Development Team and Advisors
Jeff Staffa, PhD
Dr. Staffa was a founder of Essentialis along with Dr. Cowen and Tom Glaze. He functions as a consultant to the pharmaceutical industry. Dr. Staffa served as VP of Regulatory and Scientific Affairs at Knoll Pharmaceutical where he was responsible Responsible for functions of regulatory affairs, pharmaceutical development, clinical, pharmacology, toxicology, pharmacokinetics, and preclinical pharmacology. At Knoll he was responsible for the approval and launch of the Meridia obesity drug. Prior to Knoll, Dr. Staffa served as VP of Corporate Regulatory Affairs at G. D. Searle. Dr. Staffa began his career as a science advisor in the Office of the Commissioner of the FDA.
Richard Bittman, PhD
For the past 5 years Dr. Bittman has been a consultant to the pharmaceutical industry on clinical trial design and analysis, clinical development and strategies and regulatory interactions. For 13 years prior to that, Dr. Bittman functioned in various biostatistics supervisory roles in Pfizer, Pharmacia, Monsanto and Searle, most recently serving as Director of Cardiovascular Statistics at Pfizer.
Khaled Yamout, Senior Director of Chemistry
Mr. Yamout has managed and supervised the discovery, development of efficient synthesis, scaled GMP manufacture, and formulation dev elopement and clinical manufacture of Essentialis' lead drug. For nearly 20 years Mr. Yamout has functioned in scientific and supervisory chemistry roles in a number of companies including Acon Laboratories, Genicon Sciences, Biosite and Syva.
Karl Traul, PhD
For the past 12 years Dr. Traul has served as a toxicology and product safety consultant to the pharmaceutical industry. For a decade prior to that Dr. Traul functioned in various senior management roles in product safety, toxicology and regulatory compliance at American Cyanamid (now part of Wyeth).