Our Story: The Vision of a Veteran
PoD was conceptualized by the co-founder, Geoff Ling, M.D., Ph.D. while he was serving as a Lt. Col. in the U.S. Army. While Dr. Ling was deployed at a combat hospital in Afghanistan, a wounded American soldier needed a life-saving treatment that wasn’t available onsite. They had to have it flown in from Ramstein Air Base in Germany. Dr. Ling’s frustration turned to inspiration when he realized he could have made the drug himself with some simple starting ingredients. That idea was realized through work at MIT funded by DARPA. Dr. Ling co-founded On Demand Pharmaceuticals to move PoD to commercialization and bring this much-needed technology to the world.
This is a true ‘Made in America’ end-to-end solution that eliminates our Nation’s dependency on other countries for critical life-saving medicines.
ODP Leadership
Executive Team
COL USA (r) Geoff Ling, MD, PhD Founder and CEO
Neuro-intensive care physician and Professor at Johns Hopkins Hospital, former founding Director of the Biological Technologies Office at DARPA.
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In addition to his role as CEO at On Demand Pharmaceuticals, Dr. Ling is a Professor of Neurology and Attending Neuro-Critical Care Physician at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions; a Professor of Neurology, Director of the Neurotrauma Laboratory, and the founder of the Center for Military Clinical Neurosciences at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Science (USUHS). He is Vice-Chair of Research in the Department of Clinical Neurosciences at Inova Fairfax Medical Center, Fairfax, VA, where he provides leadership for the research programs in neurosurgery, neurology and physical medicine rehabilitation. He was the founding Director of the Biological Technologies Office at Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). He earned his PhD in Pharmacology at Cornell University Graduate School of Medical Sciences, and his MD at Georgetown University School of Medicine.
Tyler McQuade, PhD
Chief Innovation Officer
Organic chemist, former Program Manager and Deputy Director of the Defense Sciences Office at DARPA and professor at Cornell and VCU.
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As a Cornell professor under a small DARPA grant, Dr. McQuade synthesized ibuprofen using continuous flow chemistry. This was the science that showed creating a PoD platform was possible and thus was the basis of the DARPA PoD project. He was a DARPA PM who oversaw the PoD project. He previously served as Chief Technology Officer for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-funded Medicines for All Institute in Richmond, VA, and as a professor of both chemistry and chemical engineering at numerous universities. Dr. McQuade earned his PhD in Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin and completed his post-doctorate research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as an NIH Post-Doctoral Fellow.
Naomi Briggs, PhD
VP of Drug Substance Purification PhD from the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK, Postdoctoral Associate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, former Lead Engineer at Alkermes.
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Dr. Briggs earned a MSc in Forensic and Analytical Chemistry and a PhD in continuous crystallization design for polymorph control during pilot scale operations. She worked on the purification and formulation PoD modules as a senior postdoc at MIT under the guidance of Prof A. Meyerson. Dr. Briggs has industrial pharmaceutical expertise with former roles in a cGMP pharmaceutical analysis lab and as a Lead Engineer at Alkermes Inc., where she led process development and technology transfer activities to large scale manufacturing sites in addition to supporting documentation for an NDA filing. Dr. Briggs has been involved with the PoD project for 4 years and is the purification lead, directing both process and equipment optimization activities. She was involved with operation and purification activities of the second purification PoD prototype module working on 4 APIs at that time. She transitioned to the primary process engineer and enabled the design and build of the generation three prototype of the purification module and led in purification process development activities of a further 7 APIs. Dr. Briggs has worked on 11 of the 16 APIs the in ODP portfolio.
John Lewin, PharmD, MBA
CMO and Plank Holder
Chief Pharmacist for the Johns Hopkins Critical Care & Surgery Pharmacy and Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins.
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Dr. Lewin has worked on the Pharmacy on Demand platform for over 7 years. He is currently the principal investigator for ODP’s DARPA-funded Ciprofloxacin and AMPoD projects. Dr. Lewin is an associate professor of anesthesiology & critical care medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and maintains a part-time clinical practice in the neurosciences critical care unit at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. Prior to joining ODP, Dr. Lewin was the chief pharmacist for the Johns Hopkins critical care & surgery pharmacy for 11 years, with overall responsibility for the department’s clinical and operational activities, clinical research, drug supply chain/procurement and management functions. Dr. Lewin earned his PharmD degree from the Temple University School of Pharmacy, Philadelphia PA, his MBA from the Johns Hopkins University Carey School of Business, Baltimore, MD, and completed a PGY1 and PGY2 critical care residency at the Medical University of South Carolina.
Andrew Bryon
COO and Plank Holder
Former DARPA Biological Technologies Office, Senior Business and Finance Manager.
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Mr. Byron has been with the PoD project since its inception at DARPA. He previously served as the DARPA Biological Technologies Office senior Business and Finance Manager with direct oversight of over $200M/year in government contracts. Mr. Byron has managed all of the PoD related contracts since the beginning of the program through its transition to ODP and continuing today. Mr. Bryon earned his BA in Political Science from American University, Washington DC.
Kari Stoever
Chief External Relations Officer
Global Health and Development Expert. Former RN, BS Clinical Research George Washington University, Master’s in Leadership McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University.
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Ms. Stoever is a results-oriented social entrepreneur with 20 years of global strategy, fundraising and leadership experience with non-profit, medical research & treatment organizations. She launched numerous global initiatives and liaised with government leaders to create new legislation and increase financial commitments, grants and contracts, and worked as a principal liaison with civil society and patient advocacy groups. Ms. Stoever most recently served as CERO at Lieber Institute for Brain Development, where she developed all areas of external relations including fundraising, business development, marketing, strategy and innovation-oriented partnerships.
Eugene Choi, PhD
CTO and Plank Holder
Process chemical and biomedical engineer, former subject matter expert at DARPA and Executive Director of the Medicines for All Institute.
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Dr. Choi has been with the PoD project since its inception at DARPA, where he led the government technical oversight team for the PoD and Bio-MOD projects. Dr. Choi was directly involved in the chemical synthesis development for all 16 APIs that PoD has made, and in the design and build of the 4 PoD modules. He launched the Medicines for All Institute in 2017 to improve access to affordable medicines by developing lower-cost chemical processes for active pharmaceutical ingredients. As Medicines for All’s Executive Director, he defined organizational priorities, lead strategic direction, and positioned the institute as a sustainable entity. Dr. Choi earned his PhD in Polymer Science from the University of Akron.
Luke Rogers, PhD
VP of Chemical SynthesisPhD from Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, Postdoctoral Associate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, former Process Chemist at Merck & co.
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Dr. Rogers received his degree in Medicinal Chemistry from Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. He completed his PhD research in Trinity College on the synthesis and biomedical applications of Tetrapyrroles. After obtaining his PhD, Dr. Rogers worked within Merck’s Manufacturing Division as a process development chemist working on the successful commercialization of a large-scale cGMP flow chemistry process step. From there he transitioned to a leadership position at MIT to work on the Pharmacy on Demand initiative under Prof. Klavs Jensen. This work involved the development, optimization, and integration of miniaturized continuous manufacturing processes for the production of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients. After the successful demonstration of the manufacturing capabilities of such systems, he then transitioned to his current role where he is helping lead efforts towards a regulatory submission of a new manufacturing process for Ciprofloxacin on the Pharmacy on Demand platforms.
Board of Directors
David A. Steinberg
Co-Founder and Chairman, CEO of Zeta
COL USA (r) Geoff Ling, MD, PhD
Founder and CEO
John Sculley
Co-Founder of Zeta Global, former CEO of Pepsi and Apple
William Landman
Co-Founder of MainLine Investment
Robert Niehaus
Founder of GCP Capital
Scientific Advisors
Allan Myerson, PhD
Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Chemical Engineering
Klavs Jensen, PhD
Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Chemical Engineering
Tim Jamison, PhD
Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Chemistry
Andrea Adamo, PhD
Founder and CEO of Zaiput Flow Technologies
Peter Haaland, PhD
Founding General Partner of InnerProduct Partners
Jon Mogford, PhD
Vice Chancellor for Research for Texas A&M University
Michael Callahan, MD, DTM&H, MSPH
President, United Therapeutics Division of Cellular Therapeutics; Associate Physician, Division of Infectious Diseases, Mass General Hospital
Govind Rao, PhD
Professor, UMBC Chemical & Biochemical Engineering
COMPANY ADVISORS
Jay Bapna
Former Senior VP of Global Manufacturing, Allergan
Leo Christodoulou
Former Director of Structures and Materials, Enterprise Operations and Technology, Boeing
Mick Maher, Former Chief of Composites and Materials, Army Research Labs, former Manufacturing Engineer, Martin Marietta and former Master Planner, Middle River Aviation
Craig Odell “Chip” Bailey, Jr., Currently Managing Member, Mandeville Advisors, LLC; Former Executive Vice President, NWQ Investment Management Company, LLC; Former Founder and Managing Member, Westbourne Capital Management, LLC; Former Managing Director, TCW Group, Inc.
Investors
Michael Milken
Founder of the Milken Institute
Fred Wilson
Co-Founder of Union Square Ventures
Richard Merkin, MD
CEO of Heritage Group
Karen Ling
Executive VP at AIG
