With experienced board and
management and world-class scientific founders and
advisors, Chikujee combines pioneering capability in
the emerging field of Targeted Drug Delivery with
extensive experience in the development of novel
therapeutic agents.
Arkesh Mehta, PhD
Edmund “Morrie” Ruffin, MA
Ravi Kiron, PhD., MBA
Arkesh Mehta, PhD
Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Dr. Arkesh
Mehta,
CEO of Chikujee Therapeutics, will lead the team of
scientists and engineers. Dr. Mehta has more
than 25 years of experience in biotechnology that
spans corporate and academic institutions as well as
regulatory agencies. He was formerly an
Associate Professor at Cornell
University. As CIO for BIO
(Biotechnology Industry Organization), he was
instrumental in forming a Consortium along with IBM,
SUN Microsystems,
Millennium
Pharmaceuticals and Biogen to set data standards for
life sciences. As CEO of CBTEK a biodefense
company, he was instrumental in forming an industry
consortium with General Dynamics, Scienex and
Brimrose Corporation as other founding members for
integrating chem. - Bio defense technologies.
His tenure at FDA involved working within the Office
of the Commissioner, as well as the Office of the
Chief Counsel. He was also associated with the
Office of R&D at US EPA. He has a number of
scientific publications in peer reviewed journals
and has organized domain specific international
meetings. He has also authored number of patents in
bionanotechnology.
Dr. Mehta has been a serial entrepreneur and has
been instrumental in more than a dozen Biotechnology
and bioinformatics company startups and sits on the
advisory boards of number of life science based
companies. As part of Avanti Group of
companies, Dr. Mehta has successfully spun off four
technology based companies, one of which was
acquired by a group of investors within two years of
operations. Avanti NanoSciences (the most
recent spin out) has signed an agreement with the
Governor of Chung-Buk Do Province in South
Korea to move the company to BioTechnopolis in South
Korea, with investments from local South Korean
investors. Chikujee Therapeutics is the fifth
successful spin off from the technology developed by
Dr. Mehta and his colleagues. Over the last few
years Dr. Mehta has been involved in raising more
than $ 25 million in commitments of investments for
the start up companies.
