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.

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