Board of Directors

Mr. Williams has more than 40 years of experience in the accounting and finance sector, including 36 years in the public accounting industry and over four years serving on the board of various public and private companies. His public accounting experience includes 18 years as a partner with Ernst & Young, and seven years as a partner with Grant Thornton. With a primary industry focus in the life sciences/healthcare and technology sectors, he served companies involved in the extended care market, acute care market, and roll-up transactions involving physicians, dentists and ambulatory surgery centers while at Ernst & Young. During his time at Grant Thornton, he served as national leader of the life sciences industry sector and managing partner of the San Diego Office. From 2001 to 2014, Mr. Williams served on the board of directors of the San Diego Venture Group, during which time he also served as the group’s President and Chairman. He was also a founding member of the Young VCs of Southern California.

Mr. Williams currently serves on the board of directors of Adhera Therapeutics, Akari Therapeutics, Alphatec Spine, and ImpediMed. He received a Bachelor’s degree in Accountancy from Southern Illinois University and completed the director education and certification program at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Anderson School of Business.

Mr. Finley is an experienced financial executive, having played instrumental roles in raising nearly $1 billion in capital for companies as both an internal Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and an independent investment banker. Prior to joining Palisade Bio (formerly Leading BioSciences) as the company’s CFO, Mr. Finley was the Chief Executive Officer, President and CFO for PointAcross, Inc., a software company providing business messaging and communications services. Mr. Finley previously co-founded Proteus Capital Partners, Inc., a firm specializing in providing financing for a variety of businesses, and was a Principal and CFO at Phillips Capital, a broker/dealer firm specializing in private debt and equity capital raises. During his career, he also served as Executive Vice President and CFO of MetroGolf, Inc., where he successfully completed MetroGolf’s initial public offering and was instrumental in growing the start-up company to over 125 employees. Mr. Finley began his business career as a tax specialist with Deloitte & Haskins and Sells (now Deloitte LLP), and later was co-owner of Mitchell Finley & Company, a full-service accounting firm.

Mr. Finley earned a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Boise State University and a Master’s degree in Taxation from the University of Denver.

Mr. Baltera is a seasoned biopharmaceutical executive, board director and Senior Advisor at Frazier Life Sciences, with more than three decades of experience spanning company leadership, corporate strategy, product development, operations, manufacturing, commercial planning and strategic transactions. He has served as Chief Executive Officer and Board Director of Cirius Therapeutics and currently serves on the Board of Directors of Inipharm. Previously, Mr. Baltera served as Chief Executive Officer of Amira Pharmaceuticals, where he helped advance the company’s pipeline and strategic collaborations prior to its sale to Bristol-Myers Squibb in 2011 for $475 million. He also previously served as Chairman of Mavupharma until its acquisition by AbbVie and served on the boards of Frazier Lifesciences Acquisition Corporation and Imago BioSciences, which was acquired by Merck. Earlier in his career, Mr. Baltera held several senior management positions during a 17-year tenure at Amgen. He brings deep expertise in guiding emerging life sciences companies through company formation, clinical development, operational execution, corporate development, financing and strategic transactions.

Mr. Binxian (Phil) Wei has served on our board of directors since February 2019. He has been the V.P. of Darsheng Trade & Tech. Development Co, Ltd. (a subsidiary to Tianjin Tiayo Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.) since 2015. He is responsible for API and finished dosage marketing for Chinese pharmaceutical companies. From 2008 through 2010, he worked as a business development manager for Sakai Trading.

He holds a Master’s degree in Mathematical & Computer Sciences from Colorado School of Mines, a Master’s and Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from Tianjin University in China.

Dr. Chuang is a pediatric gastroenterologist with nearly 25 years of pharmaceutical and clinical experience spanning large pharma, biotech, therapeutics, medical nutrition, and diagnostics. His expertise spans from preclinical translational medicine through Phase 1-4 clinical development. Notably, his leadership has contributed to multiple drug development programs, including two successful regulatory approvals (NDA/sBLA): infliximab for pediatric Crohn’s disease and lorcaserin for morbid obesity.

Following a successful academic career as an Assistant Professor at both Duke University and the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Chuang transitioned into the pharmaceutical industry, where he has earned a reputation for simplifying complex challenges into actionable development strategies. His work includes significant contributions to programs targeting inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), including infliximab and vedolizumab.

Dr. Chuang currently serves as the Chief Medical Officer at Intrinsic Medicine, a privately held biotechnology company. He also leads Chuang Global Consulting, his independent advisory firm. His prior leadership roles include Head of GI Clinical Development for Nestlé Health Science, Head of GI Translational Research and Early Clinical at Takeda, and Head of GI Precision Medicine at Progenity. Over the course of his career, Dr. Chuang has authored more than 80 peer-reviewed publications, abstracts, and book chapters.

He received his medical degree (MB BS) from the University of Sydney, Australia and completed his pediatrics specialty training (FRACP) in Australia before moving to the United States, where he completed subspecialty training in both pediatric gastroenterology and nutrition.