ABOUT US

We’re Delsona, a pioneering clinical-stage therapeutics company with a ground-breaking platform technology for treating life-threatening diseases of the brain.

The big challenge – the blood-brain barrier (BBB)
The blood-brain barrier has been proclaimed as the biggest obstacle in drug delivery, shutting out 100% of large-molecule drugs and 99% of small-molecule drugs.

Our solution – UltraNav
We are developing a drug delivery platform, called UltraNav, to solve the challenge of the BBB.  Our platform uses the power of sound waves – focused ultrasound – to noninvasively open a targeted site of the BBB, so that treatments can reach brain tissue.

In addition, we are developing other ultrasound-based therapies, primarily for diseases of the central nervous system (CNS).

– Our Founder –

Elisa Konofagou, PhD
Founder, Head of Scientific Advisory Board

Our technology was spun out of the laboratory of Professor Elisa Konofagou, a pioneer in the field of ultrasound. Dr. Konofagou is the Robert and Margaret Hariri Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Professor of Radiology as well as Director of the Ultrasound and Elasticity Imaging Laboratory at Columbia University in New York City. Her main research interests are in the development of novel methods for the advancement of therapeutic ultrasound. Her group has been working in the field for over two decades with applications in a wide array of therapeutic areas, including in breast and pancreatic cancer as well as CNS therapeutics that involve drug delivery through the blood-brain barrier (BBB) for the treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease and other neurodegenerative diseases. Dr. Konofagou’s work has been internationally recognized by numerous grants and awards from multiple government and private agencies and has resulted in over 270 published articles in peer-reviewed journals. She is recipient of the CAREER award by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Nagy award by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Technological Achievement Award by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) Engineering in Medicine and Biology society (EMBS), the Carl Hellmuth Hertz Ultrasonics Award by the IEEE Society in Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control (UFFC) gas well as additional recognitions by the American Heart Association, the Acoustical Society of America, the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine, the American Association of Physicists in Medicine, the Wallace H. Coulter foundation, the Bodossaki Foundation, the Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) and the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

Dr. Konofagou is an Elected Member of the National Academy of Medicine (US), an Elected Fellow in multiple organizations including the IEEE, the American Institute of Biological and Medical Engineering (AIMBE) and of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA). She is an administrative committee member of the IEEE in Engineering in Medicine and Biology conference (EMBC) and technical committee of IEEE in Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control Society (UFFC), the Acoustical Society of America and the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine. Professor Konofagou is also a technical committee member of the Acoustical Society of America, the International Society of Therapeutic Ultrasound, the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology conference (EMBC), the IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium and the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM). She serves as Associate Editor in the journals of IEEE-UFFC Transactions, Ultrasonic Imaging and Medical Physics. She also served as a member of the Greek National Council for Research, Technology and Innovation (ESETEK) which directs all scientific research and innovation in Greece. She recently served as President of the Focused Ultrasound Symposium held in Bethesda, Maryland and is the President-Elect of the International Society of Therapeutic Ultrasound.

Dr. Konofagou received her B.Sc. in Chemical Physics from Paris VI University and her M.Sc. in Biomedical engineering from Imperial College, London. She received her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Houston and subsequently trained as Postdoctoral Fellow and served as Instructor at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

– Board of Directors –

Konstantinos Alataris, PhD
Director

Konstantinos Alataris, PhD is a serial entrepreneur with a track record in building healthcare companies focused on innovation and bringing new therapeutics to patients. Konstantinos has decades of experience in the biotechnology and medical device industries as a company founder, chief executive officer, investor and board member. Konstantinos was the founder and CEO of Nevro, a publicly listed medical technology company (NYSE: NVRO). Under his leadership, Nevro advanced Senza®, its implantable therapeutic, from concept to commercialization for neurological disorders. He also was the founder and CEO of Nēsos, a company that designed and tested in the clinic, disease modifying neuro-immunotherapeutics to restore autonomic control of the immune response. Nēsos clinical portfolio included clinical trials in autoimmune, neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders.

Cynthia Drivas
Director

Cynthia Drivas is an accomplished partnerships and business development executive with marketing, branding and social impact expertise. She has developed and brought to market prototype business models and intellectual property for brands and social impact initiatives that have generated hundreds of millions in asset creation and revenue.

Ms. Drivas is currently responsible at Hearst for the development and funding of mission driven, educational programming for ABC, NBC & CBS and social and streaming platforms. A passionate science advocate and biotech enthusiast, she is the architect and consulting producer of the award-winning, Emmy nominated STEMM series Mission Unstoppable on CBS and Paramount+ which inspires young women to pursue careers in science and technology.

She has held leadership roles at Viacom brands, Clear Channel, a Disney incubator start-up and activated high profile events such as the Super Bowl. Ms. Drivas works with foundations, corporations and non-profits to drive innovation, maximize social impact and advocacy, revenue and other key business outcomes. She received her B.A. from Muhlenberg College and a Masters in Public Administration from Temple University.

Annette Grimaldi
Director

Annette Grimaldi is a seasoned financial and strategic advisor to the life sciences industry with over thirty-five years of investment banking experience working with biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. She spent 14 years as a Managing Director at BMO Capital Markets with responsibility for its Life Sciences practice. Prior to BMO Capital Markets, she spent four years at Jefferies & Company where she was a Managing Director responsible for the Life Sciences investment banking effort.  Previous to Jefferies, she spent ten years as a Managing Director and senior member of SG Cowen’s healthcare investment banking team.  She began her investment banking career at Goldman, Sachs & Co. where she spent eight years working in the healthcare group and as part of the Japan desk.

She earned an MBA with honors from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and an MA in International Studies from the University of Pennsylvania’s Lauder Institute. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service with a degree in International Economics and Japanese.

Vassilis Kontozamanis
Director

Mr. Vassilis Kontozamanis is a Member of Board of Directors of Delsona Therapeutics. Mr. Kontozamanis is a seasoned healthcare executive and regulator who brings extensive healthcare sector expertise to Delsona, spanning over two decades of leadership in international healthcare environment, policy and management, human resources, economics, strategic planning, financing and outcomes measurement.

From July 2019 until September 2021, he played a key role in successfully managing the COVID pandemic crisis in Greece with the oversight of the country’s healthcare system as Deputy and Alternate Minister, where he led the way in the design and implementation of structural reforms.

Prior to his leadership roles within the Ministry of Health, Mr. Kontozamanis managed the pharmaceutical sector in Greece as Executive Vice President and President of the National Medicines Organization (EOF) and as member of the Management Board of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), where he developed regulation, pricing and reimbursement arrangements for Greece, addressing key industrial and pharmaceutical policy issues in the country. Mr. Kontozamanis has also managed the healthcare system in Greece, via his roles as Chief Executive Officer of the 1st Regional Health Authority (Attica), and as Secretary General of the Ministry of Health and as Advisor to the Prime Minister of Greece for health affairs.

Mr. Kontozamanis received his BS degree in Mathematics from the University of Ioannina/Greece, his MSc degree in Health Care Policy and Management from the University of Birmingham, UK and his MBA from ALBA Graduate Business School. He has also received additional healthcare executive training through seminars and coursework from Harvard, LSE, INSEAD and the University of York, UK.

Simos Simeonidis, PhD
CEO, Chairman of the Board and
Co-Founder

Dr. Simos Simeonidis is Delsona’s CEO, Chairman of the Board and Co-Founder. He brings more than 25 years of experience in the healthcare space, including as an investor in private and public companies, as a senior biotechnology analyst for a number of investment banks, as a biopharmaceutical executive, board member and biomedical researcher. Most recently, he was the co-CEO and co-CIO of Ally Bridge Group, a healthcare dedicated investment firm investing in private and public companies in the life sciences space. Prior to Ally Bridge Group, he was Partner, Senior Managing Director and Co-Head of Research of Sarissa Capital Management, a biotechnology focused investment firm. Prior to joining Sarissa, he was a Managing Director and Senior Biotechnology Analyst at the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) in New York and had spent more than a decade covering the biotechnology sector as an analyst at a number of investment banks, including Cowen and Company, First Albany Capital and Morgan Stanley. In addition to his investment management and financial expertise, Dr. Simeonidis combines both biopharmaceutical industry and biomedical research expertise, having worked at Novartis in Business Development and Strategic Planning, and prior to his corporate career, having served as a faculty member at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Simeonidis received his B.S. degree in Biology from Loyola University Chicago, and his M.A., MPhil and PhD degrees in Cellular, Molecular and Biophysical Sciences from Columbia University’s College of Physicians & Surgeons. He completed his Postdoctoral Fellowship at the laboratory of Professor Tucker Collins at Harvard Medical School and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where he worked on the transcriptional regulation of gene expression. Dr. Simeonidis also holds an MBA in Healthcare Management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Barbara Yanni
Director

Barbara Yanni is an experienced independent director of public and private biotechnology companies in a variety of therapeutic areas. In addition to Delsona, she currently serves on the Board of Directors of three public companies — Pharming, NV, Trevena, Inc. and Vaccinex, Inc — and one other private company, Mesentech, Inc.

Ms. Yanni was Vice President and Chief Licensing Officer at Merck & Co., Inc. from November 2001 until her retirement in March 2014. Prior to this, Ms. Yanni served in various roles at Merck including in corporate development, financial evaluation, and tax.

Ms. Yanni earned a J.D. from Stanford Law School and an A.B. from Wellesley College. She also holds a Masters of Law in Taxation from New York University. Before joining Merck in 1985 Barbara was a tax lawyer in New York City.

– Clinical Advisory Board –

Gordon Baltuch, MD
PhD, FACS, FRCS(C)

Gordon Baltuch MD, PhD, FACS, FRCS(C) is the Co-Chief of Functional Neurosurgery Division at Columbia Neurosurgery. Dr. Baltuch specializes in the surgical treatment of movement disorders and was previously director of the Penn Center for Functional and Restorative Neurosurgery and professor of neurosurgery at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, where he had been a faculty member since 1996.

Dr. Baltuch was one of the first neurosurgeons in the United States to use deep brain stimulation to reduce tremor and other motor symptoms in people with Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders. After training in Montreal, Switzerland, and France, Dr. Baltuch moved to Penn to develop one of the first deep brain stimulation programs in the United States. He has treated more than 1,600 patients using the procedure, making him one of the most experienced neurosurgeons in functional neurosurgery. He also pioneered the use of the technology to treat epilepsy, depression, and Alzheimer’s disease. More recently, Dr. Baltuch also became a pioneer in the use of focused ultrasound, a nonsurgical procedure approved in 2016 to treat essential tremor. Since 2017, he has successfully performed hundreds of these procedures and developed Penn’s focused ultrasound program into one of the largest such practices in the country.

As a researcher, Dr. Baltuch is at the forefront in the testing of new restorative approaches, including gene therapy for Parkinson’s disease and, more recently, stem cell therapy for stroke. He also conducts fundamental neuroscience studies of the human brain supported by federal funding, including the White House Brain Initiative. Before joining Penn, Dr. Baltuch completed a fellowship in Lausanne, Switzerland, and a residency in neurosurgery at the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI). He earned his MD and PhD degrees at McGill University.

Among other honors, Dr. Baltuch received the Wilder Penfield Award in Neurosurgery from the MNI, the K.G. McKenzie Award for Basic Science Research from the Canadian Neurosurgical Society, and the Luigi Mastroianni Clinical Innovator Award of Excellence from the Faculty of Medicine at Penn. He is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons and Royal College of Surgeons of Canada.

– OUR PARTNERS –