Executive Management Team
Sandra Shotwell, Ph.D., Co-founder, President and CEO and Board Chair of Elex Biotech, has over 30 years’ experience in company formation and management, therapeutic product development, pharmaceutical deal-making and technology transfer. She is cofounder and board chair for Elex Biotech Inc, and was cofounder and CEO of DesignMedix Inc, companies developing small molecule therapeutics for heart disease and heart disease, respectively. Dr. Shotwell also is a board member for Veana Therapeutics Inc focused on cancer immunotherapies. Dr. Shotwell did biotech and pharmaceutical licensing deals as a Licensing Associate for Stanford University, worked in technology marketing for the Joint Research Center of the European Union, served as founder and Chief of the Technology Licensing Branch for the National Institutes of Health/FDA/CDC, and was Director of Technology Transfer for Oregon Health & Science University. Sandra has a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University, a Ph.D. in Biology from Caltech, and did post-doctoral research at Stanford University School of Medicine.
Xander Wehrens, M.D., Ph.D., Co-founder, Director and Scientific Advisory Board Member,
is the Director of the Cardiovascular Research Institute at Baylor College of Medicine, where he holds the Quigley endowed chair in cardiology, and is a Professor in the Departments of Integrative Physiology, Medicine, Pediatrics, Neuroscience, and the Center for Space Medicine. Dr. Wehrens is internationally recognized for pioneering translational research on cardiac arrhythmias and heart failure mechanisms. He is considered one of the world’s preeminent experts on ryanodine receptor calcium release channels. Prior to joining Baylor College of Medicine, Dr. Wehrens obtained his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Maastricht University in the Netherlands. Dr. Wehrens was a postdoctoral fellow and instructor in the lab of Dr. Andrew Marks at Columbia University, where he performed seminal work on the role of ryanodine receptors in heart disease. Dr. Wehrens is an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation (ASCI) and Association of American Physicians (AAP), and a fellow of the American Heart Association, European Society of Cardiology, Heart Rhythm Society, and International Society for Heart Research.