Leadership
Cosmo is responsible for strategy and business development, primarily matching unique business opportunities to the scientific advantages of the partnership. He is responsible for some of the industry’s more creative translational research and commercialization models aimed at curing complex disease—freeing the most ambitious science entrepreneurs and ideas through unique capital creation.
Cosmo is involved at the early stages, working with institutes and scientists to design their vision based on unique intellectual property, helping growth-oriented companies achieve their next levels of success or helping larger entities utilize their existing infrastructure to capture new markets.
He was the Founder and CEO of United Advisors, a leading merchant bank focused on growth strategies and M&A. While at UA, he led the buildout of one of the fastest growing investment companies in the US, eventually listing on the NYSE.
Cosmo started his career with JP Morgan and received his MBA from the University of Connecticut.
Tess Burleson, CPA, MBA, is TGen’s Chief Operating Officer and President of TGen Health Ventures. In addition to the day-to-day operational responsibilities, she works closely with TGen’s Board, Chief Executive Officer, and Scientific Director on strategic planning, execution, and oversight.
Ms. Burleson is responsible for commercialization of TGen intellectual property, from initial evaluation and incubation to capitalization and divestiture. She also maintains responsibility for key strategic business ventures and high priority collaborations with life sciences industry and clinical partners.
Her career began at KPMG, and she subsequently went to work in the healthcare industry, including serving as Chief Financial Officer at multi-specialty health system and medical research organization and as President of a multi-state clinical research company. She has over 25 years of progressive experience in advising and developing business support operations across a variety of industries, including healthcare, pharmaceutical, and biomedical R&D.
Ms. Burleson currently serves on a number of boards, including for both public and private companies, as well as for non-profit organizations. She is a licensed Certified Public Accountant (CPA) with experience in taxation, audit, and advisory services.
Tess attended Wharton School of Business at University of Pennsylvania for Advanced Finance certification, Harvard Law School for Negotiations certification, and she earned her MBA from the Anderson School of Management at University of New Mexico.
An Origin Partner, Jeff most recently served as the Executive Vice President for Operations and Transformation at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center responsible for the overall operations as well as strategic and business development efforts aimed at positioning the enterprise for growth and sustainability in a dynamic healthcare environment.
Prior to Roswell Park, Walker served as the Chief Operating Officer at City of Hope responsible for enterprise clinical, research and GMP manufacturing operations as well as executing and launching new major local, national and international initiatives, strategic programs and business ventures – leading and chaperoning their development and transition from the strategic business development phase into mature enterprise structure and operations. These efforts included the integration of a network of 31 cancer care locations across Southern California into a cancer care delivery system, nearly $2B in capital expansion including clinical, research and administrative facilities as well as a new campus in Orange County, and the development of platform capabilities to facilitate and grow industry, employer and international partnerships and business development strategies.
Walker also served as the COO and Senior Executive Director for The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC – James), overseeing all administrative, operational and fiscal functions for Ohio State’s cancer program as well as the construction and opening of the new 356 bed James Cancer Hospital in 2014 and successful renewal as an NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center. Prior to the OSUCCC-James, he had gained more than a decade of administrative leadership experience at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
Walker has had a long and successful career in healthcare administration over the last three decades, with extensive experience in executive level positions and responsibilities. He earned a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from Pennsylvania State University and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Pittsburgh. Walker has also held several national posts serving as past Chair of the Board of the Alliance of Dedicated Cancer Centers, Treasurer of the Association of American Cancer Institutes as well as serving on the Board and Finance Committee of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network.
Daniel D. Von Hoff, MD, FACP is currently Physician in Chief, Distinguished Professor Translational Research Division at TGen (Translational Genomics Research Institute) in Phoenix, Arizona. He is also Chief Scientific Officer for Scottsdale Healthcare’s Clinical Research Institute and is the Medical Director of Research at McKesson Specialty Health and the Scientific Medical Officer for US Oncology Research. He holds an appointment as Professor of Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Scottsdale, AZ.
Dr. Von Hoff’s major interest is in the development of new anticancer agents, both in the clinic and in the laboratory. He and his colleagues were involved in the beginning of the development of many of the agents we now use routinely, including: mitoxantrone, fludarabine, paclitaxel, docetaxel, gemcitabine, irinotecan, nelarabine, capecitabine, lapatinib, vismodegib and others. At present, he and his colleagues are concentrating on the development of molecularly targeted therapies particularly for patients with advanced pancreatic cancer.
Dr. Von Hoff has published more than 648 papers, 138 book chapters and over 1085 abstracts. Dr. Von Hoff received the 2010 David A. Karnofsky Memorial Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology for his outstanding contributions to cancer research leading to significant improvement in patient care.
Dr. Von Hoff was appointed to President Bush’s National Cancer Advisory Board in 2004-2010. Dr. Von Hoff is the past President of the American Association for Cancer Research (the world’s largest cancer research organization), a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, and a member and past board member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. He is a founder of ILEX™ Oncology, Inc. (acquired by Genzyme after Ilex had 2 agents, alemtuzumab and clofarabine approved by the FDA for patients with leukemia). Dr. Von Hoff is founder and the Editor Emeritus of Investigational New Drugs – The Journal of New Anticancer Agents; and, past Editor-in-Chief of Molecular Cancer Therapeutics. He is a co-founder of the AACR/ASCO Methods in Clinical Cancer Research Workshop. He is also proud to have been a mentor and teacher for multiple medical students, medical oncology fellows, graduate students, and post-doctoral fellows.
Dr. Caligiuri is an Origin partner. He recently completed his five year term as President of the City of Hope National Medical Center in Los Angeles, California where he held the Deana and Steve Campbell Physician-in-Chief Distinguished Chair. He retired from administrative leadership this year and continues in his research laboratory at City of Hope as a professor in the Department of Hematology and Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation.
Prior to his appointment at City of Hope in February of 2018, Dr. Caligiuri was The CEO of The Ohio State University (OSU) James Cancer Hospital (2008-2017) and Director of OSU’s Comprehensive Cancer Center (CCC; 2003-2017); he served as the Director of OSU’s Division of Hematology-Oncology from 2000 through 2008. While CCC Director and hospital CEO, Dr. Caligiuri oversaw the construction of the 3rd largest cancer hospital in the United States and recruited over 300 physicians and scientists to OSU.
Dr. Caligiuri is a physician – scientist whose basic and translational work has focused on immunotherapy for both liquid and solid tumors. His laboratory has studied human natural killer (NK) cells for 35 years with over 400 original peer-reviewed publications on NK cells and/or cancer. Pivotal discoveries from the Caligiuri laboratory have made it possible to bring chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) NK cells from the laboratory into the clinic for cancer therapy. These include proprietary retroviral transduction of human NK cells, the elucidation of the site, stages, cytokines and molecular mechanisms involved in the differentiation of human NK cells from CD34(+) hematopoietic stem cells, and the discovery of IL-15 as the key cytokine for human NK cell development, survival, growth, and activation. These three advances have been critical for the genesis of CAR NK cells from peripheral blood, umbilical cord blood and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). Most all of this work was accomplished with his trainees as well as his longtime collaborator, Jianhua Yu, PhD.
Dr. Caligiuri has designed and conducted clinical studies modulating NK cells for over 1,000 patients with cancer. Over 120 students have trained in the Caligiuri laboratory and have received over 220 local, state, national or international awards for their research. In 2022 Dr. Caligiuri received the Basic Science Mentor Award from the American Society of Hematology.
Dr. Caligiuri is an elected member of the American Association for Clinical Investigation and the American Association of Physicians, and he is an elected Fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He is past president of the Association for American Cancer Institutes; past president of the Society of Natural Immunity, and most recently served as president of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), the world’s largest cancer research organization. Dr. Caligiuri has served on the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Board of Scientific Counselors and Board of Scientific Advisors; He was chairman of the Institute of Medicine’s National Cancer Policy Forum from 2014-2016. In 2010, Dr. Caligiuri was one of four individuals in the country to receive a MERIT award from the National Cancer Institute for his work on immunity and cancer, and in 2016 he received an Outstanding Investigator Award from the National Cancer Institute. In 2018, Dr. Caligiuri received the lifetime achievement award from Stanford University School of Medicine, was elected a Fellow of the AACR Academy and a member of the USA National Academy of Medicine.
Dr. Caligiuri is co-founder of Pelotonia (www.pelotonia.org), The Oncology Research Information Exchange Network (www.ORIENcancer.org), CancerBridge (www.mycancerbridge.com), The Ohio State University Drug Development Institute (https://cancer.osu.edu/research-and-education/drug-development-institute), and CytoImmune Therapeutics (www.cytoImmune.com).
Dr. Caligiuri earned his undergraduate degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo, his masters and medical degrees from Stanford University School of Medicine. He completed his internship and residency in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital at Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA, then completed a fellowship in medical oncology, bone marrow transplantation and immunology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard Medical School. He next spent seven years at Roswell Park Cancer Institute as an assistant, associate and full professor before moving to The Ohio State University in 1997, and City of Hope in 2018.
Published Work: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=caligiuri+ma
Dr. Ramesh K. Ramanathan is an Origin partner, a medical oncologist, and the Director of Clinical Research at Ironwood Physicians in Scottsdale, AZ. He leverages his extensive experience in academia and industry to accelerate global access to innovative new agents for patients in need.
Additionally, Ramesh is at the forefront of a platform transforming the development of highly specialized next-generation early phase investigators and support staff. Success in this area has the potential to unleash the full impact of remarkable medical breakthroughs requiring rare know-how and game-changing drug development thinking. This initiative represents a critical challenge and opportunity for the clinical and research communities to advance healthcare for all.
Dr. Ramanathan held the position of Executive Director of Global Scientific Affairs at Merck Research Labs and Vice President at Zielbio.
Dr. Ramanathan served on the faculty of Mayo Clinic and held appointments as Professor of Medicine at the Mayo Medical school with a joint appointment at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGEN) Prior to joining Mayo Clinic, he served as the medical director of the Virginia G. Piper Cancer Ctr- Clinical Trials Program and the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute.
Dr. Ramanathan is a recognized expert for GI cancers and has research interests in new drug development. In the last 25 years, Dr. Ramanathan has been involved in the development of several new drugs (PARP, PI3K, hedgehog inhibitors, liposomal formulations etc), participated in numerous first in human agent studies and had a pivotal role in the development and approval of oxaliplatin for colon cancer and nab-paclitaxel for pancreatic cancer. He has published more than 200 papers in peer reviewed journals, as well as numerous book chapters. Dr Ramanathan has served on national professional committees and been an invited speaker at national and international meetings. Dr. Ramanathan is an Editorial Board member for Clinical Cancer Research, Cancer Chemotherapy and Pharmacology, Gastrointestinal Cancer Research and is an ad hoc reviewer for several high impact journals.
Darren Sigal, MD is an Origin Partner and practicing oncologist who is strategically placed as an integrated research advisor and peer. He provides critical support for innovative research programs as they advance. By leading early phase clinical research side-by-side with emerging indigenous research teams he can address critical clinical start-up gaps and serve as a mentor to developing teams.
Dr. Sigal is the director of GI oncology at Scripps Clinic/Scripps Cancer Center. He has special interests in pancreatic cancer, colorectal cancer, and less common malignancies including cholangiocarcinoma and neuroendocrine tumors.
In addition to his clinical practice, Dr. Sigal is an active translational and clinical researcher. His areas of research focus on novel therapeutics, immune therapy, and predictive biomarkers. He has developed multiple investigator-initiated trials evaluating approaches to activate iNKT cells and modulate the tumor microenvironment. In collaboration with scientific colleagues Dr. Sigal helped identify a potential new therapy for colon cancer. He has worked with clinical diagnostic companies to identify and validate new sequencing platforms for detecting DNA gene fusions and applying circulating tumor DNA assays in pancreatic cancer patients. Dr. Sigal was actively involved in the clinical development program leading to the approval of TRK targeting agents.
Dr. Sigal has over 50 peer-reviewed manuscripts that have been published in leading oncology journals, including Cancer Cell, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Nature Medicine, Lancet Oncology, and others. He has been an early and key advisor to biotechnology companies that have gone public, including Lisata Therapeutics and Celularity where he served as the Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board. He has also co-founded his own biotechnology company developing therapies targeting the tumor stroma. Dr. Sigal was issued a patent for a new therapy of neuroendocrine tumors.
Derek is an Origin Partner, responsible for the relationship development and direction of our biopharma initiatives. He is heavily involved in coordinating strategic partnerships, including grants, philanthropy, commercializations and research programs.
Further, Derek focuses on the financial and clinical impact of our initiatives, ensuring the right resources and infrastructure from across our partnerships and collaborations..
Derek is leading the clinical coordination around our cancer early detection strategy. Specifically, how the most promising late stage therapies, diagnostics and protocols shed insights on the prevention, early detection and early treatment of the most difficult to treat cancers.
He received his Ph.D. from Baylor College of Medicine where he studied neurodegenerative diseases. From 2003-2004 Derek placed his grad school on hold to deploy for a year long tour of duty in Iraq with his Army Reserve Unit where is he served as a Preventive Medicine Specialist covering roughly 20,000 lives.
An Origin Partner, Dr Howard McLeod is an internationally recognized expert in precision medicine, having made novel contributions at the discovery, translation, implementation, and policy levels. He is the Director and Professor at the Utah Tech University Center for Precision Medicine and Functional Genomics and a Precision Medicine Advisor at the Geriatric Oncology Consortium. He has conducted and/or advised implementation of precision medicine programs at integrated health systems, academic medical centers, and community practices in the USA and Internationally. Dr McLeod was a recent member of both the FDA committee on Clinical Pharmacology and the NIH Human Genome Advisory Council. Dr McLeod has been recognized as a Fellow of both the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the American College of Clinical Pharmacy. He was recently recognized as #1 USA/#2 Global for Pharmacogenomics Expertise. He has partnered with Origin on numerous projects over the past decade, primarily with a precision oncology focus. Howard has published over 600 peer reviewed papers on precision medicine, pharmacogenomics, or cancer pharmacology with collaborators from over 40 countries. He continues to work to advance cutting-edge healthcare and early adoption of high impact innovation.
An Origin partner, David Duggan, Ph.D., is a leading scientist and market/technical analyst with three decades of scientific expertise and over a decade of experience advising equity management firms on many of the leading genomics and personalized medicine companies. He is an Associate Professor, Quantitative Medicine and Systems Biology Division, TGen; Program Member, Cancer Control and Population Sciences Research Program, City of Hope; and Co-chairperson, Early Detection and Prevention, Arizona Cancer Coalition. Previously, his roles included: Director, Population Genetics Laboratory; Director, High Throughput Genotyping Technology Center; Associate Professor, Genetic Basis of Human Disease Division; and Technical Advisor, Office of the Chief Operations Officer.
Dr. Duggan pursues both highly collaborative research studies and industry contracts where the focus is on discovery and translation of scientific findings into real world application. These pursuits include evaluating the utility, cost-benefit and practical application of existing and new technologies; performing family- and population-based research studies, design and execution of clinical implementation studies, and engaging research and business partners. His research is focused on genetic causation to complex diseases especially cancer and the implementation of personalized medicine approaches to identify individuals at higher risk of developing disease; his laboratory has generated genetic/genomic data on over 300,000 samples. Polygenic risk scores as an approach to risk-stratification are the focus of his efforts today (along with many collaborators). Studies are focused on the clinical validity and utility of polygenic risk scores with the goal of improving the identification of individuals at increased risk of developing disease during their lifetime and getting them into prevention and or screening programs at an earlier age, for example. Dr. Duggan has published more than 175 peer-reviewed manuscripts; numerous invited reviews; several book chapters; and, co-edited a book on Oncogenomics. Dr. Duggan is a member of the steering committees for National Institutes of Health funded consortiums; an invited participant in several national and international scientific review panels; and, has been an invited participant in the scientific advisory committees for two leading genomic technology companies.
As a technology and applications expert in the field of genomics and personalized medicine, he has provided consultation services to dozens of equity management firms where he provided market analysis for genomics and personalized medicine companies—many of whom have enjoyed year-over-year revenue growth rates of 25-30% year after year during the period of time Dr. Duggan had been working with market analysts. He achieved a top 5% requested consultant ranking with a leading New York consulting firm. Dr. Duggan provided detailed market overviews (past, present, future) on product volume, revenue, growth, industry trends (1, 3, and 5 year forecasts) and technical analyses including general education of clients, detailed individual product review, detailed product review for a single company, detailed product comparison and contrast within and between companies and detailed company comparisons. Dr. Duggan fulfilled consultant requests pertaining to many of the industry leading genomics and personalized medicine companies in business today.
Dr. Duggan received his Ph.D. in human genetics from the University of Pittsburgh and obtained his post-doctoral training in genomics at the National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, MD).
Keri Ramsey, BSN, helps lead Origin’s Genomic Insights platform, dedicated to empowering doctors, caregivers, and organizations with specialized knowledge and resources to bridge the gap between world-leading genomic science and practical healthcare solutions. This ensures health systems can navigate the complex and evolving landscape of genomic medicine and deliver cutting-edge care.
She is also the Clinical Co-Director of the Center for Rare Childhood Disorders at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), where the goal is to use the latest advances in genetic sequencing to identify or provide insights into the causes of unexplained rare childhood disorders.
Keri began working at TGen in 2003 as Lead Technologist and Center Coordinator for the NINDS/NIMH Microarray Consortium. The Consortium supported gene expression profiling of the nervous system through microarray technologies, providing reagents, services, and training to the neuroscience community on a fee-for-service basis.
Keri contributes to several research studies. The largest uses next-generation sequencing to diagnose rare childhood disorders. Another study aims to identify genetic modifiers affecting Tuberous Sclerosis (TSC) patients and their parents. She is also the lead coordinator for a pharmaceutical study focused on improving the quality of life for girls and women with Rett syndrome, screening patients for enrollment, obtaining consent from families, collecting tissue specimens, and updating families on study progress while assisting in returning research results.
She earned her nursing degree from Arizona State University, spending four years as a Certified Critical Care Nurse in the Neuro Intensive Care Unit at Banner Good Samaritan (now Banner University Medical Center Phoenix).
Bill focuses on Origin’s overall strategy and market selection. He is the Managing Partner at Klehr Harrison Harvey Branzburg where he has built a reputation as an aggressive advocate and sought-after, experienced litigator whose practice focuses on shareholder, employment, real estate, securities and insolvency litigation. Bill builds and maintains client relationships of all sizes and across a number of industry sectors and represents them all with same amount of passion for justice. Bill prides himself on being a problem-solver for his clients.
Bill is a founding member of the firm and served as the Managing Partner for 22 years. Under his management, the firm became one of the region’s most entrepreneurial, profitable law firms, financing itself organically without any debt.
He is a graduate of Temple University School of Law, J.D. and St. Joseph’s College, B.S
Patrick focuses on Origin’s capital markets and business development overall. He is a Partner at Klehr Harrison Harvey Branzburg where he concentrates his practice on the representation of private investment funds on behalf of general partners, sponsors and investors, privately held companies and publicly traded corporations.
Patrick works with commercial, individual and mid-market clients advising them on their complex day-to-day legal issues. He routinely counsels clients on how to operate their businesses in the most efficient, successful manner, encouraging them to focus on the most important details in order to fully understand the big picture.
These issues are in connection with general corporate governance matters, general corporate counseling and a wide range of complex business and commercial matters including:
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Equity and debt offerings
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Venture capital and private equity financing
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Commercial financing
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Mergers and acquisitions
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Joint ventures
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Strategic investments and similar transactions
Patrick works with an exceptionally diverse compilation of businesses and industries. He has expertly advised private equity funds, international investment firms, manufacturing companies, real estate owners, retailers, restaurants and others.
He is a graduate of Temple University, Beasley School of Law, J.D., cum laude and University of Notre Dame, B.A.
Bill focuses on Origin’s capital markets and business development overall. He is a Partner at Klehr Harrison Harvey Branzburg where he is the chair of the corporate and securities department. He concentrates his practice in securities, mergers and acquisitions and general corporate counseling for a wide range of clients, from family-owned businesses to emerging growth businesses to public companies. In addition, Bill frequently acts as “outside general counsel” to his clients, representing them on all corporate and financial matters and coordinating other legal issues, ranging from litigation to intellectual property to regulatory matters. He regularly reviews agreements, negotiates employment matters and advises on litigation and regulatory issues.
In the area of securities, Bill represents clients in matters before the SEC, providing particular skill in Exchange Act compliance matters and all aspects of SEC registration, and has experience with Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank Act compliance and related regulatory matters. A significant part of his practice includes the representation of individuals, funds and issuers in connection with equity investments in emerging growth companies.
Bill’s merger and acquisition experience is significant, having participated in numerous purchases and sales of companies, both public and private, in transactions structured as asset sales, stock sales and mergers. These deals have ranged in size from several million dollars to the $1.6 billion merger between EB Games and GameStop, its primary competitor in the specialty retail video game industry.
In an article in GC Mid-Atlantic, Daniel Kaufman, Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer at Game Stop, described Bill as a “responsive, capable, very bright lawyer who understands what the company needs, and gives us 110 percent all the time.”
He is a graduate of University of Notre Dame, J.D. and La Salle University, B.A., maxima cum laude.
Drawing upon years of healthcare experience, Chris helps form the strategic and regulatory basis behind Origin innovations.
Chris serves as co-chair of the Health Care Practice Group at Cozen O’Connor, an international law firm based in Philadelphia. Prior to joining the firm, Chris served as deputy general counsel to Jefferson Health System and general counsel to the system’s accountable care organization and captive professional liability insurance companies. Now in private practice, he provides sophisticated transactional and regulatory counsel to an array of hospitals, health systems, accountable care organizations, physicians, professional liability insurers, and other provider organizations.
Chris has worked in the health care industry for nearly three decades. His practice focuses on major transactions for health care clients and the comprehensive regulatory schemes requisite to doing business in the health care space. Chris handles matters involving payer negotiations, payment disputes and contract enforcement, the Medicare Shared Savings Program, organizational and governance structures, HIPAA, information privacy and security, tax exemption, Stark Law, fraud and abuse matters, clinical integration, provider acquisitions, divestitures, medical staff relations, Pennsylvania’s Medical Marijuana Act, and general compliance.
At Jefferson Health System, Chris served as a legal advisor to the system’s board of trustees and executive team and played key roles in Jefferson Health System’s largest and most complex transactions. During his tenure, Chris helped lead the system’s restructuring efforts in 2010 and the separation of its members in 2014, which resulted in the creation of three autonomous and agile health systems. As a result of his extensive in-house experience, Chris has a deeply ingrained understanding of health care clients’ governance structures, day-to-day operations, goals, and expectations.
Spanning novel science, innovative biotech, forward-thinking public companies, research institutions, health systems, and moonshot strategies, Jacob has helped define and advance the frontiers of science and innovation over the past two decades.
He combines strategic, brand, and operational leadership in highly specialized fields to define, differentiate, and push transformation in complex and uncharted markets with unique, evolving dynamics.
