Investment Team
Michael Wells
Managing Director
George Parise
Managing Director
Barry Levinson
Managing Director
Michael Wells is a Managing Director and Founder of Princeton Biopharma Capital Partners. Michael has had a long and distinguished career as an entrepreneur, healthcare investor, board member and chief executive.
Princeton Biopharma Capital was created for the purpose of providing growth capital to emerging health care companies. Michael is currently the acting Chairman and CEO of both Kaleo and Fidelis Animal Health both portfolio companies of Princeton Biopharma Capital. Prior to creating this investment company, he was the founder and CEO of Aton Pharma, a pharmaceutical company focused on rare diseases. For his part in creating and growing this company, he was named an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2009. After selling Aton Pharma, he partnered with Cerberus Capital Management and invested in Covis Pharma where he was a board member for five years. His career began at Merck & Co. where he held a range of sales and marketing positions over eight years.
Michael holds a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science from the University of Pittsburgh in addition to an MBA from The Wharton School. His current board appointments include Kaleo, Fidelis Animal Health, UPMC Hospital System and he is on the Board of Trustees at the University of Pittsburgh.
George is a Managing Director at Princeton Biopharma Capital Partners, LLC, with
strong experience in the pharmaceutical industry and in private equity.
He is also the Chief Financial Officer of Kaleo (a Princeton Biopharma Capital portfolio company). Prior to joining Kaleo, George was the Chief Financial Officer at Pharmaceutical Associates, Inc (a leading liquid generics manufacturer). Prior to co-founding Princeton Biopharma Capital Partners, LLC, George was Chief Financial
Officer of Aton Pharma, Inc., a specialty pharmaceutical company with products that treated orphan conditions and ophthalmology. He provided financial leadership to Aton through two acquisitions, a $30MM credit facility entered into in the difficult credit environment of 2009, and the sale of Aton to Valeant Pharmaceuticals in the spring of 2010.
Prior to joining Aton, George was an operating executive with Cerberus Operations and Advisory Company, leading diligence efforts and assuming key operating roles within portfolio companies. During his tenure with Cerberus, his positions included Chief Financial Officer of Velocita Wireless, where he led the complex standalone transition of this Cingular Wireless carve-out and spearheaded the eventual successful sale to Sprint. Prior to his time at Cerberus, he was the Senior VP of Finance for CAI Wireless Systems, a publicly-held wireless telecommunication services provider, where he offered financial leadership to the organization through several business plan changes, a financial restructuring through Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code, and the successful sale of the company. Prior to CAI, George was the Chief Financial Officer of CellularVision, a pioneer in the development of wireless telecommunication services, where he led the company’s successful initial public stock offering. He also held the position of Staff Vice President of Accounting at TriCon Leasing Corporation (a former subsidiary of Verizon) and has held several progressing positions with Ernst & Young. George holds a BS in Accounting from Seton Hall University and is a CPA (inactive).
Barry is a Managing Director at Princeton Biopharma Capital Partners, LLC, with over 35 years of biotech and pharmaceutical industry experience combined with a distinguished scientific career.
Barry is currently Chief Development Officer of Fidelis Animal Health (a Princeton Biopharma Capital portfolio company). Prior to joining Princeton Biopharma Capital Partners, Barry was Vice President of Business Development at Valeant Pharma North America LLC, responsible for the business development activities of its specialty pharmaceutical businesses in dermatology, CNS, orphan conditions, and ophthalmology. Before Valeant, he was a founding employee of Aton Pharma, Inc., a specialty pharmaceutical company with products that treated orphan conditions and ophthalmology. As its Vice President of Business Development, Barry identified and acquired several key products for Aton and put in place its international partnerships. In addition, he was responsible for recognizing opportunities to expand the application of Aton’s products to new medical uses and spearheaded programs to develop these new indications.
Before Aton, Barry was Founder and President of Park Life Science Advisory, LLC, where he provided outsourced business development capabilities for life science companies. He was previously a Managing Director at CPP Advisors (now Apeiron Partners), a boutique life sciences strategic advisory group, and before that a Director in the Life Sciences Group at KPMG Corporate Finance, LLP, an investment bank. For the 10 years prior to KPMG, Barry held increasingly senior positions in cardiovascular research and then in business development at Berlex Laboratories, the US subsidiary of Schering A.G. (now Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals), most recently as Associate Director of Schering’s Office of Technology. Before Berlex, he initiated and developed the Protein Biochemistry Group at the biotech startup Ecogen and served as the company’s Radiation Safety Officer. Barry received his PhD and Master’s degrees in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University and was granted his BA, with highest honors, in Biochemistry from Princeton University. His current board appointments include Fidelis Animal Health, Bionevix Ltd. and Mountain View Pharma.