Team

Sevgi Gurkan, MD

Sevgi is the founder of Perfuse Therapeutics and serves as the Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors. She is also a Venture Partner with OrbiMed since 2018. Prior to founding Perfuse, Sevgi was a Director of Research at Merck Research Laboratories, South San Francisco Discovery site, where she led the launch of a new therapeutic area research and built a portfolio comprised of novel mechanisms at varying stages of development internally and through M&A. Sevgi started at Merck as Medical Director, Early Clinical and Translational Development, Cardiometabolic Disease Therapeutic Area, where she planned, executed and oversaw development of a variety of programs in different stages of clinical development.

Prior to Merck, Sevgi was an Associate Professor at Rutgers and Director of the Pediatric Kidney Transplant Program at RWJ University Hospital, where she conducted NIH-funded basic science research as one of the founding scientists of the Child Health Institute of New Jersey, in parallel to her full-time clinical responsibilities as a pediatric nephrologist.

Sevgi received her medical degree from Hacettepe University, degree in Pediatrics from The University of Southern California and degrees in Nephrology and Master of Science in Clinical Research from Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

Phillip Lai, MD

Phil joined Perfuse Therapeutics as the Chief Medical Officer in 2021.  He has over 15 years of experience working in all stages of ophthalmology clinical drug development.  Prior to joining Perfuse, Phil worked in the Genentech Research and Early Development group, as the Senior Group Medical Director of Ophthalmology and Neurology leading the ophthalmology and neurology early clinical development groups.  Prior to Genentech, he was Director of Clinical Development and Translational Medicine at Avalanche Biotechnologies where he worked on ocular gene therapy programs. Before that he was a Senior Medical Director in the Roche/Genentech late stage development ophthalmology group focusing on retinal diseases.  Phil started his drug development career at Vistakon, a Johnson and Johnson subsidiary where he worked on long-acting delivery for IOP lowering medications.

Phil completed his ophthalmology residency at George Washington University, glaucoma fellowship at UCSF and received his undergraduate and medical degrees from Brown University.

Michelle Chen, PhD

Michelle joined Perfuse in 2021 as the head of clinical development and translational sciences at Perfuse. She is a skilled clinical and translational leader with significant experience in ocular drug development from preclinical to late stage clinical development for over 15 years.

Michelle joined Perfuse from Allergan/Abbie, where she played many key roles including global program lead and clinical science lead in various ocular assets spanning from the front to the back of the eye. She also played a key role in expanding Ozurdex® ex-US approvals and advancing Durysta^® to the initial US approval.  Prior to Allergan/Abbvie, Michelle worked at Spinnaker Biosciences, where she was the PI of a SBIR grant, to transfer a technology developed from an university collaborator to the clinic.

Michelle received her PhD degree in Bioengineering from the University of California, San Diego.

Karen Brennan, MS

Karen Brennan joined Perfuse Therapeutics in March of 2021 to lead all aspects of analytical development for preclinical and clinical activities.  She has spent the last 8 years engaged in drug discovery and development of ocular therapeutic programs, including programs involving immediate release and sustained release dosage forms for topical and intravitreal applications. In her more than 20 years in the pharmaceutical industry, Karen has led CMC and analytical activities for products in all stages of pharmaceutical development from drug discovery to clinical development and finally to commercialization.

Karen received her BA in Chemistry from Luther College and MS in Chemical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology.

Angela Glendenning, BS

Angie has led formulation development and drug product manufacturing at Perfuse since November of 2020.  She has over 20 years of extensive CMC experience including drug delivery through scale-up and commercialization as well as vendor oversight for production of drug product.  Angie has spent the last 6 years focused on ocular drug delivery including immediate release and sustained release dosage forms for topical and intravitreal administration. Previous experience includes 17 years at GSK in oral pharmaceutical development focusing on both analytical and formulation for all phases of development.

Maria Zaretskaia, MD

Maria is Principal Scientist at Perfuse Therapeutics. She joined Perfuse in March of 2021. Prior to Perfuse, Maria worked as Scientist at Aerie Pharmaceuticals for 4 years with contributions to drug discovery programs for dry eye, glaucoma, and retinal diseases.

Prior to Aerie, she held the position of Research Scientist at Indiana University School of Medicine Pharmacology and Toxicology and Emergency Medicine Departments for 18 years, where she gained extensive experience in neuroscience, pharmacology, toxicology, physiology, and in vivo animal research with over 40 scientific publications.

Maria received her medical degree from Moscow State University School of Medicine, Moscow.

Heather Schmitt, PhD

Heather Schmitt is Senior Scientist focusing on pharmacological drug development for retinal vascular diseases. She joined the Pharmacology Department in Durham, NC as Scientist at Perfuse Therapeutics in 2021. Her passion is for early development of groundbreaking therapeutics for ocular diseases.

Prior to Perfuse, she was trained at Duke University as a postdoctoral associate/senior research associate specializing in genetics and the aqueous outflow pathway in glaucoma. She has a bachelor’s degree in microbiology and biology, a master’s degree specializing in retinitis pigmentosa from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and a PhD degree specializing in retinal ganglion cell death in glaucoma from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her scientific background and contributions culminate in several funded awards and peer-reviewed publications and over 13 years of experience and specialization in preclinical investigation for retinal degenerative disease, particularly glaucoma, that affects millions of people worldwide.

Christopher Romeo, BS

Chris leads the design control activities for medical devices at Perfuse as well as performing formulation development, analytical testing, and method development.  He has more than 10 years of experience in research and development through manufacturing supporting pharmaceuticals, drug delivery platforms and medical devices.  Chris has spent the last 4 years supporting analytical and formulation development of various ocular dosage forms.

Chris holds a BS in Biology from James Madison University.

Andrew Melie, MS

Andrew joined Perfuse Therapeutics in February of 2022 as an Analytical Scientist on the CMC team. He is responsible for developing analytical methods for drug substance and drug product during preclinical and clinical stages of development. Additionally, he is currently involved in the implementation of the QMS.

Prior to Perfuse, Andrew worked at Editas Medicine, where he oversaw the transition from research-scale analysis to cGMP product release testing. During his time there, Andrew ensured that the analytical facilities, instrumentation, and protocols were compliant with regulatory guidelines throughout the transition. Prior to Editas, Andrew held the position of Senior Chemist in the QC department at Huvepharma, Inc.

Andrew holds an MS in Biological Sciences from the University of Nebraska and a BS in Zoology from Michigan State University.