Company Overview
NeuroSigma is a Los Angeles, California-based bioelectronic medical device company developing technologies to transform medical practice and patients' lives. The company is commercializing the Monarch eTNS System, which is the first non-drug treatment for pediatric ADHD cleared by the FDA. Pipeline indications for the Monarch and NeuroSigma's TNS platform include a wide spectrum of neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders, such as ADHD, drug-resistant epilepsy, and depression.
NEUROSIGMA TEAM
NeuroSigma's leadership is made up of experts in business management and the healthcare industry. Together they provide extensive experience gained through years of creating and guiding successful companies and innovative medical research.
Colin P. Kealey, M.D
President & CEO
Dr. Kealey has served as NeuroSigma's CEO since January of 2022. Dr. Kealey has been with NeuroSigma since 2011, having previously served as our President, Vice President of Advanced Development and Medical Affairs, and Manager of Business Development. In these roles, Dr. Kealey spearheaded NeuroSigma's regulatory submissions that ultimately led to FDA clearance of the Monarch eTNS System for pediatric ADHD. He also helped introduce eTNS to major academic centers and clinics throughout the United States, European Union and Canada. In these roles he interfaced with key opinion leaders in the field to convey the science behind eTNS and how it may fit into their current clinical practice. During his time at NeuroSigma Dr. Kealey has been a principal investigator on three National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants and is coauthor on 17 peer reviewed publications and three book chapters. He is also an inventor on 12 issued and pending U.S. patents. Prior to joining NeuroSigma, Dr. Kealey was a resident physician in the UCLA Department of Surgery from 2007 to 2011. During his time at UCLA, Dr. Kealey was responsible for all aspects of the care of surgical patients ranging from outpatient procedures to critically ill patients in the intensive care unit. From 2009 to 2011, Dr. Kealey completed a post-doctoral research program at UCLA's Center for Advanced Surgical and Interventional Technology (CASIT) where he performed research and development on novel medical devices.
Dr. Kealey earned his B.S. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Wisconsin – Madison and his M.D. from the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine.
Ian A. Cook, M.D.
SENIOR VICE-PRESIDENT AND CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER
Dr. Cook has been our Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President since January 2014, previously having served as a medical advisor to the Company since 2009. An inventor of trigeminal nerve stimulation, he brings a track record of innovation in the use of technology in the management of brain disorders as well as of translational research in treatment development. Formerly the Miller Professor of Psychiatry and of Bioengineering at UCLA, he received years of NIH and industry research support for work on biomarker and treatment development, and founded the rTMS Treatment Service at UCLA. Before joining the Company, he served as Chief of Staff at the UCLA Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Chair of the Faculty at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, member of the ACO Governing Board for UCLA Health, and a standing member of the NIH's ITVA Integrated Review Group.
Dr. Cook earned his BSE in Bioengineering / Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Princeton University and his MD from Yale University. He completed his residency training and research fellowship at UCLA before joining the faculty in 1995. He holds ABPN board certification in Psychiatry, was elected a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, and is a Fellow of the International College of Neuropsychopharmacology. He is an author of over 115 peer-reviewed original research articles and several dozen review articles, monographs, and book chapters.
Charles W. Winckler
Chief Financial Officer
Mr. Winckler brings over 18 years of industry experience in venture backed technology companies. Prior to his current role at NeuroSigma, Mr. Winckler held the position of CFO, and he has recently held the position of CFO and/or Senior Financial Advisor at US Seismic Systems, Inc., PBS Biotech, Inc., DevZuz Holdings, Inc.; Greenplum, Inc.; Vativ Technologies, Inc.; Litex, Inc.; and Sabeus, Inc. In addition, Mr. Winckler has represented start-up companies in various mergers and acquisitions deals. Prior to his involvement with venture backed technology companies, Mr. Winckler was a manager with Ernst & Young LLP's financial advisory services practice. During his four years in the financial advisory services practice, he participated in a number of engagements in the manufacturing, high-tech and media/entertainment industries and gained significant exposure to issues regarding M&A due diligence, business valuation, bankruptcy proceedings, litigation support, as well as financial and operational matters. Before joining Ernst & Young LLP's Financial Advisory Services Group, he spent over two years in Ernst & Young's information, communications and entertainment audit practice where his clients ranged from start-up ventures to major public companies with SEC reporting requirements. Mr. Winckler also served as Co-Chairman of This Little Light, a support organization for the Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery division at Children's Hospital Los Angeles.
Mr. Winckler received his B.A. in business economics from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1990, and his masters of accounting, with a concentration in consulting, from the University of Southern California in 1991.
Vikas Gupta
Director of Engineering
Mr. Gupta has served as NeuroSigma’s Director of Engineering since April 2015. Prior to working with NeuroSigma, he founded SelfEx Solutions, a Nitinol medical device consultancy that provided engineering services to start-ups for the design and development of Nitinol-based medical devices. Specifically, he provided their engineering teams guidance on the selection of materials, the design and processing of Nitinol-based medical devices, and on prototyping and development of the fully-assembled system to complete all the testing through to pre-clinicals. Prior to this, he served as the Manager of Advanced Research and Development at Penumbra, Inc., a leading neurovascular device company. During his time at Penumbra, Mr. Gupta led the engineering effort for a number of neurovascular devices, including the Penumbra Stroke System and the Separator-3D stentriever device, both of which have received FDA approval. Prior to Penumbra, from 1997 to 2004, Mr. Gupta worked at TiNi Alloy Co. with Dr. David Johnson where he helped develop some of the techniques currently used by NeuroSigma to fabricate its Thin Film Nitinol technology. While at TiNi Alloy Co., he also collaborated with SMART Therapeutics, Inc. in the development of the first neurovascular stent, Neuroform, which is used for the treatment of the aneurysms in the brain.
Mr. Gupta has a BSc in Physics from the University of Rajasthan, India as well as Masters Degrees in Physics from the Indian Institute of Technology at Delhi, in Electronics from the Queen’s University in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and in Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) from Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada.
Patrick Miller
Director of Operations
Mr. Miller has served as Clinical Research Administrator for clinical trials conducted at the University of California, Los Angeles exploring therapies for epilepsy and depression. He has worked closely with Drs. Christopher DeGiorgio and Ian Cook in the development of Trigeminal Nerve Stimulation (TNS) and, in collaboration with Dr. DeGiorgio, has helped develop new tools and biomarkers for determining the risk in Sudden Unexplained Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP).
Mr. Miller received a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Irvine and an MFA from the University of California, San Diego.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Tom Paschall
Tom Paschall is CEO and Founder of Checkmate Capital, a multi- family office investment and cross-border advisory group with offices in Pasadena, Seoul, Chengdu and Dubai. Checkmate Capital owns several companies in diverse industries, maintains a self-managed venture investment portfolio and has a robust strategic and cross-border advisory practice representing large multinational companies as well as small to mid-size public and private enterprises in life sciences, medical technologies, agricultural technologies and energy technologies. Prior to Checkmate, Mr. Paschall was Co-Founder, Executive Director and principal of Coronal Energy by Panasonic™, a leading renewable energy fund in North America with over $600 million of assets. The Coronal-Panasonic platform was developed from 2012-2017 and successfully monetized at a 24x return on principal capital from 2018-2020. Mr. Paschall serves on the Boards of Directors and Advisory Boards of numerous companies in life sciences, ag- tech and energy tech. Prior to Checkmate and Coronal Energy, Mr. Paschall was senior transactional counsel in the Global Corporate and Project Finance Groups of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP, a leading international New York-based law firm with offices in major financial centers worldwide. Mr. Paschall is experienced in a variety of financial transactions including mergers and acquisitions of public and private companies, joint ventures, non-recourse project lending, secured lending, project finance and infrastructure transactions generally.
Sherri L. Cook, Esq.
Ms. Cook joined the NeuroSigma, Inc. board of directors in November 2019. Ms. Cook is an attorney with 24 years of experience including 5 years serving as Assistant General Counsel for Global Crossing Ltd., a publicly traded company, and 9 years of litigation experience appearing before both California state and federal courts. Since 2010 Ms. Cook has served as General Counsel for The Weddington Co., a privately held investment company. In providing legal support to her father, Mr. Lodwrick Cook, NeuroSigma’s Chairman from 2010 to 2019 and now its Chairman Emeritus, Ms. Cook was involved with NeuroSigma in an unofficial capacity for 10 years. Ms. Cook also serves on the board of NeuroSigma’s affiliated company Monarch Biosciences, Inc.
Randolph Moity
Randolph (Randy) Moity is an experienced senior executive in the oil and gas industry. Early in his career Mr. Moity founded and managed the Workover and Completion fluids division for NL Baroid and quickly grew the product line to over $15 million in profits. He subsequently left NL Baroid to found AMBAR (American Brine and Rental Equipment), a provider of High Density Brines, Drilling Mud, and Environmental clean-up services for the offshore oil and gas industry. In 1989, Mr. Moity spearheaded AMBAR’s acquisition of the Dowell Schlumberger’s Fluids Division, and quickly grew AMBAR’s revenue to $25 million annually. In 1991 he led AMBAR’s IPO on the NASDAQ, and the company was eventually acquired by the Beacon Group in 1996 when annual revenues were in excess of $100 million. Mr. Moity received his undergraduate degree in pre-medical from Louisiana State University and his MBA from Southern Methodist University. Mr. Moity has taken several leadership roles on LSU’s Tiger Athletic Foundation and is also an accomplished pilot with over 10,000 hours of logged flight time.
Kirk Calhoun
Mr. Calhoun has a background in auditing and accounting, and has served as a Director of the Company since 2014. Mr. Calhoun joined Ernst & Young LLP, a public accounting firm, in 1965 and served as a partner of the firm from 1975 until his retirement in 2002. Mr. Calhoun currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors, as a member of the Compensation Committee, and as Chair of the Audit Committee of NantHealth, Inc., PLx Pharma, Inc. and Ryerson Holding Corporation. Mr. Calhoun previously served on the boards and audit committees of six other public companies in the life sciences industry, including Abraxis Bioscience, Inc., Myogen, Inc., and Adams Respiratory Therapeutics, Inc. Mr. Calhoun also currently serves on the boards of two private companies in the life sciences industry. Mr. Calhoun received a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from the University of Southern California.