Benjamin (Ben) Avancena
Business Advisor
Benjamin (Ben) Avancena has been deeply involved with the healthcare domain through his work over the past 23 years. Currently, he serves as CEO and Senior Partner of OneAsia Healthcare Solutions, a healthcare consulting firm focused on helping companies gain access to the Asia market. Prior to this, Mr. Avancena spent time with Johnson & Johnson where he was International Vice-President, North Asia, member of the Johnson & Johnson Medical Asia Pacific Regional Leadership Team, Chairman of the Lifescan Diabetes Care Franchise and Chairman, Johnson & Johnson Asia Pacific Contributions Committee.
Throughout his career working with many globally focused companies, Mr. Avancena has acquired a deep appreciation of diverse cultures, enabling him to easily embrace people and organizations internationally. He has led from the front in all his leadership positions, turning around businesses, building strong organizations with enviable leadership pipelines, developing innovative strategies to enter new markets, and consistently delivering strong business growth.
Additionally, Mr. Avancena co-chaired the Strategic Partnership Program between Johnson & Johnson, the Chinese Ministry of Health and the Chinese State Food & Drug Administration and was a member of the board of Junior Achievement, China, a non-profit organization dedicated to developing and inspiring the youth.
Mr. Avancena earned his B.S. from Lewis & Clark College, and a M.S. in International Management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management.
Tony Blank
Business Advisor
Tony Blank, co-founder of Barton & Blank, a regulatory consulting firm focused on medical devices, previously spent the past 12 years at Boston Scientific in both corporate and business regulatory leadership roles. While at Boston, he led their CRV regulatory teams in obtaining numerous regulatory approvals for Class II & III medical devices and combination products. Mr. Blank also represented the medical device industry and regulatory professionals on numerous policy issues through work with AdvaMed working groups including pediatric devices, advertising and promotion, and reprocessing. Mr. Blank is involved in developing and delivering meaningful educational programs in the field of regulatory affairs, including co-facilitating the recent inaugural Global Regulatory Strategy Summit (sponsored by Medical Device Summit). He will continue to actively participate as a faculty member for the AdvaMed IDE and PMA submissions workshops. In addition to his time at Boston Scientific, Mr. Blank has worked within the cardiopulmonary, surgical, ophthalmic, vascular access and critical care industries.
Mr. Blank recieved his B.S. from Colorado State in Chemical Engineering, with additional graduate studies from the University of California, Berkley.
Phil Deschamps
Business Advisor
Mr. Deschamps offers extensive experience in pharmaceutical and Healthcare commercialization. The depth of his expertise stems from his 25 years in the Health Sciences industry half of which was spent at Bristol Myers Squibb and half on the service side as CEO of GSW Worldwide, a leading healthcare commercialization company. At GSW, Deschamps was President and CEO and was responsible for the GSW Worldwide operations which includes offices in the 15 major markets around the world with a turnover of $160M. He primarily consulted on global marketing and commercialization, new business model development for pharmaceutical, device and diagnostics companies. Before joining GSW Worldwide Deschamps served as director of neuroscience marketing at Bristol- Myers Squibb (BMS) in Princeton, N.J., where he participated on several pre-launch Global Marketing teams in the neuroscience and pain therapeutic areas. He also held several marketing positions in the neuroscience, pain and metabolic therapeutic areas throughout his career.
Mr. Deschamps recieved a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Ottawa, Canada
Dennis Donohoe, M.D.
Business Advisor
Currently, Dr. Donohoe manages a clinical
and regulatory consulting service that reviews medical and
surgical devices as well as device-drug combination
products. Prior
to this he had a long tenure as Johnson & Johnson’s
Worldwide Vice President, heading up various clinical,
regulatory, cardiology, endovascular, and neurovascular
divisions. Among his other accomplishments, he has over 10
years of medical experience in various private and public
settings.
Dr.
Donohoe earned his B.A. with honors from
LaSalle
University, and his M.D. from the
Milton
S.
Hershey
Medical
Center
at
Penn
State
University
.
Robert
O'Holla
Business Advisor
Mr. O’Holla was formerly the Worldwide
Vice President of Regulatory Affairs at Johnson & Johnson.
Mr. O’Holla is a health products executive that has over
thirty years experience, including research and development,
quality and compliance, regulatory affairs, policy
development, and product sterilization. Mr. O’Holla has also
written several publications regarding health products.
Mr. O'Holla received his B.A. from Upsala College, his A.A. from Union
College, and his M.B.A. from Fairleigh Dickinson University.
Michael Rechtiene
Business Advisor
Mr. Rechtiene is a strategic growth leader that builds outstanding growth companies and leadership teams. He has held global medical device leadership positions at Johnson & Johnson including Worldwide President, Animas Corporation and Worldwide General Manager, Therakos Inc. Prior to Therakos he held senior marketing and sales positions at the biotechnology company Centocor and consumer packaged goods leader McNeil Consumer and Specialty Pharmaceuticals. Mr. Rechtiene’s stand for the development of global talent and the shifting of internal mental models has led to radical innovation and unprecedented business and employee engagement improvement results under his leadership. Mr. Rechtiene’s broad academic interests and appointments have included his work as an Advisor to the Center for Global Leadership at the Villanova School of Business and to the SEI Center for Entrepreneurship at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Rechtiene serves as an adjunct faculty member in Marketing at the Wharton School.
Mr. Rechtiene received his undergraduate degree at the Villanova School of Business and his M.B.A. from The Wharton School.
Eric Roth
Business Advisor
Eric Roth is currently a shareholder at Stearns Weaver Miller, a Florida based law firm. Mr. Roth previously served as Assistant General Counsel for Johnson & Johnson and Vice President (Law) for Cordis Corporation.
Mr. Roth regularly counsels clients in the life sciences sector and medical device companies, in particular. He has worked extensively with clients on the development and implementation of healthcare compliance policies and programs and provides clients with training and counseling on topics such as the Anti- Kickback Statute and proper documentation of company interactions with healthcare providers. Mr. Roth has extensive experience in negotiating and documenting clinical trial agreements as well as commercial transactions such as supply, licensing, distribution and strategic alliance agreements with external suppliers, original equipment manufacturers, and strategic partners. He also provides counsel to company management in the areas of corporate compliance, litigation strategy, general commercial matters, pricing and contracting strategies, and product liability issues.
Additionally, Mr. Roth counsels clients on a variety of employment law issues including enforcement of non-competition and non-solicitation agreements, severance and separation agreements, compliance with corporate progressive discipline policies, and discrimination and retaliation claims.
Mr. Roth earned his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and his J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center.
Sandra Thompson
Business Advisor
Ms. Thompson is a business transformation and innovation expert, working on and with executive teams across healthcare, services, technology and consumer products industries. Her experience running internal venture businesses, multiple functional areas, and post-acquisition integrations have consistently lead to breakthrough innovations and business and cultural turnarounds. During her tenure at Johnson & Johnson, Ms. Thompson lead new business ventures for medical device sector in emerging markets, the post-acquisition integration of Animas Corporation into Johnson & Johnson, and strategy and human resources functions at the management board level. Prior to J&J, Ms. Thompson lead the global marketing transformation efforts at Unisys Corporation, Human Resources and IT transformation at Caremark Rx, and built an industry leading integrated technology services business. Ms. Thompson brings a unique blend of human systems expertise, grounded in extensive business leadership success. Ms. Thompson’s results in leadership and culture turnarounds have been recognized as best practices in Training & Development Magazine.
Ms. Thompson undergraduate education is in Psychology and Marketing, and graduate education in Organizational Development and Leadership. She holds master’s certifications in leadership assessments, executive coaching and strategic planning. Ms. Thompson has been a guest lecturer on transformational leadership at leading institutes and Wharton Fellows program.
Marlene Wright Barton
Business Advisor
Marlene Wright Barton is co-founder of Barton & Blank, a regulatory consulting firm focused on medical devices, founded in early 2013 with Tony Blank. Previsouly, Mr. Wright Barton served as
President of Wright Regulatory Consulting, LLC in
Fort Lauderdale,
Florida
where she assists medical device companies in developing and
executing regulatory strategies. She has extensive experience in regulatory affairs
for Class II and Class III medical devices and has been
responsible for worldwide regulatory approvals for
Cardiovascular Class II & III combination productions. Among some of her significant investigational device
exemption (IDE) product approvals are the CYPHER®, the first drug-eluting stent approval for
Japan and CHECKMATE, the first brachytherapy system approval
for the United States. Additional IDE approvals include
products for neurovascular use in the
United States
, which led to premarket approval.
Ms. Wright Barton received her B.S. from the State University of
New York and Graduate Studies in Business from Empire State
College in
New York
.
Dan Walsh
Business Advisor
Mr. Walsh is a member of PA Consulting
Group’s management team in the life sciences and
healthcare practice division. He leads life sciences technology assignments for a
wide range of medical technology, pharmaceutical, and
biotechnology clients. He
specializes in technology strategy and acquisition, medical
device product development, medical device, diagnostic and
pharmaceutical regulatory compliance, quality systems, and
improving the effectiveness of commercial launch of new
medical technologies. He
has access to the broad capabilities of PA Consulting
Group’s global organization. Mr. Walsh has more than 30 years of product
development experience and 20 years in the life sciences
industry, including product development, quality and
clinical affairs roles for Air-Shields Vickers, Johnson
& Johnson IOLAB Site Microsurgical Division, and Moberg
Medical.
Mr. Walsh has
a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and an M.S. in Biomedical
Engineering.
back to top |