Management Team

Heinrich (Heiri) Gugger Ph.D

Heiri Gugger has over twenty-five years' experience in growing high-tech and life sciences companies, both organically and through M&A transactions, as well as extensive global corporate management experience at small public and large multinational companies. Prior to his appointment at QuoNova, Heiri was President and CEO of Icoria, Inc. (NASDAQ: ICOR), which he transformed from a functional genomics agricultural research services company into a healthcare biomarkers company anchored in systems biology. Before, in his capacity as President of Syngenta Crop Protection, Inc. Heiri served on that company's several biotechnology units in the US, and served as Vice-Chairman of the American Crop Protection Industry Association. Since 1999 he has served on the Board of the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, where is a member of the Executive and Nominating Committee.

Heiri holds a Ph.D in Chemistry from the University of Bern, Switzerland and was an IBM World Trade Postdoctoral Fellow in Applied Physics.

Jonathan Turner Ph.D

Jon Turner brings over twenty years' senior management experience at some of the leading pharmaceutical companies in the world. His industrial career began at Schering AG where, as Departmental Head CNS Research, he had responsibility for major collaborative and internal drug discovery efforts in Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease. He moved to business development as Global Director, Discovery Alliances at AstraZeneca PLC, focusing on respiratory and inflammatory diseases and most recently was Corporate Head, Business Development at Boehringer Ingelheim, with responsibility for product acquisitions in the clinical phase across all major indications.

Jon holds a degree in Physiology and a Ph.D in Neurophysiology from the University of St Andrews, Scotland.

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Aldo Ammendola Ph.D

Aldo is the founder of QuoNova's QSB technology and joined QuoNova LLC as CSO in June 2007.

He spent his academic years studying biology and microbiology, before starting and leading drug discovery projects, including the QSB project at 4SC AG.  He worked at 4SC for five years in different positions, as Project Leader Antibacterials, Manager Pipeline Projects and Manager Business Development. Since then he has gained experience in many strategic and operational aspects of life science industrial practice from his position of Management Consultant, Life Sciences, at Capgemini Consulting, before joining QuoNova. Aldo is based at QuoNova's German subsidiary in Munich/Martinsried, is responsible for all science related matters of QuoNova, and holds numerous patents in the Quorum Sensing field.

Aldo holds a degree in Biology from the University of Freiburg, Germany, and a PhD in Microbiology from the Technical University of Munich, Germany. He has also received an MBA from the Open University Business School (United Kingdom).

Michael Rochelle MBA

Michael has over 20 years of commercial experience in biopharmaceuticals, clinical laboratory and consulting. Most recently, he was Vice President at Nabi Biopharmaceuticals, serving in a variety of roles including strategic planning and business development. He led the acquisition at Nabi of the product PhosLo® from Braintree Laboratories, a $100 million deal. Michael’s background includes business development roles with International Clinical Laboratories, SmithKline Beecham Laboratories and Integrated Genetics/Genzyme Corporation.

Michael holds a Bachelors of Arts degree in Chemistry from Assumption College in Massachusetts and a Masters in Business Administration from Bryant University, in Smithfield, Rhode Island.

Jim Walls M.Sc

Jim has over 25 years of medical device product development experience, 15 years of which have been dedicated to reducing hospital acquired medical device infections. He has held Vice President of R&D positions for Kendall Healthcare (now Covidien, LLC) and C.R Bard, Inc. Most recently he was Vice President of Business Development for Bacterin International, Inc.

Jim holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Connecticut, a Master of Science degree in Biomedical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and has completed a Clinical Engineering Internship at Hartford Hospital. He has also completed courses towards his Masters in Business Administration at the University of New Haven.

Mohamed Baccouche Ph.D

Mohamed has 30 years experience in the pharmaceutical industry with clinical development, project management and regulatory strategy for new drugs and maintenance of worldwide marketed products. Most recently, he was head of Global Regulatory Affairs and Scientific Information at Byk Gulden and Altana Pharma.

Mohamed holds a Master of Science degree in Chemistry and a Ph.D in Organic Chemistry from the University of Braunschweig, Germany.