Scientific Advisory Board
Larry Wheeler
Chairman of Scientific Advisory Board | PhD
Dr. Wheeler serves as the Chairman of Allgenesis’ Scientific Advisory Board, where he provides insight in the development of Allgenesis’ compounds. Dr. Wheeler was involved in Discovery research at Allergan for 32 years. He currently is a Research Professor of Ophthalmology at the Moran Eye Center. Areas of interest are Ophthalmic drug discovery and development; Age-related Macular Degeneration; Pharmacology of glaucoma, Dry Eye and neuroprotection.
Dr. Wheeler was Senior Vice-President of Biological Sciences Discovery Research at Allergan, Inc until April 2014. He is a member of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics and the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology. He has authored book chapters and over 110 papers in peer-reviewed journals and awarded over 60 patents in the areas of neuroprotection, pharmacology of alpha-2 receptors, apoptosis and NMDA antagonists. Other research areas are the pharmacology of retina, glaucoma, dry eye, ocular inflammation and neurotoxins.
Dr. Wheeler holds a BS degree from the University of Redlands and an MS and PhD from the Department of Pharmacology, Loma Linda School of Medicine. Dr. Wheeler performed postdoctoral research in the Department of Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School and served as Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of California at Los Angeles and Research Scientist at the Wadsworth VA Hospital.
Janet Cheetham
Scientific Advisory Board Member | PharmD
Dr. Cheetham serves as a Scientific Advisory Board Member. She has more than 30 years of industry experience in ophthalmology drug development including retina, glaucoma, and anterior segment. She currently consults for Foundation Fighting Blindness and both private and public companies. Her last position at Allergan was Vice President, Clinical Development in the Retina Therapeutic Area. She was the project team leader and clinical lead for several compounds from pre-IND to market launch, including anti-VEGF DARPin/abicipar, Dual DARPin, brimonidine DDS, beclomethasone, triamcinolone, memantine and more. The patient populations participating in these studies included neovascular age-related macular degeneration, geographic atrophy, retinal vein occlusion, diabetic macular edema, retinal detachment, non-arteritic ischemic optic neuropathy, retinitis pigmentosa, and glaucomatous optic neuropathy. She was responsible for external collaborations and internal programs.
Dr. Cheetham also served as Vice President of Clinical Operations, growing the group from 12 employees to more than 100 before she returned to the role of project team leader. Dr. Cheetham is a pharmacist by training, earning her Doctor of Pharmacy from University of Southern California. She completed a post-doc fellowship at Doheny Eye Institute in Los Angeles in conjunction with the University of Southern California.
Prof. Minas Coroneo
Scientific Advisory Board Member | AO BSc (Med), MB, BS, MSc Syd, MD MS UNSW, FRACS, FRANZCO, FARVO
Prof. Coroneo joined as a member of Allgenesis’ Scientific Advisory Board in 2021. Prior to that, he has served as the Key Opinion Leader of Allegenesis since 2017. Prof. Coroneo is the current Chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology, the University of New South Wales, at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Sydney, Australia, providing academic and clinical leadership for over 20 years. He has an international reputation from his research in cornea and ocular surface disease, cataract, and anterior segment surgery publishing over 200 papers in leading medical journals.
Prof. Coroneo is considered an authority on the pathogenesis and management of pterygium, and sunlight damage to the eye. He is the inventor of over 30 issued patents including those for VisionBlue and the core patents for a glaucoma microstent (CyPass® by Alcon). He gives regular invited lectures at international meetings including ASCRS and AAO and serves as a consultant for the External Disease and Cornea Section of the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) and is currently the international judge for the ASCRS Film Festival.
Prof. Coroneo received his BSc (Med), MB, BS, and MSc from the University of Sydney and his MD and MS from the University of New South Wales. His community work and contributions to ophthalmology were recognized in 2016 with his appointment as an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO).
Sunil S. Patel
Scientific Advisory Board Member | MD, PhD
Dr. Patel is a board-certified ophthalmologist and has been a practicing Vitreoretinal Surgeon for the past 20+ years in the West Texas and North Texas regions. He is currently the Managing Partner at Ophthalmology Specialist of Texas, PLLC and Abilene Surgery Center; the President of Integrated Clinical Research, LLC; and a Staff Investigator for Strategic Clinical Research Group, LLC. Dr. Patel is a world-renowned retinal specialist, has contributed to the medical field by authoring 30+ publications in ophthalmology, and has participated as a principal investigator or sub-investigator in various retinal clinical trials for leading pharmaceutical companies such as Allergan, Alcon, Boehringer Ingelheim, Genentech-Roche, Graybug, Kodiak, Novartis, Opthea, Chengdu Kanghong, and many others. His area of interests include the applications of novel molecules in the management of retinal degenerative diseases and innovative surgical therapies for the management of retinal diseases such as wet Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) and Diabetic Macular Edema (DME). He has been invited as a guest lecture and made presentations on retinal diseases.
Dr. Patel graduated magna cum laude from UCLA’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. He received his MD from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, where he was the recipient of the Southwestern Medical Foundation Scholarship, and his PhD in Immunology from the University of Texas Southwestern Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. Upon finishing his internship in internal medicine at the Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas, Dr. Patel completed his residency in ophthalmology at the Doheny Eye Institute-Los Angeles County Hospital at the University of Southern California. He holds fellowship training in uveitis, medical, and surgical retina from the Doheny Eye Institute-USC/Los Angeles County Hospital. He also served as a Chief Resident at Los Angeles County Hospital and Clinical Instructor at Doheny Eye Institute/USC School of Medicine.
Kamal Egodage
Scientific Advisory Board Member | PhD
Dr. Egodage is the President of Lasanth® Consulting. He consults/executes biologics full CMC development, regulatory strategy, and health authority interactions from discovery to commercialization including technical due diligence. Dr. Egodage also supports business development, corporate strategy, and fund-raising activities for biotech start-ups. He worked at Novartis (Switzerland) and Symic Bio, Eli Lilly, Pharmacia, and Monsanto in the US for more than 20 years prior to starting consulting in 2017.
Dr. Egodage has supported over 100 products through development, clinical trials, commercialization, and post marketing lifecycle management. He is an experienced executive establishing and managing biologics functional areas including Analytical and Formulation Development, Drug Substance (DS) and Drug Product (DP) Process Development, Quality Control, Bioanalysis, Clinical Production of DS and DP. He was the head of strategy and business development at Novartis Biologics.
Dr. Egodage is a scientific advisory board member of Cairn Therapeutics and an Adjunct Professor at Jefferson Institute for Bioprocessing, Thomas Jefferson University. Kamal obtained his PhD (Hons) from the University of Kansas and completed his drug delivery post-doctoral followship at the Center for Drug Delivery Research at Higuchi Bioscience Center. He has an MBA from Kellogg School of Management (USA) and WHU (Germany) and a BSc (Hons) from University of Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Brian Short
Scientific Advisory Board Member | DVM, PhD, DACVP
Dr. Short is an accomplished nonclinical drug development expert with 35 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, including small molecules, biologics, oligonucleotides, and gene and cell therapy. Previously he was at Allergan as Sr Director of Toxicology and Sr. Director of Pathology and held positions at GlaxoSmithKline (formerly SmithKline Beecham).
Dr. Short a highly skilled toxicologist, board-certified veterinary pathologist and a recognized expert in ocular drug and device development. Since 2016 he has consulted for over 160 ocular projects including extensive experience in designing and implementing nonclinical development plans, including pharmacology, pharmacokinetic and toxicology studies supporting R&D portfolios for ocular drugs or addressing ocular safety issues for systemic drugs. Dr Short provides adroit interpretation and integration of ocular pathology lesions with ophthalmic findings in toxicology reports and provides pathology peer reviews and has authored several seminal publications on this topic.
He is an author and reviewer of regulatory and clinical documents with participation in numerous FDA Pre-IND, IND, Type C, and End-of-Phase 2 meetings and contributions to NDAs for approved drugs for ocular (Lumigan®, Durysta®, iDose®, Restasis®, Alphagan®, Ozurdex®, Trivaris®, Inveltys®, Eysuvis®, Vuity®, Qlosi® and Refresh/Optive®), dermatologic (Rhofade®, Tazorac®, and Aczone®), neurologic and urologic (BOTOX®) and cardiovascular (Giapreza®) indications.
Dr. Short has a DVM from University of California, Davis, completed a Veterinary Pathology Residency from University of Florida, Gainesville, earned a PhD in Experimental Pathology from University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and was a Postdoctoral Trainee at Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology in Research Triangle Park, NC.