Expands Finance Team with Addition of Ronald B. Kocak, CPA as Vice President and Controller
RenovoRx, Inc. a biopharmaceutical company and innovator in targeted cancer therapy is announcing the appointment of James Ahlers as Chief Financial Officer (CFO), effective July 15, 2022, and the addition of Ronald B. Kocak as Vice President and Controller for RenovoRx. Mr. Ahlers replaces Christopher J. Lehman, who joined RenovoRx in connection with its initial public offering and is leaving to pursue a new business opportunity.
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Mr. Ahlers is an accomplished finance leader with over 25 years of experience building life science businesses, both public and private. He served as Chief Financial Officer of Intarcia Therapeutics, Inc. and has held senior finance roles with Titan Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Ansan Pharmaceuticals Inc. Additionally, Mr. Ahlers has provided consulting services to multiple public and private life science companies. During his career, he has managed capital raising transactions, including IPOs, which have raised in excess of $2 billion. In addition, he has developed and implemented international operations and global tax strategies. Since December 2021, Mr. Ahlers has served as a consulting CFO and provided finance advisory services through Danforth Advisors, LLC, a company that provides strategic and operational finance and accounting consulting services to life science companies. He is assuming his role at RenovoRx as a consultant through Danforth. Mr. Ahlers holds a Bachelor of Science in accounting from the University of San Francisco.
Mr. Kocak is a seasoned financial reporting and accounting professional with extensive public company experience in the life sciences industry. Mr. Kocak has served as RenovoRx’s interim controller in a consulting capacity since October 2021. Prior to joining RenovoRx, Mr. Kocak was Controller and Senior Director of Finance at Sensei Biotherapeutics, Inc., where he successfully led the finance and accounting activities, including the IT operations. He holds a Bachelor of Science in accounting from Duquesne University and a CPA license in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Mr. Kocak is also a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and Association of Bioscience Financial Officers, and a Chartered Global Management Accountant.
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“On behalf of our team, we thank Chris for his contributions,” said Shaun Bagai, Chief Executive Officer of RenovoRx. “Chris played a key role as RenovoRx transitioned into a newly public company, and we benefited from his experience and dedication to our mission and goals. We wish Chris well as he moves onto his next chapter.”
Mr. Bagai added, “As our team looks forward, we are focused on expanding our clinical development pipeline, exploring other potential indications for our innovative therapy platform, and creating a sustainable infrastructure to support our continued growth. We will look to James’s and Ron’s collective and broad experience across finance, strategy, and operations to support us as we pursue these goals.”
Mr. Ahlers commented, “RenovoRx is uniquely poised in the oncology arena with a potentially disruptive therapy platform to treat pancreatic and other solid tumors. The company’s lead candidate is in late-stage clinical development with two Orphan Drug Designations – one for the treatment of pancreatic cancer and the other for bile duct cancer. I am excited to join the company at this point in its trajectory and eager to leverage my experience to support the team as we work to take the RenovoTAMP™ therapy platform into other clinical indications.”
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