Board of Directors
NovaScan has a highly accomplished board of directors.
Richard Piazza
Chairman, Member of Executive Committee
Richard is a serial healthcare CEO who has been involved in entrepreneurial concerns for more than thirty years. He has raised more than $120MM in institutional and angel capital, and has run device, biotech, and provider companies. Richard is the former CEO of Vital Therapies (NASD: VTL) and led the successful divestiture of SoloPak Pharmaceuticals for Smith & Nephew. Mr. Piazza has a close relationship with M.D. Anderson and a deep network across the global oncological community.
Craig Davis
President & CEO, Member of Executive Committee
Craig has been active in the early stage medtech community for many years, as a partner at a leading family office, as a medtech investment banker, and as a growth strategy consultant. Previous to NovaScan, Mr. Davis was a partner in the two person family office LaSalle Investments. Among others, LaSalle co-founded Merge Healthcare (IPO and sold to IBM for $1Billion) and OrthoScan (acquired by ATON GmbH).
Craig was a senior member of a team that was backed by private equity firm GTCR to roll up companies in the urologic device space. He is also an ex- partner at Healthios, a boutique healthcare focused investment bank founded by former Baxter CEO Vern Loucks. Mr. Davis has an MBA from the Kellogg School, a masters degrees in engineering from Northwestern, as well as a BS in mechanical engineering from Washington University.
Charles Link, MD FACP
Member of the Executive Committee
Charles Link, MD FACP is a medical oncologist with deep experience in medical innovation. Most recently, Dr Link was the CEO, CSO, Chairman and founder of NewLink Genetics, a pioneering immunotherapy company that discovered, developed and commercialized novel immuno-oncology product candidates, including checkpoint inhibitors and cellular immunotherapies. At its height, NewLink’s market cap exceeded $1.3B.
Dr Link struck multiple deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars with companies such as Novartis and Roche. Charles led the development of Merck’s EVERBO, the first Ebola vaccine to receive FDA Approval. Previously, Dr Link was an attending physician at the National Cancer Institute. He has authored more than 170 peer reviewed papers and has received millions in funding from National Institute of Health, National Cancer Institute, American Cancer Society, and others. Charles received an MD from Stanford University and he attended the Air Force Academy.
Amit Mehta, MD
Board Member
Dr. Amit Mehta is an entrepreneur turned investor who leads Builders healthcare investment practice. As a highly-regarded practicing professional, Amit combines practical knowledge across the healthcare value-chain to help companies from seed through Series B. In addition to NovaScan, Amit manages investments into Carbon Health, Notable Labs and Fitbiomics. Prior to Builders, he was instrumental in deploying investments for Formation 8 in the health sector. He is deeply interested in market validation of new technologies as well as successful strategies in go-to-market launches.
Dr. Mehta completed his residency at Harvard Medical School where he also completed a fellowship in Minimally Invasive Image Guided Surgery. Amit brings entrepreneurial and operational experience as the founder and Chief Medical Officer of Intrinsic Imaging, a leading Healthcare IT company/Imaging Contract Research Organization which operated clinical trials globally for both pharma and biotech sponsors and was recently acquired by WCG-Clinical (https://www.radiologybusiness.com/topics/artificial-intelligence/intrinsic-imaging-sold-wcg-clinical-radiologist).
He has co-authored three textbooks in medicine, has widely published in peer-reviewed journals and currently is appointed as an SBIR/STTR reviewer for the National Institutes of Health. In addition to his clinical and operational pursuits, Amit is an avid traveler, farmer and a budding real estate mogul. He has been selected as one of the “Top 40 under 40″ by the San Antonio Business Journal.