About - Tenax Therapeutics

About Tenax Therapeutics

Our Experienced Leadership

Strategy

OUR THREE CORE ELEMENTS

IDENTIFY

We look for clinical-stage therapies with the potential to substantially improve the treatment of patients with serious cardiovascular and pulmonary vascular diseases. Our extensive experience in these fields allows us to distinguish promising treatments with sound scientific rationales that can meaningfully address unmet medical needs. We consider both new chemical entities and strategies to repurpose existing products.

DEVELOP

We understand the science of clinical trials and have a track record for designing, and gaining Regulator support for novel protocol designs. Tenax is bringing precision medicine to cardiopulmonary drug development. This includes mechanistic trials to elucidate a therapy’s pleotropic effects, and novel enrichment strategies that maximize treatment effects, reduce the number of patients needed, and shorten the duration of our trials. We also look to develop novel formulations to improve efficacy and safety and create new intellectual property. Decades of experience working closely with regulatory authorities enables us to craft development strategies with clear pathways to approval.

COMMERCIALIZE

We forge partnerships with established pharmaceutical companies to jointly market our products in the United States and worldwide. While our commercialization efforts can take many forms, our objective is to collaborate with our partners to maximize HCP awareness of, and patient access to, the product innovations we deliver.

MANAGEMENT TEAM:
DECADES OF EXPERIENCE

Our management team has decades of experience leading the development and commercialization of many successful cardiovascular products:

Senior Management

Chris Giordano

Chief Executive Officer

Christopher Giordano has served as CEO and a director on the Tenax board since July 2021. From early 2018 to 2021, he served as President of IQVIA Biotech and IQVIA…

President and Chief Financial Officer

Michael Jebsen joined the Company as our Accounting Manager in April 2009, was elected Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President Finance and Administration in August 2009, and served as Interim…

Chief Medical Officer

Dr. Stuart Rich, joined the Company in 2021 from PHPrecisionMed (PHPM), where he was a co-founder and held the positions of Chief Executive Officer and Director from October 2018 until…

EVP of Commercial and Business Operations

Mr. Randall has 33 years of pharmaceutical executive experience. Prior to joining the company, Mr. Randall co-founded Phyxius Pharma, Inc. in 2011 where he served as the Chief Commercial Officer.…

SVP of Regulatory Affairs

Dr. Douglas Hay has over 30 years pharmaceutical regulatory experience. Prior to joining the company Dr. Hay was a co-founder of Phyxius Pharma, Inc. where he served as Vice President…

Gerald Proehl

Chairman

Gerald Proehl has served as a director since April 2014 and Chairman since June 2021. Currently, Mr. Proehl is a Founder, President, CEO and Director of Dermata Therapeutics, Inc, a…

Chief Executive Officer

Christopher Giordano has served as CEO and a director on the Tenax board since July 2021. From early 2018 to 2021, he served as President of IQVIA Biotech and IQVIA…

Chief Medical Officer

Dr. Stuart Rich, joined the Company in 2021 from PHPrecisionMed (PHPM), where he was a co-founder and held the positions of Chief Executive Officer and Director from October 2018 until…

June Almenoff, MD, PhD

Dr. June Almenoff joined the Board in 2021. Dr. Almenoff is an accomplished biopharma executive with over 20 years of senior leadership experience. She served as President and Chief Medical…

Steven Boyd

Steven Boyd has served on our board since July 2020. He has served since 2012 as the chief investment officer of Armistice Capital, LLC, a long-short equity hedge fund focused…

Michael Davidson, MD

Dr. Michael Davidson joined the Board in 2021. He was the Founder and former Chief Scientific Officer of Corvidia Therapeutics, which was recently acquired by Novo-Nordisk for $2.1 billion. Dr.…

Declan Doogan, MD

Dr. Declan Doogan joined the Board in 2021. He has over 30 years of industry experience in both major pharma and biotech. He was the Senior Vice President and Head…

Keith Maher, MD

Dr. Keith Maher has served on our board since July 2020. Dr. Maher has served as a managing director at Armistice Capital, LLC since 2019. From 2007 to 2018, Dr.…

Daniel Burkhoff, MD, PhD

Dr. Burkhoff obtained Doctor of Philosophy and Medical degrees from The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and completed a fellowship in Cardiology at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. Dr. Burkhoff then moved to Columbia University in the City of New York where he established and ran the Cardiovascular Research Laboratory through 2003 and then took the position of Director of the Jack Skirball Center for Cardiovascular Research of the Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF) through 2005. His focus shifted to development and research of medical devices in his capacity as Medical Director of several startup companies involved in diagnostics and therapies for heart failure. Dr. Burkhoff then returned to CRF as Director of Heart Failure, Hemodynamics and Mechanical Circulatory Support Research. In this capacity, he also directs CRF’s educational program called “TEACH” (Training and Education in Advanced Cardiovascular Hemodynamics). Dr. Burkhoff’s interests include cardiovascular modeling and research in basic and clinical aspects of ventricular mechanics, cardiovascular monitoring, heart failure, device and pharmacologic treatments for heart failure, including left ventricular assist devices. He is also the author of Harvi, an interactive simulation-based application available on the world wide web for teaching and researching many aspects of ventricular mechanics and hemodynamics.

Barry Borlaug, MD

Dr. Borlaug is Professor of Medicine and Director, Circulatory Failure Research, Division of Cardiovascular Diseases, and Chair for Research, Division of Circulatory Failure, Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota. After graduating from medical school at the University of Wisconsin, Dr. Borlaug trained in internal medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts and cardiovascular medicine at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland prior to joining the cardiovascular division of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota where he is currently Associate Professor of Medicine and Director of Circulatory Failure research. Dr. Borlaug’s research interests focus on the pathophysiology, diagnosis and treatment of heart failure, particularly heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, with an emphasis on hemodynamics. He has published over 80 articles in peer reviewed journals on these topics. Dr. Borlaug is an active member of the American College of Cardiology, American Heart Association, Heart Failure Society of America, International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation, and the Society of Cardiac Angiographers and Interventionalists.

Sanjiv Shah, MD

Dr. Sanjiv Shah is the Stone Endowed Professor of Medicine, Director of Research for the Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute, and Director of the HFpEF Program at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. His clinical expertise is in HFpEF, pulmonary hypertension, echocardiography, hemodynamics, and rare cardiomyopathies such as cardiac amyloidosis. Dr. Shah’s research interests include understanding the physiology, mechanisms, epidemiology, and treatment of HFpEF. He started the first dedicated HFpEF clinical program at Northwestern University in 2007 and has been the overall principal investigator or on the steering committee/executive committee of > 25 international HF clinical trials. His research interests also include the study of acquired and genetic risk factors for abnormal cardiac mechanics, and novel machine learning techniques for improved classification and therapeutic targeting for HF syndromes. Dr. Shah is currently the PI of multiple active NIH R01 grants and an AHA Strategically Focused Research Network project grant. Dr. Shah has published over 320 peer-reviewed research publications, and he is an Associate Editor for JAMA Cardiology.