The core competencies of the management team include
experimental hematology, chemical engineering,
molecular and cellular biology and biotechnology
management.
Zami Aberman, President & CEO
Mr.
Aberman joined Pluristem in September 2005 and
changed the Company’s strategy towards cellular
therapeutics. Mr. Aberman has 20 years of experience
in marketing and management in the high technology
industry. He has held Chief Executive and Chairman
positions in Israel, the USA, Europe, Japan and
Korea. He has operated within high-tech global
companies in the fields of automatic optical
inspection, network security, video over IP,
software, chip design and robotics. Mr. Aberman
serves as the Chairman of Rose Hitech Ltd., a
private investment company; and has served in the
past as the Chairman of VLScom Ltd., a private
company specializing in video compression for HDTV
and video over IP and as a Director of Ori Software
Ltd., a company involved in data management. Prior
to that, he served as the President and CEO of Elbit
Vision Systems (EVSNF.OB), which supplies inspection
systems for the microelectronic industry.
Mr. Aberman has served as President and CEO of
Netect Ltd., specializing in the field of internet
security software and was the Co-Founder, President
and CEO of Associative Computing Ltd., which
developed an associative parallel processor for
real-time video processing. He has also served as
Chairman of Display Inspection Systems Inc.,
specializing in laser based inspection machines and
as President and CEO of Robomatix Technologies Ltd.
(RBMXF.OB).
In 1992, Mr. Aberman was awarded the Rothschild Prize
for excellence in his field from the President of
the State of Israel.
Mr. Aberman holds a B.Sc. in
Mechanical Engineering from Ben Gurion University in
Israel.
Yaky Yanay, VP Finance & CFO
Prior to joining Pluristem, Mr. Yanay was the Chief
Financial Officer of Elbit Vision System Ltd. (EVSNF.OB),
a company engaged in automatic optical inspection.
He has extensive experience in the financing and
management of technology companies. He played a
major role in planning and executing a turn-around
plan for Elbit Vision System, including the
completion of three acquisitions and the raising of
more than $20 million, resulting in a tripling of
the company’s revenues and attaining profitability.
Mr. Yanay began his financial career at Ernst &Young
Israel in 1999, where he served as a manager of
audit groups for the technology sector. He joined
Ernst &Young’s financial team after serving in the
Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 1993.
Mr. Yanay holds a bachelor’s degree with honor in
business administration and accounting from the
College of Management Studies in Rishon Le Zion,
Israel and is a Certified Public Accountant in
Israel.
William R. Prather RPh, MD, Senior VP Corporate
Development
William R. Prather RPh, MD, is a Registered
Pharmacist as well as a Board Certified Internist
and Geriatrician. Dr. Prather received his BS in
Pharmacy (1970) and medical degree (1973) from the
University of Missouri. He practiced internal
medicine in the Kansas City, MO and Vail, CO areas
until leaving Internal Medicine in 1987 to pursue a
Fellowship in Geriatric Medicine at Harvard
University. He completed this Fellowship in 1989.
In 1992 Dr. Prather left the practice of medicine
to pursue a career in the financial industry where
he has held Senior Healthcare research positions for
a variety of investment banks . Dr. Prather
co-founded Panacos, Inc. (NASDAQ:PANC), a public
pharmaceutical company. Additionally, he has been on
the Boards of several public and private companies,
including Boston Biomedica Inc. (a public medical
diagnostics company), PriMed (a private medical
device company), MdBio (a Maryland healthcare
venture firm), and sat on the Advisory Board of MDS
Capital Management, (a Canadian venture firm).
Frida Grynspan, PhD, VP Research & Development Dr. Grynspan earned her Ph.D. in Chemistry/Biochemistry from the University of Illinois, Chicago and her post-doctoral degree from Harvard Medical School/McLean Hospital, where she worked in the areas of Multiple Sclerosis and Alzheimer's Disease. Prior to joining Pluristem, Dr. Grynspan served as Vice President of R&D of a pioneering cell therapy company in Israel, where she was instrumental in bringing its first cell therapy product to a multinational, multi-center Phase III clinical trial and participated in the development of its pipeline. Before that, Dr. Grynspan served as Senior Scientist at Intelligene Ltd., a developer of molecular biology diagnostic and therapeutic tools, and as an instructor and biochemist at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Grynspan has extensive experience in the fields of biochemistry, cell biology and molecular biology and has authored numerous scientific papers in the fields of autoimmune and degenerative diseases.
Ms. Chaya Mazouz received her BSc in Nursing and
MA in Philosophy of Science from the Hebrew
University in Jerusalem and is a registered
Nurse. Ms. Mazouz joined Pluristem in August
2008 to lead the Company’s clinical trials.
Prior to joining Pluristem, Chaya Mazouz held
the position of Clinical Operations Director for
Medgenics, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical
company involving gene therapy, where she
engineered Phase I/II clinical studies.
Previously, Ms. Mazouz served as Clinical
Manager for TransPharma Medical, a drug delivery
company, where she was responsible for managing
all of the company's clinical activities. In
previous positions, Ms. Mazouz led a multi-center
Phase II study for Pharmos, a pharmaceutical
company, and was CRA and Project Manager at
IDgene, a startup company engaged in gene
discovery. top
Tavor Iris, Director of QA/QC
Iris Tavor received her BSc from the Department
of Food Engineering and Biochemistry at the
Technion - Israel Institute of Technology. She
received her MSc degree from the Department of
Quality Assurance and Reliability at the
Technion - Israel Institute of Technology. Ms.
Tavor joined Pluristem in June 2008 as a QA
supervisor and was appointed Director of QA/QC
in August 2008.
Prior to joining Pluristem, Ms. Tavor was the RA
supervisor at the Plantex-Abic sites of the API
Division, Teva Group.
Ms. Tavor began her career as a QA referent in
the R&D department at Taro Pharmaceutical
Industries. She was then promoted to QA
Compliance Team Leader in the production
division and was responsible for all Compliance
issues, including investigations, documentation
center management, and QC & Stability units.
Daya Lettvin - Director of Investor & Public
Relations
Daya Lettvin has extensive experience in the
pharmaceutical industry. She began her career in
Merck & Co. Inc. in 1998 as a validation
scientist where she was responsible for
performing cleaning, sterilization and process
validations for the biological products in the
largest Merck facility worldwide. She was
promoted to Senior Scientist and was responsible
for planning and reviewing validation
activities, including investigations. In 2004, Daya was promoted to a Laboratory Manager where
she was responsible for fifteen scientists
performing the validation activities of vaccine
products. Ms. Lettvin received her bachelor’s degree in
biological sciences from Rutgers University
where she graduated with Honors. During her
career at Merck she won several company awards
for process improvements and safety.
