 1 diabetes company.  DiaVacs is developing products to reverse the onset of autoimmune diseases by reinducing tolerance into the patient's immune system. Dr. Lewis currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Batu Biologics, a private biotechnology company, and director of a private biotechnology company, Targazyme, Inc. Dr. Lewis is a pharma industry veteran and a successful serial entrepreneur.  He has served as Chief Executive Officer and Director of Medistem, Inc., Ambit Biosciences, and Novocell Inc.,   From January 2009 to June 2010, Dr. Lewis served as President and Chief Executive Officer of The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Prior to joining Novocell Inc., a company focused on stem cell therapy, starting in 2000, he was President of Celgene Signal Research, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Celgene Corporation, a pharmaceutical company. From February 1994 to August 2000, he was the President and Chief Executive Officer of Signal Pharmaceuticals, Inc., where he guided the company to its successful acquisition by Celgene Corporation. From 1979 to 1994, Dr. Lewis held a number of positions at Wyeth-Ayerst Research and its predecessor, Wyeth Laboratories, Inc., including Vice President of Research at Wyeth-Ayerst Research. Dr. Lewis has published over 120 full manuscripts and has written and edited seven books. Dr. Lewis was a Research Associate at Yale University from 1972 to 1973. Dr. Lewis received a B.Sc. In physiology and biochemistry from Southampton University, Southampton, Hampshire, United Kingdom, and a Ph.D. in pharmacology from the University of Wales, Cardiff, United Kingdom.

Ravi Kumar, Ph.D.
President and CEO

Dr. Ravi Kumar has served as the President and CEO since 2014. He founded ARKAY with a mission to provide long-term glycemic control to Type II diabetes patients. Dr. Kumar has a unique combination of expertise in metabolic, cardiovascular and chronic inflammatory diseases. He developed the scientific rationale, the product concept and the clinical development strategies for RK-01. Since Type II diabetes runs in his family, he knows first-hand the challenges of diabetes patients, limitations of the currently marketed drugs and more importantly the devastating consequences of diabetes-related complications.

Dr. Kumar is the inventor of the U.S. and PCT patent applications titled "Formulations and Methods for Treating Metabolic Syndrome."

Dr. Kumar has distinguished experience in academia as well in the pharmaceutical industry.  As a recipient of research grants from the American Heart Association, he cloned and characterized the Angiotensin-converting enzyme at The Cleveland Clinic Foundation. ACE inhibitors are widely used for the clinical management of high blood pressure and hypertension. 

He obtained M.S. and Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from New York University, an executive Mini-MBA in Bio-Pharma Innovation from Rutgers University, and a certification for GCP (Good Clinical Practice) from ACRP (Association of Clinical Research Professionals). Prior to his 25 year career in the pharmaceutical industry, Dr. Kumar was a Research Fellow at The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, OH.

During the course of his career, Dr. Kumar has held roles of increasing responsibility in small-to-medium-to-large pharmaceutical companies including Pfizer, Pharmacia Corporation and OSI Pharmaceuticals. He has relentlessly pursued excellence in proposing new ideas and developing new hypotheses to discover and develop innovative drugs for metabolic diseases and chronic inflammatory diseases.  Dr. Kumar has served as either a project leader or co-project leader of several drug discovery and development projects in Type II Diabetes, Atherosclerosis, Obesity, and Chronic Inflammatory Diseases.  Some of the projects include: 'beta-cell centric' therapies, inhibitors of insulin-dependent  hepatic gluconeogenesis, incretin mimetics, PPAR agonists, CRF-2R activators, activators of ApoA1, inhibitors of apo(a), inhibitors of Scavenger receptor, inhibitors of TNF-alpha, inhibitors of mPGES-1 (safer Celebrex™), TLR4 blockers, inhibitors of iNOS, FXR activators etc.  

Paul Jeffrey, M.B.A.
Former Vice President, New Product Development & Commercialization, Pfizer

Mr. Paul Jeffrey is an experienced business executive and advisor with over 35 years of pharmaceutical research, product development, marketing and business development experience. As vice president of early commercial development at Pfizer, he was responsible for commercial development of the entire portfolio of Rx pipeline products in Primary Care.  Paul directed teams that completed therapeutic strategies, new product evaluations and marketing plans for new products in cardiovascular, metabolic/diabetes, neuroscience, pain, allergy/respiratory and women’s health. He led global product teams responsible for commercial valuations, competitive assessments, forecasts, marketing plans and budgets. Paul was also a key player on many Pfizer business deals ranging from licenses to partnerships to acquisitions. His responsibilities included deal design, negotiation and post close implementation. Examples include deals with Eisai (Aricept); Medivation (dimebon) and BMS (Eliquis). Paul was the global marketing leader for the cardiovascular and metabolic/diabetes products including Lipitor, Caduet and Eliquis. He was also a member of the teams that crafted key development strategies for multiple highly successful Pfizer products including Diflucan, Vfend, Selzentry, Geodon, Zyrtec, and Champix.

For the past several years he has provided consulting and advisory services to several biopharma companies including Quantex Laboratories, Excaliard, Oligomerix, Pozen and BusStim. Prior to joining Pfizer, Paul was a chemist at Schering and in research administration with Merck. He earned an MBA from New York University, MS in Organic Chemistry from MIT and BS in chemistry from Carnegie Mellon University.

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