Mark Feinberg, M.D., Ph.D., is president and CEO of IAVI where he leads a global team working to advance the development of vaccines and other biomedical innovations to protect against infection with HIV, TB, and other infectious diseases that disproportionately impact low-income countries.
Prior to joining IAVI in late 2015, Feinberg served as chief public health and science officer with Merck Vaccines. In this role, he helped advance the development and global availability of vaccines against rotavirus, human papillomavirus, and other infectious diseases. He also led a range of research initiatives to address unmet health needs in low-income countries including the establishment of the MSD-Wellcome Trust Hilleman Laboratories and the coordination of a private-public partnership to expedite Ebola vaccine development. Previously, he spent more than 20 years exploring HIV/AIDS pathogenesis, treatment, and prevention research and the biology of emerging diseases in both academia and government.
Feinberg holds an M.D. and a Ph.D. from Stanford University, and B.A. degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He pursued post-graduate medical training in internal medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and postdoctoral fellowship training in the laboratory of Dr. David Baltimore at the Whitehead Institute. He has previously served as a faculty member at the University of California, San Francisco and the Emory University School of Medicine and as a medical officer in the Office of AIDS Research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and as a fellow in the Advanced Leadership Initiative at Harvard University.
Feinberg is a fellow of the American College of Physicians and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Association of American Physicians. He served as the chair of the Interim Scientific Advisory Committee of the Collaboration for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and currently serves as a member of the CEPI Joint Coordinating Group.
Kara Bickham, M.D., is responsible for defining and overseeing execution across all aspects of product development for IAVI.
Prior to joining IAVI, Bickham was vice president of vaccine clinical research and development at Pfizer where she was responsible for overall pipeline strategy, product delivery, and life cycle management for the Prevnar pneumococcal vaccine portfolio. Additionally, she served as franchise lead for the GBS6 vaccine, a six-valent Group B streptococcal vaccine being developed for low- and middle-income countries in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Prior to that, Bickham was the chief medical officer at Affinivax, a clinical stage biotech acquired by GSK, with responsibilities for the overall pipeline strategy and execution. Bickham also held several roles at Merck Vaccines, where among other responsibilities, she led the Vaxneuvance pediatric program team and the Zostavax product development team.
Bickham holds a B.S. from Texas Christian University and M.D. from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. She pursued post-graduate training in pediatric infectious diseases at Weill Cornell Medical College and a postdoctoral fellowship in Ralph Steinman’s laboratory at The Rockefeller University.
Kundai Chinyenze, M.D., MPH, leads the ADVANCE and Africa teams to improve the systems and governance of ADVANCE, strengthen IAVI’s East Africa office, and enhance connectivity across all IAVI activities in Africa. Chinyenze also leads the identification and maximization of additional sources of funding to ensure the long-term sustainability of ADVANCE’s work in Africa.
Chinyenze has more than 18 years of work experience in East and Southern Africa, including 16 years in clinical HIV/AIDS care, program management, and HIV prevention research. Her expertise spans clinical trial safety monitoring in HIV vaccine and antibody trials, design and implementation of epidemiologic and clinical trials, and development of health programs in primary health care and HIV/AIDS. She also possesses extensive experience in HIV Vaccine R&D and has worked with multiple collaborators in HIV research in Africa and Europe.
Chinyenze holds an MBChB from the University of Zimbabwe and an MPH from the University of Leeds, among other professional trainings. In 2010, Chinyenze received the Leeds University John Griffith Prize for distinctive work in public health.
Min Ding provides leadership on legal affairs, business development, intellectual property, and risk management at IAVI. He advises the board of directors, CEO, COO, and other senior management team members on governance and strategy, and is responsible for all legal matters at IAVI, including structuring and negotiating IAVI’s collaborations with academic, industry, and public sector partners to ensure that products developed will be globally accessible and affordable.
Prior to joining IAVI, Ding practiced law for 20 years in law firms and pharmaceutical companies, building tremendous relevant experience and a strong set of core legal capabilities. Most recently, he spent eight years at The Medicines Company (later acquired by Novartis), a specialty pharmaceutical company, with increasing responsibilities and most recently as Vice President, Innovation Leader and Corporate Counsel.
Min earned an undergraduate degree from Beijing University, a Ph.D. in microbiology and molecular genetics from the University of Vermont, and J.D. from Columbia University.
Mario Gagliano is responsible for driving IAVI’s strategic human resources (HR) management and global people strategy, while overseeing the areas of Information Technology, Communications, Business Development, and IAVI’s India Operations. As a member of IAVI’s Executive Leadership Team, Gagliano guides the HR team to ensure that IAVI is a place where colleagues can excel to accomplish our mission. He oversees the planning and execution of human resources operations and provides strategic direction specific to leadership development, employee relations, compensation, benefits, culture, and organizational design.
Prior to joining IAVI, Gagliano was Vice President, HR U.S. Commercial Operations and Global Diagnostics at Zoetis, Inc, the world’s largest animal health company. Before this, he worked at Pfizer, Inc. for nearly 19 years. During his time at Pfizer, Gagliano held HR leadership roles supporting commercial operations, manufacturing, and corporate functions throughout their global businesses, most recently as the Vice President, HR Business Partner, Emerging Markets.
Gagliano holds an MBA from Monmouth University and a B.S. in psychology and business from Ithaca College.
Swati Gupta, DrPH, MPH, leads IAVI’s emerging infectious disease product portfolio and the organization’s epidemiology work. She has a particular focus in leveraging IAVI’s recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus (rVSV) platform and expertise to expand product development efforts beyond HIV, including leading the vaccine development programs for other emerging infectious diseases such as Lassa Fever and Marburg.
Previously, Gupta was an executive director with Merck Vaccines, where she worked on the development of innovative partnership models to address cross-cutting issues related to vaccine science and technology. As part of this role, she worked with key external stakeholders to facilitate accelerated Ebola vaccine development efforts to enhance preparedness for the ongoing public health crisis and for potential future outbreaks.
From 2000 to 2014, Gupta was in the Department of Epidemiology at Merck Research Laboratories where she led a number international, prospective cohort studies in support of vaccine and infectious disease products in development, including research on diseases such as HIV, HPV, influenza, dengue, and C.difficile. From 1998 to 2000, Gupta worked as a scientist in HIV Surveillance at the Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre (British equivalent of the U.S. CDC) in the U.K. She has also worked at the Bureau of Tuberculosis Control at the New York City Department of Health.
Gupta holds a doctorate in epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a Master of Public Health in infectious disease epidemiology from Yale University School of Medicine.
Jon Heinrichs leads IAVI’s discovery science efforts. In this role, he oversees activities at IAVI’s research laboratories in Brooklyn, NY; La Jolla, CA; and Faridibad, India, working with the teams to set strategic and operational direction and ensuring seamless collaboration across the facilities. He is also responsible for driving the discovery research strategy for IAVI in collaboration with the executive team and the disease area leads.
Heinrichs has had a distinguished career in vaccine R&D, with thirty years of experience at leading biopharmaceutical companies, including Sanofi Pasteur, Merck, and MedImmune (now part of AstraZeneca). Most recently he served as global head of innovation and emerging sciences at Sanofi and led development of the monoclonal antibody nirsevimab (Beyfortus), now licensed for the prevention of RSV disease in infants.
Heinrichs earned his Ph.D. and M.S. in microbiology and molecular genetics from Rutgers University and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in the Laboratory of Bacterial Pathogenesis and Immunology at The Rockefeller University in New York.
Shelly Malhotra leads the effort to ensure future access to IAVI’s innovations and crafts external engagement and resource mobilization strategies to support IAVI’s core mission. She drives external affairs for fundraising, advocacy and policy, and stakeholder engagement and is the architect of IAVI’s efforts to ensure the affordability, availability, acceptability, and broad adoption of vaccine and therapeutic candidates.
Malhotra has worked in global health for two decades, with a focus on harnessing public-private partnerships to support access to innovations for the past 18 years. Previously, as the director of market access at TB Alliance, she oversaw launch planning and introduction for an innovative product development partnership for pediatric and adult TB regimens, including overseeing technical partnerships spanning 20+ high-burden countries to support introduction. Prior to her work with TB Alliance, Malhotra lived and worked in Cambodia, Thailand, and throughout the Asia Pacific region, where she led a range of global health, research, and capacity-strengthening initiatives with organizations including Hope Worldwide, AmeriCares, and the UN Special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery.
Malhotra holds a B.A. from Brown University and a Master’s degree and doctoral candidacy in sociology from University of California, Berkeley.
Brandon Saft manages IAVI’s financial operations, supervising global financial planning and forecasting, grants and contracts, and audit and compliance.
Saft brings over 20 years of senior finance experience in companies developing drug therapies and conducting clinical trials. Before joining IAVI, he served as senior director of finance at Carisma Therapeutics, a cell therapy company focused on oncology. Prior to that, Saft held senior roles at Aspen Pharmacare, Allergan, and Merck.
Saft holds an MBA in finance from the Goizueta School of Business at Emory University and a B.S. in accounting from Penn State University.