Profile

Senior Management

Chairman of the Board and Acting CEO -Amos Eiran

Amos Eiran serves as Chairman of Atudot, a major Israeli pension fund, and Chairman of the Investments Committee of Clal Insurance Group, an Israeli insurance company. He also serves as a director of Deleck Oil Exploration. Mr. Eiran has been a director for Medis Technologies Ltd. (Nadaq: MDTL) since 1997 and is also a director of two of its subsidiaries, Medis Inc. and Medis El. Through the summer of 2002, Mr. Eiran served as the Chairman of the Industrial Cooperation Authority, the agency in charge of the buy-back and offset programs of the State of Israel, for seven years. Mr. Eiran was Director General of the Prime Minister's office during Yitzhak Rabin's first term as Prime Minister. Prior to that, he was Director General and Chairman of Mivtahim, the largest pension fund in Israel. From 1993 to 1995, Mr. Eiran served as a director for XTL Biopharmaceuticals Ltd., a company presently traded on the London Stock Exchange. Mr. Eiran received a bachelor's degree in Liberal Arts from American University in Washington D.C. in 1968, a master's degree in History from Tel Aviv University in 1974, a diploma in business administration from Harvard University in 1963 and a diploma in investments from the Wharton Business School in 2002.

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CFO – Mr. Alex Werber

Mr. Werber joined the Company as Controller and Chief Financial Officer.

He has over 15 years of management experience in privately held and publicly traded companies. During the past decade specialized in the hi-tech sector, serving in managerial positions including Business development, Controller, VP Finance and CFO.

Involved in all aspects of corporate financial management and fund-raising activities. In the last decade, Mr. Werber served as a Controller and Chief Financial Officer in Vcon Telecommunication Ltd, Rada Electronic Industries Ltd, of Yakhin Hakal Ltd.

Prior to that, he served as an auditor with the accounting firm Ernst & Young (Israel). Mr. Werber holds a B.A. degree in Economics and Accounting from Tel-Aviv University and holds a C.P.A. (Israel) license.

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Non-Executive Directors

Director - Robert G. Pico

Robert G. Pico is presently Vice President of Business Development at TranSwitch (NASDAQ:TXCC). He leads all M&A activities, initialization of start-up companies through seed funding for companies that include: Teraop, Optix, IC41C, Onex (acquired by TXCC), SOSI (acquired by TXCC). Pico additionally invests on behalf of TranSwitch in companies that demonstrate significant growth opportunities including Accordian Networks. He performs all contract negotiations for the company when acquiring third party intellectual property such as VLSI cell libraries and semiconductor foundry service contracts from suppliers such as Texas Instruments (NYSE:TXN), TSMC in Taiwan and LSI Logic (NYSE:LSI). Pico has led the team consummating more than 10 acquisitions and formation of start-up companies spanning Israel, North America, Europe, and Asia. He is a Board member of several of these companies. Pico joined TranSwitch in 1988 and assisted in its public offering in 1995 on the NASDAQ Exchange.

Pico has a breadth of corporate management expertise spanning engineering, operations and business development. Prior to his tenure at TranSwitch he held senior positions in both large multi-national corporations such as ITT and United Technologies. He holds a BSEE and MS in Physics from the University of Hartford and Trinity College respectively and has completed his requirements for an MBA in Marketing from the University of Hartford.

Director – Meir Segev

Meir Segev is presently the CEO of ISC Holdings Ltd., a group which deals with international security consultancy. He has been serving as a director in Tissera Inc. since December 2003, and also served as a director of Pluristem Inc. until February 2005.
Prior to that, he served 25 years at the Israeli security service moving through the ranks, filling various positions and gaining skills and experience. In 1997 he was appointed as a staff division head of the entire organization and retired in 2003 with a rank equivalent to a major general.
Mr. Segev holds a bachelors degree in political science from the University of Haifa – Israel, and in 2003 he graduated from the advanced management program (AMP) at Wharton Business School University of Pennsylvania.
 

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Scientific Advisory Board

Chairman – Prof. Yair Reisner

Prof. Reisner, a renowned expert in transplantation technology, holds the Henry Drake chair of Immunology at the Weizmann Institute of Science.  He earned his M.Sc. at the University of California, Berkely and his Ph.D. at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.  Prof. Reisner has pioneered and popularized techniques for bone marrow transplantation with partially matched donor tissue.  He is a member of the Advisory Committee of the American Society of Hematology Scientific committee on transplantation Biology and has been a visiting professor at the Memorial Sloane Kettering Cancer Center, Harvard University and Columbia University.

Prof. Reisner has published widely in leading scientific journals and serves as an Associate Editor for the Journal for Experimental Hematology, as a co-editor of an electronic quarterly on haploidentical bone marrow transplantation (www.haplo.org) and on the editorial board of a number of publications.  Since 1993 Prof. Reisner, who was a founder of XTL Biopharmaceuticals Ltd., has served as a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of that company.  XTL has developed fully human monoclonal antibodies for the treatment of hepatitis B and C.

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Professor  Giuseppe Remuzzi, M.D., F.R.C.P..

Professor Giuseppe Remuzzi holds an M.D. degree from the University of  Pavia and a specialty degree in Hematology and Nephrology from the University of Milan.  Since 1975, he has pursued his academic career at the Ospedali Riuniti of Bergamo, where he was appointed Professor of  Nephrology and Director of the Division of Immunology and Organ Transplantation in 1996. Since 1999, he is the Director of the Department of Nephrology and Dialysis of the same hospital. He is also the Director of the Negri Bergamo Laboratories and of the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research,  and in these positions he conducts a diverse team of researchers studying human renal diseases and their corresponding experimental models from the perspective of pathophysiology and therapeutic intervention. He has made significant contributions to the understanding of various aspects of renal disease, including important issues pertaining to renal transplantation.

Professor Remuzzi has authored and co-authored more than 720 scientific articles, reviews and monographs. He serves on the editorial boards of numerous journals, including the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, and is a member of the International Advisory Board of The Lancet. In recognition of his achievements, he has been awarded in 1998 honorary memberships in the Association of American Physicians and the British Royal College of Physicians. In 2001 he was nominated Chairman of the Research Committee of the COMGAN (Commission on Global Advancement of Nephrology) of the International Society of Nephrology (ISN).

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Dr. Abraham Shaked, M.D., Ph.D.

Dr. Shaked is the Director of the Penn Transplant Center, and Chief of the Division of Transplantation at the University of Pennsylvania and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He is an internationally recognized leader in the field of transplantation and one of the most experienced surgeons and researchers in the USA in adult and pediatric liver transplantation. He is currently the President of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons. As part of his active involvement in the development of a national policy in the field of organ transplantation in the USA, he serves on many national committees on transplantation, including NIH steering committees, and is a member of the board of directors of UNOS (United Network for Organ Sharing). 

Dr. Shaked's academic record is reflected by his achievements in basic laboratory research and support for clinical science investigation. He has published over 150 manuscripts, and is a member of the editorial boards of several leading transplantation journals, as well as a reviewer for numerous surgical and medical journals.

Dr. Shaked holds an M.D. degree from the Hebrew University and Hadassah medical school in Jerusalem and a Ph.D. in Molecular Pathology and Immunology from the City University of New York. He went through residency training in General Surgery at the Mount-Sinai Hospital in NYC and subsequently did a fellowship in Transplantation Surgery at UCLA.

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Sir Roy York Calne, M.D., F.R.C.P., F.R.C.S.

Sir Roy Calne, who was granted the Knight Bachelor Honors in 1986, is a revered professor, author and surgeon in the field of transplantation surgery.

Currently Emeritus Professor of Surgery at the University of Cambridge and General Surgeon and Consultant in Transplantation Surgery, Dr. Calne is also Professor of Surgery at the National University of Singapore. Among his many previous appointments, he served as an active Professor of Surgery at the University of Cambridge for many years, as well as the Senior Vice President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

Since the publication of his first book, Renal Transplantation, in 1963, Dr. Calne has published over 18 books, hundreds of articles, and lectured at some of the world’s most admired medical schools including Harvard University, University of Cambridge, University of London, and Oxford University.

Dr. Calne has been a pioneer in transplantation medicine since 1959, when he engaged into research in the field and described the first effective immunosuppressive treatment for kidney transplantation. He started the Cambridge Kidney Transplant Program in 1965, and the first European Liver Transplant Program in 1968. He is also acclaimed for being the first surgeon to perform a pancreas transplant in the United Kingdom in 1979 and the first to perform an intestinal transplant there in 1992.

Former President of the International Transplantation Society, Dr. Calne has been awarded numerous distinctions and honorary degrees in many countries and prestigious academic institutions around the world for his groundbreaking work in medicine.

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