Dr. Saurendra Das, M.D.
Country Head and Director of Operations

Dr. Das has over 10 years of experience in coordination of all phases of global and domestic clinical trials. Prior to joining Excel Life Sciences, Dr. Das was personally responsible for establishing two major SMOs and one CRO in India. He has led large clinical operations teams and brought many innovations to the field including strategies, systems and processes for faster enrollment and increased retention. Dr. Das'' vast experience includes designing and reviewing clinical trial related SOPs and WPDs, designing SOPs for Ethics Committees, budgeting for Clinical Trials and setting up Central Pharmacies. He coordinated the clinical trials at the two sites that successfully passed the first US FDA audit in India. As an active trainer, he worked closely with faculty from Harvard Medical International developing a global training program and has personally trained hundreds of pharma, CRO, SMO, Central Lab and Site employees in ICH-GCP. Dr Das has worked on the faculty of the CDSCO, WHO and ICRI. Dr. Das holds an M.D. in clinical pharmacology from M. K. C. G. Medical College in Orissa, India.

Dr. Vijai Kumar, M.D.
President and Chief Medical Officer

Dr. Vijai Kumar joined Excel Life Sciences in 2006. Before joining ELS, Dr. Kumar was President and CEO of a multinational biopharmaceuitical company where he was responsible for starting the concept of site management organizations in Asia. Prior to that, Dr Kumar worked as Medical Director, Sandoz and Regional Director, Asia for The Upjohn Company, where he was responsible for contributing to more than 20 NDA submissions. Dr. Kumar has experience as a clinician, investigator, pharmaceutical physician, consultant and service provider. He has over 34 years experience in Global Drug Development, Strategic Relationship building, Business Development and various other aspects of clinical research and the pharmaceutical industry. He has served as a Member of the expert committee constituted by the Drugs Controller General (India) to develop GCP Guidelines in India and as a member of the Board of Governors for the Institute of Clinical Research, India. Dr Kumar has personally been involved in the conduct of over 200 clinical trials in various therapeutic areas such as, Infectious Disease, Neuropsychiatry, Cardiovascular Disorders, Metabolism and Rheumatology in Asia, Europe and the USA and has presented numerous papers on various aspects of clinical research across the globe. Dr Kumar holds an M.D. in Internal Medicine and an M.B.B.S. from Armed Forces Medical College, Pune.

Dan McDonald
Vice President Business Development

Dan has over 10 years of industry experience working with biopharmaceutical companies assisting them with their patient recruitment and site selection strategies and connecting sites with sponsors. Prior to joining ELS Dan served as Sr. Vice President of Strategic Development for D. Anderson & Company, a leading provider of global patient recruitment and retention services. Dan oversaw the business development team at DAC and was also responsible in helping set strategic direction for the company and developing new products and services.

The majority of Dan’s career in the industry was spent at Thomson CenterWatch, where he worked for nearly 9 years, the last 3 as the General Manager of that business. Dan also had organizational responsibility for Thomson NEIRB, an independent institutional review board. Dan oversaw strategic planning and all day-to-day operations of the CenterWatch business for Thomson Healthcare and also was in charge of Sales and Marketing for Thomson Clinical Trials Solutions. He also oversaw the development and publication of several articles and strategic planning reports focused on the rapid growth of clinical research in emerging markets, primarily India, Central & Eastern Europe and China.

Mr. McDonald has conducted over 40 presentations at industry conferences and meetings, and has conducted workshops and sessions on patient recruitment. He is a member of the DIA Clinical Research Special Interest Area Community. He has been published numerous times in industry trade magazines and journals and has authored chapters in several books on patient recruitment and clinical trial registration.

Mohit Mehrotra
Founder and Chief Operating Officer

Mohit was most recently the General Manager, New Product and Platforms for American Express where he led a global servicing team based out of the US, Canada and India. Previously, he was the Co-Founder and Interim Chief Executive Officer of Workadia. Before Workadia, Mohit had been at American Express for over 10 years, most recently as Vice President in its Interactive Business Development group, where he was the founding member and business leader for Workadia, which was spun off from within American Express. He played a key role in transforming the corporate travel industry from a manual labor-intensive operation to an online, highly automated and efficient environment.

His experience in leveraging process reengineering and resource optimization to reduce operating costs and accelerate product development led him to found Excel Life Sciences, which helps customers accelerate drug development and improves patient care and satisfaction, while lowering costs for pharmaceutical companies, hospitals and medical research organizations. In addition, Mohit also wants to focus on the humanitarian aspect of bringing leading lines of treatment to a patient population that does not necessarily have access to healthcare. This humanitarian aspect is an integral part of the Excel Life Sciences mission. Mohit holds a Bachelor's degree in Business from University of Allahabad, India and a Master of Science from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Sanford Pearlman
Director of Organizational Development and Effectiveness

Sanford has been with Excel Life Sciences since its inception and was responsible for the initial set up of the India operation. Prior to joining ELS, Sanford spent the previous 3 years in India where he was most recently the Manager of Training and Reengineering for American Express Global Corporate Services based in Gurgaon. Prior to that, Sanford spent thirteen years in Human Resources where he was responsible for the design, development and implementation of several global corporate wide and business specific initiatives including the revitalization of the American Express culture after 9/11. Sanford is most passionate about personal and organizational effectiveness and brings tremendous experience as a business process and organizational effectiveness consultant. Sanford's key strength is applying international customer service delivery standards and practices in ascending markets, specifically India. His core focus at ELS is ensuring that the expectations and customer service standards of our global ciients are understood and exceeded.

Carl Scheunemann
Chief Financial Officer

In the last 10 years, Carl has been the senior financial executive of a number of tech start-ups, either as the in-house CFO or a consulting CFO. These firms have been in a range of industries from consulting to software to opto-electronics and healthcare. Previously, Carl had spent over ten years in various financial and strategic roles in the US and Europe at Global 100 manufacturing firms. His roles included merger and acquisition due diligence on several transactions ranging from $10 to $300 million, developing the business case for a number of joint ventures, and subsequently moving two of those joint ventures from start-up to profitability as the financial executive. Carl holds a BA in Economics and an MBA in Finance from the University of Illinois.