Dr. Arora was nominated for election by the board of directors upon the recommendation of the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee, which was acting upon the recommendation of
Dr. Stuart M. Krassner. Dr. Arora has been providing consulting services to Spectrum since February 2010.
Dr. Arora is a business executive with global experience in driving strategic thinking, management and implementation of operations for drug development
worldwide. Dr. Arora has provided consulting services to senior management at several pharmaceutical companies, including Astellas Pharma Global Development, Inc., for global drug development, from
May 2008 to June 2009, and UCB, Inc., for applications in global regulatory affairs, electronic document management, pharmacovigilance and worldwide quality assurance and compliance, from November 2003 to February 2006. Prior to that, Dr. Arora held senior management positions with several pharmaceutical companies, including Vice President of R&D Global Regulatory Affairs for Management Information at Pfizer Inc. from 1998 to 2003, Senior Director of Regulatory Affairs at Novartis AG from 1993 to 1998 and
Group Director of Biometrics Operations at Sanofi-Aventis. In addition, from 1994 to 2003, Dr. Arora served as Chairman of the Electronic Regulatory Submissions Working Group at PhRMA, which consisted of business and information technology experts from the FDA and 20 biopharmaceutical companies and was the PhRMA lead at ICH on establishing electronic standards for submission of marketing applications to regulatory authorities.
Dr. Arora received a B.Sc. in
Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry from Lucknow University in India, a B.Sc. (Honors) in Agriculture and a M.Sc. in Animal Genetics from G. B. Pant University of Agriculture & Technology in India and a Ph.D. in Population Genetics from Iowa State University.
Dr. Arora has significant experience in the pharmaceutical industry, which includes 11 years' experience in global regulatory affairs and 18 years' experience in biometrics operations, including statistics, clinical data systems, clinical data management and medical writing. Furthermore, Dr. Arora has operational management experience, a keen understanding of the regulatory environment in which pharmaceutical companies operate and extensive knowledge in drug development operations and regulatory submissions and approvals. As a result, Dr. Arora is well qualified to serve on our board of directors.
Dr. Krassner's career spans nearly four decades of experience in positions of increasing responsibility at the University of California at Irvine, most recently as Professor of Developmental and Cell Biology at the School of Biological Sciences. While at University of California, Irvine (UCI), he developed and reinforced FDA and NIH compliance procedures for UCI-sponsored human clinical trials, established UCI's first Institutional Review Board, and at one time headed all contract and grant activities. Dr. Krassner has also been retained by pharmaceutical, medical device and other companies, including Allergan Pharmaceuticals, Lasermed Corporation, Automated Microbiology Systems, and In Vitro International, among others, to provide scientific and regulatory advisory services, including FDA compliance.
Dr. Krassner's work has been published in numerous peer-reviewed U.S. journals. He is Professor Emeritus, University of California, Irvine, and has lectured at both U.S. and international academic institutions, including Harvard Medical School, Rockefeller University, Johns Hopkins University, St. Petersburg University and University of Edinburgh, among others.
Dr. Krassner is a member of the American Academy for the Advancement of Sciences, and the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, among others. Dr. Krassner received his Sc.D. from the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. He holds a B.S. in Biology from Brooklyn College.
Dr. Maida's career spans nearly 27 years, of which 15 were spent as CEO of emerging biotechnology companies, most with an oncology focus. In addition, Mr. Maida has nearly a decade of financial experience, ending as a Senior Financial Controller of a $1.7 billion division of Lockheed Missiles and Space Company, and VP, CFO of Dataplant Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed.
Dr. Maida is a founder and currently serves as Chairman of BioConsul Drug Development Corporation and DendriTherapeutics, Inc., and has also been retained by pharmaceutical companies, and New York investment and venture capital firms, including North Sound Capital, to provide technical and corporate advisory services. Mr. Maida serves on the Advisory Board of Innovera Life Sciences Fund and Novel Bioventures LLC , and the Scientific Advisory Board of EndPoint Ventures.
Dr. Maida received his Master's Degree in Toxicology from San Jose State University, and received an MBA from University of Santa Clara. He is a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the American Association for Cancer Research and the American Association of Immunologists, among others.
