Who We Are

Structure

Galactica operates as a virtual company. Operating in this manner, we have access to first-rate academic collaborators and consultants covering every functional area, while fully leveraging the capital invested in the Company.

Management

Lawrence B. Brown, CEO

Since founding Galactica in 2005, Lawrence Brown has served as CEO of the Company. Mr. Brown is a senior pharmaceutical/biopharmaceutical executive with more than 33 years of senior management, drug development, business development, strategic planning, corporate finance and legal experience. Since November 2004, Mr. Brown also has served as a consultant to the pharmaceutical/biopharmaceutical industries. From October 1998 until October 2004, Mr. Brown served as Vice President, Business Development of Savient Pharmaceuticals, Inc., where he served on the Management Committee. Prior to joining Savient, Mr. Brown was employed by Centocor, Inc. in various capacities from April 1987 until October 1998, most recently as Director, Business Development from September 1994 until October 1998. During part of his tenure as Director, Business Development, Mr. Brown served on Centocor’s Pharmaceutical Management Committee. Mr. Brown earned a BA from Columbia University in 1979, a JD from the University of Miami School of Law in 1982 and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in 1986.

Key Collaborators

Ronald P. Danis, MD

Dr. Danis co-founded EyeKor, Inc., an ophthalmic clinical trial data management and hosting service, in 2012 and serves as Chief Science Officer. Dr. Danis is also Professor Emeritus of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, whose faculty he joined in 2003. He was Director of the University of Wisconsin Fundus Photograph Reading Center (FPRC) for over 10 years and continues to be a practicing retina specialist. Previously, Dr. Danis was an academic faculty member at Indiana University School of Medicine and Director of the Retinal Service for 14 years, from 1989 until 2003, where he performed laboratory and clinical research and maintained a clinical and surgical retina practice. Dr. Danis has served as Principal Investigator on more than 30 industry and federally funded multi-center clinical trials. His main interests include retinal imaging and design and conduct of clinical trials. He is author of over 165 papers in the peer-reviewed medical literature. Dr. Danis has been awarded the Honor Award by the American Association of Retina Specialists, the Honor Award and Senior Achievement Award by the American Academy of Ophthalmology and is a Fellow of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology. He also is a member of the Diabetic Retinopathy Clinical Research (DRCR) Network. Dr. Danis earned a BA from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1978 and an MD from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in 1983.

Timothy S. Kern, PhD

Since 2018, Dr. Kern has served as Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine, Irvine, California. From 1997 until 2018, Dr. Kern served as Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. From 1999 until 2018, Dr. Kern also served as Research Pathologist at the Louis Stokes Cleveland Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Cleveland, Ohio. The objective of the research conducted in Dr. Kern’s laboratory is to develop novel therapeutic approaches to inhibit lesions that are critical in diabetic retinopathy. Studies in his lab encompass diabetes-induced alterations in retinal structure, function and metabolism to understand the pathogenesis of the retinopathy, but a major focus also has been on development of therapeutic approaches to inhibit the retinopathy. Over the past decades, Dr. Kern’s laboratory has identified and studied more than 15 molecular steps at which to inhibit early stages of diabetic retinopathy in animal models, which together suggest an important role for inflammatory processes in the pathogenesis of diabetic retinopathy. Dr. Kern is author of numerous papers in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. Dr. Kern has been recognized as a Gold Fellow of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology and is the recipient of the Veteran’s Administration Research Career Scientist award. Dr. Kern earned a BS in 1973 and a PhD in 1980 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Renu A. Kowluru, PhD

Dr. Kowluru is a Professor and Director of Translational Research in the Department of Ophthalmology, Visual and Anatomical Sciences, and a Professor in the Division of Endocrinology, at Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan. Dr. Kowluru’s research interests include understanding the pathogenesis of diabetic retinopathy and investigating the role of epigenetic modifications in mitochondrial homeostasis. Dr. Kowluru has published over 170 papers in the peer-reviewed scientific journals. In 2011, she was inducted in the Wayne State University’s ‘Academy of Scholars’. Dr. Kowluru is a member of the National Eye Advisory Committee of the National Institutes of Health, and of the Eye Health Interest Group Leadership team of the American Diabetes Association. Dr. Kowluru has been recognized as a Gold Fellow of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology.

Contract Manufacturer

Catalent Biologics (Madison, WI) serves as Galactica’s contract manufacturer.