Executive Team

William Ju, M.D.

President, CEO & Member, Board of Directors

Dr. Ju is a board-certified dermatologist who has 17 years of biopharmaceutical experience in a wide variety of therapeutic areas, including dermatology. Prior to joining Follica, Dr. Ju was chief operating officer at PTC Therapeutics, where he played an important role in successfully leading and building the company including helping PTC triple in size, complete a $50 million Series E round, and enter into a partnership with Genzyme worth over $400 million. Prior to PTC, he held executive positions at Pharmacia Corporation and Merck Research Laboratories in a broad spectrum of product development functions. Dr. Ju served as project leader for SUTENT®, introduced CANCIDAS® into humans, and was part of the registration team for CRIXIVAN®. Dr. Ju began his pharmaceutical career at Hoffmann-La Roche where he was a clinical leader for the development of dermatology compounds. Before entering industry, he was a senior staff fellow in basic research in the Laboratory of Cellular Oncology and was affiliated with the Dermatology Branch at the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health. Dr. Ju obtained his M.D. with Alpha Omega Alpha honors at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and his A.B. with Phi Beta Kappa honors at Princeton University.

Jon Gasson
Chief Business Officer and Head of Finance

Mr. Gasson has worked in the medical technology industry for over 16 years. Before joining Follica as Chief Business Officer at Follica, Inc., Mr. Gasson was at Invuity, Inc., a venture-backed medical device company developing illuminated surgical tools for less invasive surgery, where he was President and the first employee. Prior to Invuity, Mr. Gasson was an Entrepreneur in Residence with Three Arch Partners, a venture capital firm focused on medical devices, diagnostics and healthcare services. Prior to Three Arch Partners, Mr. Gasson held a variety of management positions with Medtronic's vascular business, including Director of Marketing Strategy, Director of Sales Strategy and Director of Business Development. He joined Medtronic through its acquisition of Arterial Vascular Engineering, Inc., where he was a product manager. Mr. Gasson's career in medical devices began in the business development group of Guidant Corporation. Mr. Gasson graduated with honors from the University of Florida with a B.S. in Finance and received his MBA from the J.L. Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Mary Osbakken, M.D., Ph.D
Chief Medical Officer

Dr. Osbakken has 30 years of clinical, basic science and drug development experience and is Chief Medical Officer at Follica, Inc. Prior to joining Follica, Dr. Osbakken had been the CMO at Inotek Pharmaceuticals. She has also held executive positions at Sanofi, Covance and Bristol-Myers Squibb and academic positions at the University of Pennsylvania, Milton S. Hershey Medical School, Pennsylvania State University, Temple University and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Osbakken has published over 125 scientific papers, has authored books in the fields of physiology and biochemistry of the heart and has been awarded over 45 grants to support her scientific research. She has completed fellowships in Cardiovascular Medicine at Temple University and the University of Pennsylvania and Nuclear Cardiology & MRI at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Osbakken holds a Ph.D. in physiology from Jefferson University, an M.D. from Temple University and an M.S. in biomedical engineering from Drexel University.

Shikha P. Barman, Ph.D.
VP and Head of Pharmaceutical Development

Dr. Barman has over 16 years of experience in the translation of concepts into products in areas of drug delivery, pharmaceutical development and tissue engineering. Her expertise is in the design of cell-targeted delivery systems, customized to permeate molecular barriers such as the skin, corneal, and blood-brain barriers. She has contributed to approximately 25 U.S. Patents/PCTs, 65 publications and 3 book chapters. As senior director at Inotek Pharmaceuticals she coordinated cross-functional project teams for IND submissions for Phase I/II trials. At Sontra Medical Corporation she was responsible for all pharmaceutics and vaccine development in CMC and drug products to deliver vaccines and drugs epidermally. As head of gene delivery at Zycos, Inc., she led efforts to develop cell-targeted delivery systems for DNA therapeutics to treat HPV and cancer. As team leader at Focal, Inc, she developed delivery systems, hemostats, wound-healing tissue engineered constructs and tissue sealants. Dr. Barman has a Ph.D in Polymer Science and in Plastics Engineering from University of Massachusetts, a M.S. in Polymers from University of Massachusetts, and B.S. / M.S. in Chemistry from Auburn University.

Scott C. Kellogg

VP and Head of Operations

Mr. Kellogg has worked in the medical technology industry for over 17 years and is currently the Vice President and Head of Operations at Follica, Inc. Prior to joining Follica, Mr. Kellogg was an integral member of the founding teams at Afferent, Corp., Sontra Medical, Inc., and UltraCision, Inc., where he served as the Vice President of Development, Vice President of R&D, and Director of Engineering, respectively. In all of these leadership roles, Mr. Kellogg was focused on commercializing novel medical technology. These technologies included surgical modalities, transdermal analyte detection, transdermal drug delivery, and neurostimulation. Additionally, he served in lead project management roles at Mentor Medical, Inc. and Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. Mr. Kellogg graduated with high honors from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst with a BS in Engineering and received his MS and MBA from Northeastern University. He is an inventor on multiple domestic and international patents.

Stephen Prouty, Ph.D.

VP & Head of Research

Dr. Stephen Prouty joined Follica in May, 2006. As Vice President and Head of Research, Dr. Prouty oversees Follica's preclinical and human proof-of-concept clinical research programs. Prior to joining Follica, Dr. Prouty oversaw diverse research programs at Johnson and Johnson as a Staff Scientist for 4 years and a Principal Scientist for 9 years. While at the Skin Biology Research Center of Johnson & Johnson Consumer Products WorldWide, Dr. Prouty worked with Dr. Kurt Stenn on numerous dermatology-focused programs. Dr. Prouty's research resulted in the cloning and characterization of the gene for human stearoyl-CoA desaturase, as well as the discovery of novel enzymatic reactions for other members of the desaturase gene family in sebaceous glands, a novel regulator of acne. Dr. Prouty then joined J&J's Enterology Team where he developed and managed drug and biomarker discovery projects for diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, including Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, and irritable bowel syndrome. Dr. Prouty obtained his Ph.D. in Anatomy/Neurobiology from Medical College of Pennsylvania and completed his postdoctoral training at Yale University School of Medicine, where he was awarded an American Cancer Society Fellowship.