Management Team
Yun Yen
Chief Executive Officer (Interim)
Professor Yen graduated with Ph.D. (Pathology and Cell Biology) degree from Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia. He is the Honor Professor and Physician, Medical Oncology, City of Hope National Medical Center, USA; and was the President of Taipei Medical University.
Professor Yen is currently the Chair Professor at graduate institute of Cancer Molecular Biology and Drug Discovery, Taipei Medical University and the Chairman of Tanvex BioPharma, Inc. He also serves as the Director of National Health Research Institutes and several biotechnology companies.
Ming-Tain Lai
Chief Scientific Officer
Dr. Lai has more than 23 years of experience in drug discovery. As Senior Principal Scientist at Merck & Co., Dr. Lai led and directed multiple independent project teams to develop potential clinical candidates. He also acted as a core team member of early development and product development in several clinical studies. During his tenure at Merck, the teams have identified more than 10 preclinical candidates. Several of them are currently in clinical trials. He also received several awards from Merck, Merck Divisional/Staff Area Award in 2007, Special achievement award in 2009, and Merck Research Laboratories Pipeline Award in 2018. The crowing achievements of his career at Merck comes with the approval of an antiviral drug by FDA in 2018. Dr. Lai has had over 69 papers published in peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Lai did post-doctoral study in at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earned his Ph.D. in Bio-Organic Chemistry from University of Minnesota.
Wayne Saville
Chief Medical Officer
Dr. Saville has over thirty years of extensive experience in clinical research, ranging from inpatient care, academic institutions, large pharma, and small biotech. Prior to working with OBI, Dr. Saville held several key leadership roles, including as CMO at Shasqi Inc. from 2020 to 2021, and as VP, Oncology Clinical Development at Xencor Inc. from 2015 to 2020, focusing on bispecific antibody development in oncologic indications. During his tenure at Biogen from 2002 to 2011, Dr. Saville led clinical programs including rituximab (Rituxan), ibritumomab tiuxetan (Zevalin), and natalizumab (Tysabri), as well as several small molecule TKIs.
Dr. Saville received his M.D. from Northwestern University, completed his internal medicine residency at the University of Minnesota, and was a postdoctoral fellow and clinical attending physician at the National Cancer Institute, NIH. He is board-certified in internal medicine and medical oncology.
Frank Chen
Chief Financial Officer
Mr. Chen obtained his master’s degree in Business Administration from National Taiwan University. He currently serves as Vice President, Investment Management Department; Special Assistant to President, Ruentex Group; Chief Financial Officer of OBI Pharma, Inc; the Chairman and CEO of Obigen Pharma, Inc; and is the Director of several companies.
Mitch Che
Chief Operating Officer (USA)
Mitch Che joins OBI Pharma USA Inc. as Chief Operating Officer where he brings over twenty years’ operational and technical expertise spanning the pharmaceutical, telecom, and transportation and logistics industries. Prior to joining OBI Pharma USA Inc., Mitch was Vice President of Facilities, Operations and Procurement for Optimer Pharmaceuticals. Previously, Mitch held positions at AT&T and BP, as well as managing his own executive consulting firm. He is responsible for the development and management of OBI Pharma USA’s operating plans, results, strategic US operations and global IT supporting R&D, clinical and business development plans. Mitch has a B.S. degree in Geochemistry from Brown University and an M.S. degree from the University of California, Berkeley.
Kevin P Poulos
Chief Commercial Officer (USA)
Kevin has over twenty years of senior management experience in various strategic commercial and business development functions both internationally and the United States with Optimer, Wyeth, Rhone-Poulenc Rorer and SmithKline Beecham. Prior to joining OBI Pharma, Inc., he was the President of KPP Biopharmaceutical Commercial Consulting and the Chief Commercial Officer at Optimer Pharmaceuticals. During his career, Kevin oversaw the international and US commercial launches of many innovative pharmaceutical products including Dificid®, Zyvox®, Synercid®, Zagam®, Zosyn®/Tazocin® and Timentin®. He received his B.S. degree in Business Administration from Old Dominion University.
David Hallinan
Global RA VP (USA)
Dr. Hallinan has over 25 years of operational and regulatory affairs experience across a range of therapeutic areas. Prior to joining OBI, David was VP Regulatory Affairs at Idenix Pharmaceuticals, and VP Regulatory Affairs and Quality Assurance at Parexel International. He holds a Ph.D. in Pharmacology and a B.S. in Biochemistry from University College, Dublin, Ireland.