We are TAE Life Sciences

Dedicated to REVOLUTIONIZING CANCER TREATMENT

We are a team of scientists, engineers, and industry experts committed to delivering transformational advances in cancer treatment technology.

TAE Life Sciences (TLS) is an oncology company that was established in 2017 to develop a break through biological-targeting radiation therapy based on Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT) for the treatment of invasive, rapidly spreading cancers, recurrent and difficult to treat cancers that do not respond well to existing therapies.

TLS’s tandem accelerator design, neutron source and underlying technologies are based on significant investment over the past 20 years in particle accelerator R&D. TLS has applied these innovations to develop the next generation neutron irradiation system (NIS), optimized for BNCT, which could be a game changer in cancer treatment by making BNCT available and practical in a clinical setting for patients worldwide.

Mission

To develop next generation BNCT that will enable biological-targeting cancer therapy for patients globally

Vision

Provide a new cancer treatment that can extend patient lives, especially for those with inoperable, recurrent and difficult to treat cancers

Our Leadership Team

Bruce Bauer, PhD

Chief Executive Officer

Robert Hill

Chief Operating Officer

Kendall Morrison, PhD

Chief Science Officer

Anna Theriault

Head of Global Product Strategy and Marketing

Bruce Bauer is Chief Executive Officer of TAE Life Sciences, having organized its founding with technology licensed from TAE Technologies. Bruce Bauer is an active investor and entrepreneur; he has spun out technology into new companies, developed products for international markets and built management teams with cross border operations.

Following a career in the medical imaging industry, Bruce Bauer entered the private equity industry, ultimately founding Newbury Ventures and spending decades in international venture capital focused on healthcare, imaging, sensors, enterprise software, and industrial businesses.

Before founding Newbury, Bruce Bauer was a Principal at Berkeley International Capital, directing the firm's investments in healthcare and software. There, he built and managed a broad investment portfolio of healthcare and technology companies. He is a co-founder and Chairman of WingInflatables, and co-founded and was Chairman of Berkeley HealthEDU. Bruce Bauer has led investments in NextBio, Sentillion, Okena, PS'Soft, PacificEdge Software, Landmark Graphics, Nellcor, Sepracor, Lumisys, Crystal Semiconductor, Resound, Ventritex, Dianon Systems and Protocol Systems.

Bruce Bauer holds B.S.E. and Ph.D. degrees in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University.

Robert Hill is Chief Operating Officer, with a deep background in technical and clinical development of radiation oncology systems.

Prior to joining TAE Life Sciences, he was Senior Vice President of Corporate Development at Accuray Incorporated; Senior Vice President of R&D; and the company’s Chief Product Officer. During his tenure at Accuray, he was responsible for product strategy, innovation, and design and development. Rob was also responsible for mergers, acquisitions, partnerships and intellectual property development.

He previously served as Vice President of Engineering at North American Scientific; and held various R&D leadership and software development roles at NOMOS Corporation, where he was an early innovator in the fields of Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT), Image Guided Radiation Therapy (IGRT), serial tomotherapy, and Monte Carlo dose calculation.

Rob earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.

Kendall Morrison is Chief Science Officer.

Kendall Morrison is a noted expert in antibody development and biotechnology, most recently serving as Senior Director, Protein Technologies at Agensys, Inc. (an affiliate of Astellas Pharma Inc. Japan) where he led a team of 28 scientists (working in Biology and Medicinal Chemistry) in the discovery and development of novel antibody-based therapies.

He has over 30 years of experience developing breakthrough technologies for the treatment, diagnosis and study of immunological and oncological conditions. He has led teams that developed target validation and discovery reagents; pre-clinical and clinical drugs, including Antibody Drug Conjugates (ADC) and ADC payloads, with five significant ADCs currently in clinical trials. He also played a significant role in the development of Certolizumab pegol (trade name Cimzia), which is currently approved for the treatment of Crohn’s disease, rheumatoid arthritis psoriatic arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis.

Kendall Morrison is listed as an inventor in 56 issued patents in the United States, with 79 patent filings and 185 total patent citations. He is a member of the British Society of Immunology and has published influential papers in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, Cancer Research, the American Journal of Pathology, Journal of Clinical Pathology and more.

He holds a combined B.S. with honors in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of West Scotland, UK; and a Ph.D. in Pathology and Molecular Biology from the Medical School at the University of Southampton, UK.

Anna Theriault is Head of Global Product Strategy and Marketing.

Anna Theriault is an award-winning marketing executive with 20 years of experience managing and launching healthcare software and medical device solutions, globally. She has led strategy and marketing teams that successfully launched solutions and value creation in medical oncology, radiation oncology, healthcare interoperability and enterprise resource planning.

Prior to joining TAE Life Sciences, Anna served as Senior Director, Global Product Strategy and Marketing for Accuray Incorporated, leading product management, marketing and corporate development activities for the CyberKnife(R) Treatment Delivery System, advanced imaging, and software portfolio.

Anna has held marketing and business leadership roles at Elekta, where she pioneered voice-of-customer and market entry strategies for oncology software and analytics platform; Omnicell a leading provider of medication and supply chain management systems; and fortune 500 companies including Oracle, Lawson and Cisco where she architected and implemented healthcare vertical marketing and partner management business, globally.

Anna holds a BSc in International Business and Computer Information Technology from San Francisco State University, College of Business.

Robert Kirby

Vice President of Regulatory Affairs

Chad Lee, PhD

Director of Clinical Development

Barry Bonner

Vice President of Business Development, Americas

Arnold Dijkstra

Vice President of Business Development, EMEA

Robert Kirby is Vice President of Regulatory Affairs.

He has significant domain expertise in the radiation oncology segment of the medical device space. He has held key roles for innovative radiation oncology companies in R&D, product management and U.S. and international business development.

Prior to joining TAE Life Sciences, Rob served as Vice President of R&D, marketing and strategy at Xoft, Inc., where he was also responsible for overseeing international expansion and operations. He led cross-functional teams that developed and launched products for cancer treatment, and supported multiple U.S. and international regulatory approvals. In his prior position at PerMedics, he led the team that developed, launched and obtained U.S. FDA clearance for proton radiation treatment planning software.

Rob holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from University of California, Davis, and an MBA from the University of California, Riverside.

Chad has over 20 years of expertise in radiation therapy and its clinical implementation. He has been published in many peer-reviewed journals and is certified in Therapeutic Radiological Physics by the American Board of Radiology.

Prior to joining TAE Life Sciences, Chad served as Director of Medical Physics in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Geisinger Health. He led physicists, dosimetrists and physics residents in support of multiple linear accelerator-based, stereotactic radiosurgery and brachytherapy programs.

Chad is an industry leader in treatment planning and training for CyberKnife, and has held roles on parent company Accuray Incorporated’s advisory boards. Chad co-founded CK Solutions, Inc., which became Chad Lee Physics, LLC, to offer cancer centers affordable technical support for the unique demands of CyberKnife. He later served as Senior Director, Global Medical Physics for Accuray, leading both the research and development and physics customer support teams for the CyberKnife and Tomotherapy product lines in the US, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Japan.

Chad holds B.S.E. and M.E. degrees in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Florida, and holds a PhD in Nuclear Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where his thesis research focused on accelerator-based neutron capture therapy. He conducted postdoctoral research at State University, Los Alamos National Laboratory and the University of Maryland.

Barry Bonner is Vice President of Business Development - Americas.

Bonner is an experienced business development leader in the oncology radiotherapy space, most recently at Accuray Incorporated. His expertise includes capital equipment sales; software sales (enterprise and SaaS solutions); product strategy and marketing; public affairs; KOL management; and product launches.

Barry served at Accuray for 12 years, ultimately as CyberKnife Product Manager, where he was responsible for hardware and software development for CyberKnife Robotic Radiosurgery System in America, Canada and Latin America. In his time there, he oversaw business development in new markets; international sales and marketing; public affairs; patient access; and government lobbying.

Prior to that, Bonner held roles at Nucletron UK Ltd. (acquired by Elekta), Johnson & Johnson and Merck.

Barry holds a B.S. with honors in Marketing and Environmental Management from the University of Wolverhampton.

Arnold Dijkstra is Vice President of Business Development, EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa).

Arnold has over 25 years of international experience in the medical industry including neuroscience, respiratory care and radiotherapy.

He served as CEO and Managing Partner of Braincarta, a spinoff of UMCU in the field of automatic functional MRI (fMRI) analysis; and is the owner and principal of Balanced Brains, a networked innovation and management consultancy for premier healthcare teams.

Prior to that, he held positions with Philips Healthcare; Varian Medical Systems, a leading manufacturer of medical devices and software for treating cancer and other medical conditions with radiosurgery, proton therapy and brachytherapy; Elekta, a world market leader in oncology and neuroscience; and Draeger Medical, a world leader in respiratory care.

Arnold has been published in Computer Assisted Surgery and holds degrees from Erasmus University Rotterdam School of Management and the University of Applied Science in Medical Operation-Assistant Surgery and Anesthesiology.

Our Board of Directors

Bruce Bauer, PhD

Chief Executive Officer, TAE Life Sciences

Michl Binderbauer, PhD

Chief Executive Officer, TAE Technologies, Inc.

Stuart Peterson

Co-Founder and President, ARTIS Ventures

Artem Smirnov, PhD

Chief Technology Officer, TAE Technologies, Inc.

Bruce Bauer holds B.S.E. and Ph.D. degrees in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University.

Michl Binderbauer is the architect of TAE Technologies’ research and development program, and is a co-inventor of many of the company’s technological advancements.

Michl Binderbauer has dedicated the past two decades to evolving TAE Technologies' knowledge and technology. He is an expert in reactor kinetics; equilibrium and stability of advanced beam-driven Field-Reversed Configurations; and aneutronic fusion systems. His current focus is on reactor physics, engineering and enabling technologies, and a wide array of applications for the company's core technologies — from medicine to isotope production and chemical processing.

Michl Binderbauer holds more than 40 issued and pending U.S. patents and numerous international technology patents; and has authored or co-authored many peer-reviewed publications in the areas of plasma physics and fusion.

Michl Binderbauer holds a Ph.D. in physics from the University of California, Irvine.

Stuart Peterson is the Co-Founder and President of ARTIS Ventures, a San Francisco-based VC firm that led early-stage investments in media giant YouTube and cancer-curing Stemcentrx (acquired in 2016 by AbbVie). Peterson currently serves on the Board of Directors for IDbyDNA, an end-to-end and universal metagenomics platform; Locus BioSciences, a gene editing company focused on the creation of powerful antimicrobials; Versa Networks, the leading vendor in the SD-WAN and SD-Security markets; and Practice Fusion, the largest cloud-based electronic health records (EHR) platform in the U.S.

He is also a Board Advisor for Fabric Genomics, a genomic interpretation platform; Cohesity, an infinitely scalable, intelligent enterprise data storage platform; Bracket Computing, a cloud workload protection platform built for the enterprise; and Excision BioTherapeutics, a gene editing company focused on curing deadly viruses like HIV.

Peterson currently serves on the Board of Trustees for the SFMOMA and is actively involved in the Tipping Point Community and the Human Needs Project.

In 2017, he was recognized by Forbes as a Midas List honoree, as well as by TechCrunch as a finalist for VC of the Year, and The New York Times and CB Insights as a Top 100 VC.

Artem Smirnov is an expert in charged particle beams, plasma sources, diagnostics, innovative confinement concepts and electric propulsion. He joined TAE Technologies in 2006 to lead the development of neutral beams, fast ion diagnostics and plasma stabilization techniques. He is now responsible for long-term R&D efforts, and strategic partnerships and communication. He holds several technology patents and has co-authored more than 40 peer-reviewed publications.

Artem Smirnov holds a Ph.D. in plasma physics from Princeton University and an M.B.A. from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

Our Advisory Board

Richard Amos, PhD

University College London, UK

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Garth Cruickshank, MD, PhD

Emeritus Professor of Neurosurgery, University of Birmingham UK

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Daniel Low, PhD

University of California, Los Angeles

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Vivek Mehta, MD

Swedish Cancer Institute

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Jack Phan, MD, PhD

UT MD Anderson Cancer Center

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James Welsh, MD

Loyola University, Edward Hines JR VA Hospital

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Partners

Clinical Partners

A New Modality in Cancer Treatment

BNCT is vastly different approach to radiotherapy and TAE Life Sciences is dedicated to thorough clinical investigation and validation of BNCT as a new treatment modality.

We are seeking institutional partners to conduct the necessary research and clinical trials using our proprietary BNCT platform to establish efficacy and regulatory approval. Expanding your treatment options to offer hope patients who can benefit from the research we do together.

Fits Within Your Hospital

TAE Life Sciences neutron source is being designed from the ground up to fit within a hospital. Our BNCT suite will include the required drug, software and hardware components to provide our partners with an integrated BNCT suite.

Business Partners

TAE Life Sciences has established and exclusive partnership for the Chinese market with Neuboron Medtech Ltd. to exclusively provide our neutron beam system. Neuboron is the first high-tech company in China to focus on delivering a full range of solution for accelerator-based BNCT.

What is unique about TAE Life Sciences?

TAE Life Sciences (TLS) is medical equipment and biotechnology company, spun off from TAE Technologies (TAE), a global pioneer in fusion energy research. TAE has invested over $75 million in R&D on beam technology and are a significant shareholder of TAE Life Sciences and hold seats on the Board of Directors.

Technology developed by TAE, including its accelerator-based neutron source, has been adapted and validated as a neutron irradiation system (NIS) for medical use. TLS was formed to realize a novel cellular-targeted cancer treatment (CTRT), based on Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT), which currently is only available for medical research, and make it more widely available as a new cancer therapy.

When did TAE Life Sciences launch? Where are you located?

TLS was launched in 2017 and is headquartered in Foothill Ranch, CA.

What relevant domain experience does the team have to help achieve the company strategy?

Our team has spent their careers in medical technology innovation, global business development, marketing, sales and financing in both early and late stage healthcare, radiation oncology, and biotechnology companies. We have global leading scientists with particle experience. We have medical device industry leaders who have broad regulatory, quality and engineering experience. Our venture backers, including ARTIS Ventures, have a deep history of financing medical technology companies.

Who are your current investors and how much has been invested?

We have raised $40m in venture capital to date. Our Series A round closed in 2017, led by ARTIS Ventures, a VC group out of San Francisco with significant success in biotechnology.

What early traction have you achieved in the radiotherapy market?

China is a strategic radiotherapy growth market and has a 5x greater incidence of head and neck cancers, which BNCT research has shown more favorable outcomes compared with other treatments. TLS has secured a Joint Venture with NeuboronMedTech, a Chinese radiotherapy company founded by Prof. Yuan Liu, one of the global leading BNCT experts.

What is BNCT?

BNCT is a targeted, non-invasive, two-step procedure designed to treat the most difficult and inoperable cancers. A patient is first infused with a non-toxic boron-10 compound, which preferentially accumulates in tumor tissue. After the infusion, the tumor is irradiated with low energy neutrons. The cells that have absorbed boron generate lithium ions and alpha particles that damage the cellular DNA and destroy cancer cells from the inside. As a result, there is minimized harm to surrounding healthy tissue not containing boron.

How does BNCT differ from other radiation therapy?

BNCT is radically different from other radiation delivery techniques because it is combined with the precision and accuracy of target drugs to kill cancer at the cellular level.

Traditional radiation using photons passes through the tumor in the body and deposits considerable amounts of energy in healthy tissue. There are also tumors that are radiosensitive or do not respond well to photon/x-ray-based radiation therapy and therefore provide poor quality outcomes for patients.
Newer particle radiation technology such as proton therapy have limited clinical evidence and have the potential to over dose or under dose the tumor, which could impact patients’ quality of life. These systems also have a much higher total cost of ownership.
BNCT uses a target drug containing boron-10 which is selectively absorbed by the cancer cells, and when irradiated with a neutron beam, initiates a reaction that emits, high-energy charged particles which have shown to systemically destroy the cancer cells with little damage to the healthy tissue.
BNCT does not require strict immobilization of the patient or sub-millimeter patient positioning accuracy for treatment because the target accuracy is provided by the drug.