About Us

Matthews O. Bradley, Ph.D.

Chief Executive Officer, Chairman, and Founder

Dr. Bradley has held key positions within the biopharmaceutical industry for 28 years and has extensive expertise in drug discovery and strategic drug development with a focus on target selection, drug proof of concept, preclinical pharmacology/toxicology, and IND/Phase I/II/III/NDA preparation in numerous therapeutic areas.

Prior to forming GSNO Thera, Dr. Bradley ran his consulting firm, working with small and mid-sized bio and pharmaceutical companies. He concentrated on developing strategic research and development plans for clients and on carrying out those plans using an extensive network of high-quality, cost-efficient CROs.

Dr. Bradley has been the founder or co-founder of five previous biopharmaceutical companies, where he has served in various executive R&D and board functions. Those companies include Genetic MediSyn, Protarga, Replicon, Apothec, and Index Therapeutics. His work in those companies resulted in in-licenses, out-licenses, 18 patents, and numerous drugs discovered and developed through regulatory submissions.

Previously to these companies, Dr. Bradley worked for 12 years at Merck and Co., where he was Director of Safety Assessment and Biological Research. Before joining Merck, Dr. Bradley was a Senior Staff Fellow at the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health, where he worked on cancer drug development. He has been involved in several worldwide regulatory submissions in the areas of allergy, neurology, infectious disease, cardiovascular disease, and oncology.

Dr. Bradley graduated with a B.A. in Biology from The University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from Stanford University. He was a Leukemia Society Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford in the laboratories of Dr. Robert Schimke and Dr. Leonard Hayflick, where he studied molecular and cellular biology applied to mechanisms of aging and cancer. Dr. Bradley has authored 11 issued patents, 4 recent patent applications for GSNOR inhibitors, 82 peer-reviewed scientific publications, and numerous abstracts, book chapters, reviews, and published symposium conferences.

Helen S. Pentikis, Ph.D.

President, Chief Scientific Officer, and Founder

Dr. Pentikis has also been working at high levels within the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industries for over 20 years and has extensive expertise in regulatory and strategic drug development, focusing on pharmacokinetics (PK), pharmacodynamics (PD), and biopharmaceutics involving numerous therapeutic areas.

Prior to forming GSNO Thera, Dr. Pentikis served as a Head of Clinical Pharmacology at AkaRx Inc., an emerging pharmaceutical company. Dr. Pentikis was responsible for all clinical pharmacology activities and management of the company’s lead oncology product. Dr. Pentikis’ work and position on the senior management team were instrumental in the $300M acquisition of AkaRx.

Previously, Dr. Pentikis was the Global Vice President of Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics at ICON plc (formerly known as GloboMax LLC) and was responsible for the scientific management of all PK and biostatistics teams. Dr. Pentikis was a research fellow in the Pharmacometrics section at Sanofi-Aventis, where she successfully applied PK and PD principles to the design of Phase I-III studies and their interpretation. Dr. Pentikis was also involved in several worldwide regulatory submissions in women’s health, allergy, and oncology-supportive care.

Dr. Pentikis received a B.S. in Biology from Wake Forest University and a Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Toxicology from the University of Maryland. Dr. Pentikis completed a Pharmacokinetics Fellowship at the FDA, where she studied population PK and PD mixed-effects modeling and in vitro drug metabolism using human liver microsomes. Dr. Pentikis has 18 peer-reviewed scientific publications and numerous abstracts, book chapters, and published symposium talks.

Richard J. Pariza, Ph.D.

Senior Vice President, Chemistry

Dr. Pariza joined GSNO Thera in 2015 and has been instrumental in developing the Company’s chemistry program. He has designed and synthesized novel GSNOR inhibitors using the Company’s proprietary structural-activity knowledge. Many of those molecules are advancing in preclinical evaluations.

Dr. Pariza started his pharmaceutical career at Abbott Laboratories Pharmaceutical Division in the chemistry group, designing and synthesizing novel molecules for various targets. He also founded and ran a process research group. After Abbott, Dr. Pariza was a consultant to G.D. Searle and other pharmaceutical companies on chemistry-related issues. He has also been a lead chemist at the senior executive level for several biopharmaceutical companies, including Protarga, Natural Pharmaceuticals, Cedarburg Pharmaceuticals, OncQuest, Inc., and C-NOF Pharmaceuticals.

Dr. Pariza received a B.S. degree in Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin and a Ph.D. from Purdue University in Organic Chemistry. Dr. Pariza has authored 16 issued patents and 24 peer-reviewed scientific publications and numerous abstracts, book chapters, and published symposium talks.