Mr. Fallace (Dave) is a Director of Tasca Therapeutics Corp. He has made investments in venture capital and alternative asset funds for over 20 years. He served as a member of the investment committee of several large multibillion- dollar firms overseeing alternative investment portfolios. Across these portfolios he made investments as a limited partner and as a founding investor in start-ups.
Most recently, Dave served as an advisor for the biotech venture capital fund Polaris Partners where he evaluated Biotechnology and Health Care Information Technologies investments. During this period, he also served as an Expert-in- Resident program at Harvard University’s Office of Technology Development. Prior to Polaris, he served as a Managing Director and member of the investment committee heading the $2.5 billion diversifying strategies at TIFF Investment Management.
From 2013 to 2016, Dave served as the Director of Investments leading the $10 billion Special Opportunities program at the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation. He spearheaded their direct venture investing serving as a board observer at Juno Therapeutics (Acquired by Celgene), and Denali Therapeutics (NASDAQ: DNLI).
Starting in 2000, Dave worked at GF Private Equity Group managing private equity and hedge fund portfolios in addition to investing in direct venture capital transactions. He served on the board or board observer of Ahura (Acquired Thermo Fisher), Alfalight (Acquired Gooch & Housego), Kotura (Acquired Mellanox), Pathscale (Acquired QLogic), Teros (Acquired Citrix), and Impinj (NASDAQ:PI).
Dave received his B.A. from Stony Brook University and his M.B.A. and J.D. from the State University of New York at Buffalo focusing on tax and financial structuring and is a member of the New York Bar.
Dr. Xu Wu is co-founder and a Director of Tasca Therapeutics Corp. He has more than 16 years of experiences in biomedical research and drug discovery in both industry and academia. He is currently an Associate Professor at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. His lab pioneered in chemical biology of protein autopalmitoylation and developmental signaling pathways (Hedgehog, Wnt and Hippo pathways), and used novel chemical tools to identify functions of protein lipidation in cell signaling and diseases. He has also rich experiences and expertise in cancer drug discovery, stem cell biology and cell signaling. His lab discovered metabolic and lipid regulators of Hippo signaling, and revealed autopalmitoylation of TEAD protein, opening a new door to "drug the undraggable proteins". Prior to joining the faculty of MGH/HMS, he was a Director of Biological Chemistry at Genomics Institute of Novartis Research Foundation (GNF)/Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research (NIBR). He supervised multiple preclinical and clinical programs, and was responsible for chemical biology and medicinal chemistry discovery programs with multiple programs advanced into clinical trials. He directly discovered and developed FDA-approved Odomzo® (sonidegib).
Dr. Wu completed his PhD. in Chemistry from the Scripps Research Institute, and his B.S. in Chemistry from Peking University, China. He is a recipient of many awards, including American Cancer Society Research Scholar award, and the Sam Fisher Memorial–Melanoma Research Alliance (MRA) Established Investigator award.
Dr. Cicmil (Milenko) has over 20 years of experience in drug discovery and development, leading multi-disciplinary scientific/project teams, portfolio strategy, and business development. His deep understanding of biology, especially in inflammation/autoimmunity and oncology matched with his drug development experience across small molecules, biologics and peptides enables him to find creative solutions for challenges faced by early-stage biotechnology startups. He spent much of his career in R&D positions of increasing responsibility within companies such as Ipsen, Fog Pharma, Merck & Co., AstraZeneca, and GE Healthcare contributing to development of multiple drugs such as: Brilinta, Symbicort, and Keytruda.
Milenko is Co-founder of Tasca Therapeutics Corp., one of the Cure Ventures portfolio companies where he currently serves as the CEO and Director. Most recently Milenko was Vice President and Head of Global External Innovation at Ipsen, responsible for developing and leading effort generating a high-value pipeline. Prior to joining Ipsen, Milenko was Vice President, Biology at Fog Pharma, where he was responsible for scientific, strategic, and operational leadership of the Biology Department as well as contributing efforts towards the company’s financing. During his career at Merck & Co., in addition to his R&D role Milenko also served as a Director at Merck’s Innovation Hub where he led search & evaluation efforts for in-licensing/partnership opportunities in Immuno-Oncology, Immunology and Ophthalmology. Milenko’s early R&D career at AstraZeneca spanned a variety of roles including managing teams of scientists and projects within immunology and inflammation therapy areas delivering over 20 clinical development candidate drugs.
Milenko is currently a Visiting Research Fellow at University of Reading, UK where he completed a PhD. in Molecular Pharmacology. Milenko received BSc in Molecular Biology from Kings College, London, UK. Prior to joining the pharmaceutical industry, Milenko was a postdoctoral fellow at the Cancer Research UK.
