DEDICATED TO EXCELLENCE IN CUSTOM SYNTHESIS
James D. Talton, Ph.D., is the President and CEO of Alchem Laboratories Corporation. He also is President of Nanopharmaceutics, Inc., President of Discovery Cure Institute, Inc. (a Florida non-profit Corporation) and serves on the Alumni Advisory Board for the University of Florida Department of Materials Science and Engineering. Prior to joining Alchem, Dr. Talton served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Nanotherapeutics, Inc. for seventeen years. Dr. Talton has developed multiple clinical-stage products as well as NanoFUSE® DBM, a sterile, FDA-cleared (K062459) easy-to-reconstitute bone graft. Leading multiple successful government programs, Dr. Talton has successfully won over $1 billion in contracts with government partners including NIH, DOD, and BARDA. Dr. Talton is an inventor on eleven U.S. patents and has authored several peer-reviewed publications and book chapters involved in drug delivery systems with a primary focus in drug analysis and controlled release formulations, pharmacokinetics, and pulmonary drug delivery. Dr. Talton received his B.S. and M.S. in Materials Science and Engineering and his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Florida.
Judy Talton, MS, ARNP, is the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer at Alchem since 2018. Judy received her MS in Nursing in 2009 from University of Florida. Prior to her career at Alchem, Judy had positions in hospitals, private practice, clinical research, real estate, marketing, and business management.
Steve Vasile, Ph.D. is Alchem’s Director of Discovery overseeing assay development and high throughput screening (HTS). He received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the State University of New York at Buffalo’s Roswell Park Cancer Institute division in 1993. Dr. Vasile has over 25 years of experience in the HTS field, with significant experience with multiple assay formats and with diverse screening laboratory instrumentation and automation. Dr. Vasile was recruited in 2018 from Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute where he was Director of HTS for their Orlando, FL site. Prior to SBP he was at Sugen Inc./Pharmacia/Pfizer. At Sugen his team helped to discover Sutent, an FDA-approved drug for renal cell carcinoma, Gleevec resistant GIST and advanced pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors.
Becky Hood, BA., is Assistant Director of Discovery at Alchem. Her background covers more than 30 years in science with extensive work in the areas of assay development and high throughput screening. Prior to joining Alchem in 2018, Becky worked in the HTS lab at Sanford Burnham Research Institute in Orlando, Florida where she contributed successfully to more than 40 projects developing assays and running screens. Before her work at Sanford Burnham, she worked briefly at Millipore in St. Charles, Mo. where her work yielded two commercial products - Human Immunoglobulin IgE Single Plex Magnetic Bead Kit and the Human Immunoglobulin Isotyping Magnetic Bead Panel. Before her work at Millipore, Becky thrived for 13 years at Pfizer/Pharmacia/Monsanto in Chesterfield, MO developing assays and running high-throughput screens for multiple projects teams. Along with the impact on these project teams, Becky contributed to the community through various outreach programs as well as being recognized as a mentor for junior scientists. Prior to Pfizer, Becky worked on a bacterial dental project at University of Missouri, Kansas City, MO, and on several mammalian viral projects at Saint Louis University in Saint Louis, MO. Her work produced 15 peer reviewed publications.
Dr. Dan Morgan, Director of Analytical Development, has over 25 years of experience in the analytical and pharmaceutical development. He earned a PhD degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1994) in Analytical Chemistry specializing in Mass Spectrometry. He worked for GlaxoSmithKline for 14 years in Research Triangle Park first in development providing NDA support for MDI aerosol products then eventually moving to discovery supporting virology and oncology (1990 to 2004). Dr Morgan joined Bristol-Myers Squibb in Wallingford CT (2004 to 2013) heading up a team of analytical scientist responsible for quantitative data from animal PK studies in neuroscience and virology discovery. While at BMS, he was the co-chair for the Alpha 7 Nicotinic Receptor for cognition. In 2013, Dr Morgan moved back to North Carolina to work for Lorillard Tobacco Co/Fontem Industries where he oversaw the QC department working on Blu e cigarettes. After 3 years, he went to Nicopure Labs as the Director of Quality Assurance. In 2018 he was the Chief Scientific Officer for Botanica Testing, an analytical testing lab for CBD and Hemp products. In 2020 he joined Alchem as the Assistant Director of Analytical Development.
Otto Geoffroy, Ph.D. is Alchem's Director of Research. He is responsible for most laboratory-scale synthetic projects. He received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Tulane University in 1992. Following this he was an NIH post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the Medical University of South Carolina (1992-1994) and a post-doctoral fellow at the Hollings Cancer Center (1995-2000). Dr. Geoffroy joined Alchem in 2001 as a Senior Scientist and Group Leader. He was promoted to Director of Research in 2009.
Sergiy Denysenko, Ph.D. is Alchem's Director of Manufacturing. He oversees the scale-up laboratory and GMP manufacturing projects. Sergiy joined Alchem in 2001 as a Senior Research Scientist and was promoted to Principal Research Scientist in 2004 before becoming Director of Development in 2009. He received his Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry from Moscow State University in 1985. Following this he was Associate Professor at the Ukrainian State University of Chemical Technology (1985-1996) and a Postdoctoral Fellow and Senior Group Leader with Professor Alan Katritzky's research group at the University of Florida (1996-2001).
Vladimir Rudchenko, Ph.D. is Alchem's Technical Director. His extensive background spans more than three decades in research and industry. Dr. Rudchenko joined Alchem in 2001 and provides technical direction to both the Research and the Development groups. His academic credentials include D.Sc. in organic chemistry (Institute of Organic Chemistry, Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Moscow, 1986), Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry (Institute of Organic Chemistry, Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Moscow, 1977), and B.Sc. (with Distinction) in chemical engineering (Institute of Chemical Technology, Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, 1973). Dr. Rudchenko is an author of 13 patents and over 70 publications.
Dr. M. Zhang, Assistant Director, has a broad experience in the synthesis of a large variety of organic compounds. He received his B.S. degree in Chemistry (1989) from Hunan Normal University, Changsha, Hunan, China. M.S degree in Organic Chemistry (1992) from Nankai University, Tianjin, China, and Ph.D. degree in Organic Chemistry (2002) from State University of New York. Dr. M. Zhang joined the staff of Alchem Laboratories in 2006 as a Senior Research Scientists. He has successfully accomplished several projects from varied clients, such as Cerenis, National cancer institute (NCI), Jiva, Exxonmobile, Valspar, Nicobine, Gemphire, etc. He has extensive experience in the investigation of multiple-step syntheses and other organic reactions, expertise in design and synthesis of drug candidates, experience of combinatorial syntheses through extensive study of the literature and methodology. He has strong background in the characterization of new compounds using NMR technique and other spectroscopic methods. Dr. M. Zhang authored sixteen scientific publications and patents.
Dr. Lianhao Zhang received his B.S. degree in chemistry from the Shangdong University in China, M.S. in Organic Chemistry from Northwest University, China and his Ph.D. degree in organic chemistry from University of Florida. Dr. Zhang joined the staff of Alchem Laboratories in 2011 as a Senior Research Scientist. He has been involved in various synthetic projects, including the NCI projects. His recent projects at Alchem include the discovery of a new route to synthesize favipiravir (T-705) for Medivector, Inc. He discovered new synthetic route of 5-Aza-Td-Cyd for National Cancer Institute. The ratio of β:α anomer was increased to 7:1 from 45:55. The yield was increased from 21% to 51% in the key step. This discovery leads to a patent. 80 g of final product 5-Aza-Td-Cyd was prepared for NCI under cGMP conditions. He has also complete kilogram-scale process development to synthesis of BBI-4000 for Brickell Biotech. BBI-4000 is a novel, topical soft-anticholinergic currently undergoing testing in a randomized, double-blind, vehicle-controlled Phase 2b clinical trial in 180 patients with primary axillary (underarm) hyperhidrosis in the U.S.
Dr. G. Huang received his B.S. degree in material chemistry (1991) from University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China, and Ph.D. degree in organic chemistry (1999) from Michigan State University. As a Postdoctoral Research Associate at University of Florida (2000-2002) he revised the structure of naturally occurring petrobactin and synthesized both the reported and the revised compounds. He developed the new methods for synthesis of tetradentate Fe(II) chelators, hexadentate Fe(III) chelators, tridentate desazadesferrithiocins as Fe(II) chelators for iron-overload diseases. He separated geometric isomers of 2-furildioximes. He also synthesized chiral hydroxylated polyamine analogs as antiproliferatives, developed a novel method for both aminated and hydroxylated polyamine analogs. Dr. G. Huang joined the staff of Alchem Laboratories in 2002 as a Senior Research Scientist. He has been involved in various synthetic projects, including the NCI projects. He has proven to be an excellent research chemist. Dr. G. Huang authored sixteen scientific publications and patents.
Dr. Vakulenko joined the staff of Alchem Laboratories in 2016 as a Senior Research Scientist. He has been involved in various synthetic projects, mostly in the NCI projects targeted (Z)-endoxifen manufacturing. He has proven to be an excellent research and scale-up chemist. His professional experience includes very extensive work in synthesis, labelling and characterization of peptides. Dr. Vakulenko authored over 30 scientific publications and patents.
Jing Yang, Ph.D. is Alchem's Director of Quality Control. She received her undergraduate training in analytical chemistry at Shanghai University and a Ph.D in organometallic chemistry from the University of Florida. Joining Alchem in 1999 Dr. Yang was first responsible for API synthesis and process development and was promoted in 2001 to Group Leader for process development and GMP manufacturing of late-stage-experimental products. She was appointed to her current position in 2006.
Masi Rajabi, Ph.D. is Alchem's Director of Drug Product Manufacturing. She joined Alchem in 2016 as a Quality Consultant and brings in two decades of experience as a seasoned Molecular Microbiologist, Quality and Operations lead, Sterility Assurance and Aseptic Processing expert and has served the food, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical industries with their RD/ GMP needs. She received her Ph.D in 2005 from University of Florida and has worked with several start up companies, in addition to partnering with well established and international biopharmaceuticals such as Bausch Health, Nephron, Nanotherapeutics, and ABC Research Corp. She has also been a consultant in the areas of QC and manufacturing space design, set up and expansion projects, training and management, and inspection and audits.
Chris Deigl, M.S., is Alchem's Director of Quality Assurance. Prior to joining Alchem in 2021, Chris enjoyed 16 years at SynQuest Laboratories, Inc., ultimately serving as their Director of Quality. While at SynQuest, Chris worked diligently with internal and external customers to ensure compliance, all while promoting a culture of goodwill and proaction. Chris also built an independent QC lab, served on the Executive Management Team, and implemented an ISO 9001:2015 conforming quality management system. He earned both his B.S. in Chemistry and M.S. in Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Florida.
