Elizabeth Cho-Fertikh, PhD

Areas of expertise: Drug Development, Preclinical, Clinical, Regulatory Affairs, Project Management, Grants, Due Diligence of Investment Opportunities.

Elizabeth Cho-Fertikh has over 25 years of cross-functional experience in the field of drug development, spanning preclinical, GLP and GMP studies, regulatory affairs and program management.  She has additional experience with financing biotech startup activities including nondilutive and dilutive funding and conversely providing technical due diligence for angel investors and venture capitals of biotech investment opportunities..

Elizabeth’s scientific experience in preclinical work includes experimental work in breast cancer and acute lymphocytic leukemia that has resulted in over 30 peer-reviewed papers, including in high impact journals Nature, Nature Cell Biology and PNAS. She has had oversight of IND-enabling preclinical GMP and GLP studies for a biotech startup with a focus on infectious disease vaccines.

Her regulatory affairs experience includes drafting dozens of INDs, DSURs, Investigator Brochures, Clinical Trial Protocols and Clinical Study Reports for oncology, neurodegenerative, infectious disease and rare disease therapeutic assets. The assets have included a variety of therapeutic modalities including small molecules, monoclonal antibodies, vaccines and gene therapy for Macrogenics, RegenXBio, VLP Therapeutics and Enterin, Inc.

Her project management experience has been multi-faceted, which have involved maintaining strong communication among teams, adherence to timelines and budgets and anticipating challenges in advance and building multiple resolutions, for successful project completion. As Director of Science and Business Development at VLP Therapeutics,  she was responsible for keeping R&D development of infectious disease vaccines, from preclinical to GLP studies and GMP manufacturing on track and within budget; this required extensive coordination of scientific teams both in-house and with external vendors;  (2) at VLP Therapeutics and Enterin Inc, she oversaw federal grant and contract bids for funding support for asset R&D development.  This involved leading preclinical and clinical teams and vendors with grant and contract drafting, over months, while maintaining adherence to timelines. Elizabeth’s project management experience

She has an additional 10 years of angel investing experience and leads a group of healthcare investors, at MEDA Angels, focused on Series Seed and Series A investment opportunities. In this vein, she provides technical due diligence to investors on deals and serves of diligence lead, which requires coordination of diligence team members’ input on 9-10 other essential areas of research. Investment opportunities are syndicated to other angel investor groups and venture capital partners, who rely in part on diligence reports generated by Elizabeth’s angel investor group.

Elizabeth received her BA from Johns Hopkins University with a concentration in English and minor studies in Natural Sciences; her MS in Physiology & Biophysics from Georgetown University; her PhD in Development Biology from Thomas Jefferson Medical School with a focus on aberrant gene regulation underlying cancers; and completed her postdoctoral studies at NIH and Harvard Medical School.