Management Team
President and Chief Executive Officer
Rahul Singhvi, Sc.D., M.B.A.
Senior Vice President, Chief Scientific Officer
Gregory M. Glenn, M.D.
Senior Vice President, Product Development & Chief Medical Officer
Mark O. Thornton, M.D., M.P.H., Ph.D
Senior Vice President, Business Development
John J. Trizzino, B.S., M.B.A.
Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer
Frederick W. Driscoll
Vice President, Strategy
Thomas S. Johnston, B.S., M.B.A
Vice President, Vaccine Development
Gale Smith, Ph.D.
Executive Director of Legal Affairs & Corporate Secretary
John A. Herrmann III, J.D.
Head, Process and Manufacturing Operations
John Madsen, Ph.D.
Head of Analytical and Quality Operations
Steven Pincus, Ph.D.
President and Chief Executive Officer
Rahul Singhvi, Sc.D., M.B.A.
Dr. Singhvi is a recognized vaccine specialist, manufacturing expert and business leader in the pharmaceutical industry. Since assuming his current position, Dr. Singhvi has restructured Novavax to focus on product innovation and development, in particular influenza vaccine development using the company’s novel virus-like particle and Novasome® paucilamellar vesicle technologies.
Before joining Novavax, Dr. Singhvi headed vaccine manufacturing operations at Merck & Co., where production increased by 25 percent at the two plants he oversaw.
Dr. Singhvi received his M.S. and Sc.D. degrees in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also holds an M.B.A. from the Wharton School. Dr. Singhvi also serves on the Board of Directors for the TechCouncil of Maryland .
Senior Vice President, Chief Scientific Officer
Gregory M. Glenn, M.D.
Dr. Glenn is a pioneer in vaccine delivery and adjuvants, and has brought several products from concept into clinical development including the travelers' diarrhea vaccine patch, and an adjuvant patch for a pandemic influenza vaccine, developed under U.S. government contracts. He provided the scientific and technical leadership that led to the acquisition of IOMAI by Intercell in 2008. He has co-authored more than 150 research publications, scientific abstracts and presentations, and successful grant applications, and holds multiple U.S., European and other international patents. In addition, he is an associate editor of the journals Expert Review of Vaccines, and Human Vaccine, and was a board-certified pediatrician. Dr. Glenn received his bachelor of arts degree in biology and chemistry from Whitman College and his doctor of medicine degree from Oral Roberts University School of Medicine and completed the Medical Research Fellowship at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.
Senior Vice President, Product Development & Chief Medical Officer
Mark O. Thornton, M.D., M.P.H., Ph.D
Dr. Thornton is a clinical pharmacologist and epidemiologist with 20 years of experience in Phase I - III clinical trials, and the development and regulatory approval of novel vaccines and therapeutics. He spent more than six years as a medical officer at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Center for Biologics, serving on Biologics License Applications (BLA) review teams in both the immunology and infectious diseases branch and division of therapeutic biologic oncology products. In the industry, he has been Chief Medical Officer of ZioPharm Oncology and, most recently, Senior Vice President of product development at GenVec. He has also previously served in clinical research positions at North American Vaccine Co. and Univax Biologics. Dr. Thornton received his M.D. and his Ph.D. in Pharmacology from West Virginia University, and received specialty training in clinical pharmacology at Johns Hopkins Hospital and an M.P.H. from the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health.
Senior Vice President of International and Government Alliances
John J. Trizzino, B.S., M.B.A.
Mr. Trizzino is responsible for international and government alliances at Novavax and joins Novavax with more than 28 years of broad industry experience. Having worked closely with public and private partners including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) he has an extensive background in vaccines. Mr. Trizzino served as Vice President, Vaccine Franchise at MedImmune, Inc., and was responsible for the FluMist® brand and public health sales teams, including the strategic planning and early execution of its international launch. Before taking on vaccine franchise responsibilities Mr. Trizzino had responsibility for all trade activities for the $1 billion plus MAb RSV business. Prior to joining MedImmune, Mr. Trizzino held positions at ID Biomedical (now GSK), including Senior Vice President, Business Development, and was in charge of the US launch of Fluviral® (GSK’s FluLaval®) and responsible for their bio defense vaccine business and government relations. During his time at ID Biomedical, Mr. Trizzino also negotiated a $2.3 billion U.S. influenza vaccine distribution agreement for the company.
Mr. Trizzino obtained his M.B.A. from New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, New York and his B.S. from Long Island University, NY.
Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer
Frederick W. Driscoll
Frederick W. Driscoll joined Novavax in August 2009 as Chief Financial Officer after more than 30 years of financial management and operational experience in the biotechnology and medical device sectors. In 2007, he joined Genelabs, Inc., a publicly traded biotechnology company developing novel small molecules targeted at infectious diseases, where he served as Chief Financial Officer and became Chief Executive Officer prior to the company’s acquisition by GlaxoSmithKline. From 2000 to 2006, Mr. Driscoll was employed by OXiGENE, Inc., initially as Chief Financial Officer and subsequently as Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Driscoll has also served in senior financial positions at Collagenesis, Inc. and Instrumentation Laboratory.
Vice President of Strategy
Thomas S. Johnston, B.S., M.B.A.
Mr. Johnston is responsible for managing Novavax’s corporate strategic planning process, evaluating potential strategic opportunities and managing select initiatives, including the GE Healthcare collaboration, for development through to proof of concept. Prior to joining Novavax, Mr. Johnston served as an executive level strategic consultant in a number of industries including biotech, financial services, and electronic security, with clients such as Novavax, RBC Bank and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Earlier in his career, Mr. Johnston held varying senior-level positions with a number of organizations such as Comcast, Microsoft, and Schlumberger. In each role he was able to apply a unique combination of corporate strategy, marketing and finance skills with product level and often technical skills. Tom holds an M.B.A. from The Wharton Business School and a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Arcadia University.
Vice President of Vaccine Development
Gale Smith, Ph.D.
Dr. Smith is a leader in vaccine technology and holds numerous patents for the baculovirus-insect cell expression system, influenza vaccines and adjuvants. At Novavax, Dr. Smith has developed the first known commercial, scalable process for the manufacture of virus-like particle vaccines for influenza. He also has collaborated with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in testing a virus-like particle vaccine to protect animals against the H9N2 influenza. Prior to joining Novavax, Dr. Smith led a team at Protein Sciences Corp. that developed the first experimental vaccine for HIV approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for testing in the United States . Dr. Smith also collaborated with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the National Institute of Health to produce the first experimental vaccine tested in man against the H5N1 avian influenza.
Dr. Smith did graduate work at the Baylor College of Medicine and has a Ph.D. in Microbiology from Texas A&M University.
Executive Director of Legal Affairs & Corporate Secretary
John A. Herrmann III, J.D.
Mr. Herrmann is responsible for managing all of Novavax’s legal affairs including its patent portfolio, various transactional matters, and public securities filings, as well as attending to all the duties of Corporate Secretary. Prior to joining Novavax, Mr. Herrmann was general counsel and secretary for Ore Pharmaceuticals and deputy general counsel to Gene Logic before it became Ore Pharmaceuticals. In addition, he has held senior level in-house counsel roles at Celera Genomics and Baxter Healthcare. Mr. Herrmann holds a J.D. from the University of Illinois and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and History from Brown University.
Head, Process and Manufacturing Operations
John Madsen, Ph.D.
Dr. Madsen is responsible for overseeing the process and manufacturing operations at Novavax. His team is credited for dramatically increasing vaccine production capacity, resulting in full scale manufacturing in our pilot manufacturing facility. Before coming to Novavax, Dr. Madsen was Director of Manufacturing for the Vaccine Clinical Materials Program at SAIC-Frederick, Inc., where he was part of the core team that designed, constructed and operated the 130,000 sq.ft. NIAID/Vaccine Research Center Vaccine Pilot Plant in Frederick, Maryland, and was responsible for developing and executing manufacturing processes for clinical plasmid DNA vaccines against various disease targets. As Director of Pharmaceutical Science at Entremed, Inc., he was responsible for production, technology transfer and scale-up.
Dr. Madsen received his Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston/MD Anderson Cancer Center. He conducted his post-doctoral work at Albert Einstein/Montefiore Medical Center, and subsequently, at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Department of Membrane Biochemistry.
Head of Analytical and Quality Operations
Steven Pincus, Ph.D.
Dr. Pincus is biochemist with 25 years of experience in the field of recombinant vaccines and immunotherapeutics. In his role at Novavax, Dr. Pincus oversees preparation of all quality operations for Phase III studies and product manufacturing, and leads efforts in product characterization toward well-characterized biologic status. With his broad expertise in virology, molecular biology, biochemistry and immunology, he contributes to immunological assay development and testing for preclinical and clinical studies. Additionally, Dr. Pincus provides insight to understanding immunological responses to Novavax's vaccines. Before joining Novavax, Dr. Pincus was Senior Director of Virology and Animal Biology at Elusys Therapeutics, where he helped develop monoclonal-based therapeutics to treat infectious diseases, and Senior Research Scientist with Virogenetics, where he developed a number of poxvirus recombinant vaccines and served on project teams that evaluated these candidates in Phase I clinical trials.
Dr. Pincus received his B.S. and Ph.D. in biochemistry from the State University of New York at Buffalo.