Leadership Team
Executive Leaders
Darren Head
Chairman & President
Darren Head
Darren Head is Chairman & President of Bionova Scientific. He also served as Chairman of Bionova’s Board of Directors from 2019 until the company was acquired by Asahi Kasei in 2022. Darren also serves as CEO of Cellipont Bioservices, a cell therapy CDMO based in the San Diego area.
Prior to joining Bionova, Darren was CEO of MaSTherCell, a global CDMO specializing in cell and gene therapy products. He steered MaSTherCell through a period of rapid growth leading to its acquisition by Catalent in 2020.
Prior to MaSTherCell, Darren spent nearly 10 years as President and CEO at Cytovance Biologics, which he successfully built into a premier biologics CDMO, culminating in its acquisition by Hepalink USA in 2015.
Darren joined Cytovance after nearly 20 years of biologics operations leadership experience. At Immucor, he served as vice-president of worldwide operations, overseeing the manufacturing of biological products in the US, Europe, and Canada. Darren also served as operations manager and project manager for companies such as Aronex Pharmaceuticals (The Woodlands, TX), Allergan Optical (Waco, TX), and Abbott Laboratories (Rocky Mount, NC).
Mr. Head holds a B.S. in biology and attended the executive M.B.A. program at Texas A&M. Additionally, he served in the United States Air Force during Operation Desert Storm.
James Glover, II
Chief Operating Officer
James Glover, II
James Glover, II is Chief Operating Officer of Bionova Scientific.
Prior to joining Bionova, James was Executive Vice President of Manufacturing at Athersys, a clinical-stage biotechnology company. James provided strategic direction for the company’s manufacturing operations, leading all Phase III and commercial manufacturing activities.
Prior to Athersys, James led manufacturing operations in leadership roles at Emergent BioSolutions, Pharmaceutics International, Inc. (Pii) and Dynavax Technologies. James began his career in manufacturing operations as a front-line operator before moving into operations management roles at Bayer and Novartis.
James has led teams covering technical, quality and operational support functions for multiple therapeutic modalities, including vaccines, cell therapies, small molecules and biologics. Throughout his career, James has used his extensive operations experience to steer his teams to higher levels of productivity and quality.
James holds a B.S. in biology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He also attended the Senior Business Management Program at Notre Dame and the PMP Certification Program at Boston University.
Hiroyuki Aoki
Chief Financial Officer
Hiroyuki Aoki
Sven Lee
Senior Vice President, Global Business Development & Strategy
Sven Lee
Sven Lee is Senior Vice President of Global Business Development & Strategy at Bionova Scientific.
Sven is an accomplished international leader with experience in both public and private organizations in the biopharma industry. With a proven track record in business development, marketing, executive management, and commercialization, Sven has successfully led global strategic and tactical plans for organization expansions, CDMO solutions, and product launches. He has worked extensively in US, Europe and APAC, including Japan, China, Australia, S. Korea and Singapore. His expertise spans various modalities, including biologics (mammalian, E. coli, ADC (bioconjugation), cell & gene therapy, small molecules and medical devices, with a focus on technologies, licensing and collaborations for development to manufacturing.
Prior to joining Bionova, Sven held held key positions at Biogen, Catalent Biologics, Abzena, Terumo BCT, and Crucell Holland B.V. (now Johnson & Johnson). He is also a regular guest lecturer at the University of California San Diego, Skaggs School of Pharmaceutical Sciences.
Sven earned his B.A. in Biology at Lake Forest College in Lake Forest, Illinois. He has also completed executive education programs at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and Harvard Business School.
Pratima Cherukuri
General Manager, Vice President of pDNA Process Development
Pratima Cherukuri
Pratima Cherukuri, is a scientific and strategic leader with more than 18 years of experience in viral vector development, manufacturing, and analytics for gene and cell therapies.
She currently serves as General Manager and Senior Vice President for the Plasmid Business at Bionova Scientific, where she is responsible for building and scaling plasmid DNA development and manufacturing operations to support the company’s expanding CDMO capabilities.
Previously, Pratima served as Chief Scientific Officer at Genezen, where she built Process Development (PD) and Analytical Development (AD) operations, oversaw CMC and tech transfer strategy, and guided multiple lentiviral (LVV) and retroviral (RVV) programs from early design through GMP production for Phase I/II trials. She also led the design of Genezen’s labs and GMP suites and established key licensing and technology partnerships.
Earlier in her career, she contributed to the Indiana University Vector Production Core, advancing scalable LVV processes and leading GMP RVV production, and held leadership roles at Covance (Labcorp) in assay validation and lab buildouts. She also leads JC Consulting, advising advanced therapy companies on viral vector strategy, PD/AD operations, and CMC readiness.
Minni Aswath
Vice President Process Development
Minni Aswath
Minni Aswath is Vice President of Process Development at Bionova Scientific.
Prior to joining Bionova, Minni spent several years at Boehringer Ingelheim in various technical leadership roles, including protein purification, process validation, process development and technology transfer. In her most recent role there, Minni led a team of scientists engaged in downstream process development, NPI and manufacturing support, process characterization (PCS), small scale validation studies, and regulatory filings (IND and BLA). She was responsible for 10 late stage and commercial programs as the interim head of Process Validation.
Minni was also a key member of CMC teams providing technical leadership, accountable for coordination with teams within the Process Science department as well as other departments in the organization. She led successful technical transfer, NPI, and process characterization/ validation activities for several major CMB, biosimilars, and novel monoclonal antibodies in clinical and commercial phases.
Before Boehringer Ingelheim, Minni held scientific roles at Merck Research Labs, Perseid Therapeutics and Maxygen, Inc.
Minni earned her M.S. in Microbiology and Molecular Biology at San Jose State University and her B.S. in Microbiology at The Ohio State University.
Sandhya Khurana
Vice President Program Management
Sandhya Khurana
Sandhya Khurana is Vice President, Program Management at Bionova Scientific.
Sandhya has 25 years of pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry experience at companies including LifeScan (a J&J company), Abgenix, Amgen, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Abbvie-Stemcentrx, Dermira, Omniox, and most recently at Revance Therapeutics. Sandhya’s responsibilities have included program management, regulatory submissions (IND to BLA), PAI readiness, Quality Systems, product launch, portfolio management, budget oversight, and merger/acquisition/integration activities. In addition, she has managed relationships with customers, CDMOs, corporate alliances, and strategic partnerships.
Sandhya earned her B. A. in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley, and M.B.A. from Santa Clara University. She is also a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt and board member of the East Bay Chapter of the Association for Women in Science.
Ruben Omega
Vice President Supply Chain
Ruben Omega
Ruben Omega is Vice President of Supply Chain at Bionova Scientific, where he leads the Procurement, Planning and Warehouse teams.
Prior to joining Bionova, Ruben was Director of Planning at the Center for Breakthrough Medicines, where he led planning for Cell Therapy, Viral Vector, and Plasmid products. He was also responsible for Master Data Management. Previously, Ruben spent 16 years at Bayer supporting their biotech Operational Excellence program as a Master Black Belt, and later as a Project Manager & Supply Manager for the Pharmaceutical division supply chain, including a 1-year assignment in Berlin focused on small molecules. He started his Biotech career at Baxter, where he did assay development and downstream process development for monoclonal antibodies.
Ruben graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering. He is a Certified Supply Chain Professional (from APICS) and a Certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt (from BMGI, now Lean Methods Group).
George Scott
Vice President Facilities & Engineering
George Scott
George Scott is Vice President of Facilities and Engineering at Bionova Scientific.
George has worked in the biopharmaceutical and cell therapy manufacturing industry for 25 years with significant leadership roles in facilities, plant engineering, qualification, automation, capital projects, and technical compliance at Bayer, Abgenix, Amgen, Boehringer-Ingelheim and Allogene. George’s experience includes bringing manufacturing plants from greenfield construction, through PAI and commercial launch.
George earned a Bachelor’s of Science in Biochemistry from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, a Master’s in Engineering and an MBA from San Jose State University
Cole Cordes
Head of Manufacturing and Supply Chain Operations
Cole Cordes, Head of Manufacturing and Supply Chain Operations
Scientific Advisory Board
Amy Kong
Co-Founder & Scientific Advisor
Amy Kong
Amy Kong is Co-Founder of Bionova Scientific, where she led the company through rapid growth and expansion from its early days as a start-up CRO to its current state as a full-service CDMO. She now serves as a Scientific Advisor to the company.
Prior to co-founding Bionova in 2014, Amy held several scientific roles at leading biopharmaceutical firms including Boehringer Ingelheim, Amgen and Abgenix. At Boehringer Ingelheim, Inc. and Amgen, Amy spent several years as a Senior Research Scientist where her responsibilities included managing the Upstream Process Development group, leading media development activities, process development and process characterization (including characterizing the production bioreactor unit operation for a commercial process), process transfer and process improvements. In these roles, Amy prepared cell culture filings for the FDA QbD pilot program. She also evaluated the impact of critical raw materials on the productivity and product quality for a commercial process, resulting in 30% improvement in titer and improved process consistency.
In a prior role at Abgenix, Amy specialized in commercial cell line development and vector performance improvement. She successfully developed high producing cell lines for production and an IND filing using a DHFR-amplified system and also worked intensively with several CHO host cell lines, including CHO-DG44, DUXB-11, and CHO-K1. At Abgenix, Amy also developed protein expression vectors and evaluated them through small scale cell culture. She successfully improved vector performance by optimizing the promoter, introns and other vector enhancing elements.
She started her career as a molecular biologist at Scios, Inc., where she focused on vector constructs, gene expression and cloning.
Amy has published several peer-reviewed scientific articles and is the inventor of record for a U.S. patent involving mediators of signal transduction.
Amy earned her M.S. in Chemistry at the University of Minnesota and her B.S. in Biology at Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
Chung Chun
Co-Founder & Scientific Advisor
Chung Chun
Chung Chun is Co-Founder of Bionova Scientific and now serves as a Scientific Advisor to the company.
Prior to co-founding Bionova in 2014, Chung spent nearly 20 years in the biopharmaceutical industry, establishing an impressive track-record of delivering technical results and achieving business goals. Much of her pre-Bionova career was at Abgenix, Amgen and Boehringer Ingelheim.
Most recently, Chung was a Senior Manager at Boehringer Ingelheim overseeing process development, tech transfer, and GMP campaigns for BI’s CDMO operations.
During her prior tenure at Abgenix (and later as part of Amgen), she was instrumental in the development and production of Vectibix®. For 10 years, she shepherded the product from the R&D stage, through IND and BLA filings, and into commercial GMP production.
Chung’s technical experience and expertise focuses on clinical and commercial upstream process development, process characterization; cGMP facility design and buildout including stainless steel and single-use technologies; manufacturing operations including Tox, Phase I, II, III and commercial; clinical and regulatory affairs including IND & BLA filings; and commercial product audits including FDA, EMEA, KFDA, ANVISA, PMDA & CFIA.
Chung earned her B.A. in Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley.
