About Us

Background

Affinergy develops site-specific biological systems using biofriendly linkers that selectively adhere to proteins, drugs, cells, and biomaterial surfaces in order to kickstart biology toward an intended outcome. Affinergy is focused on developing coatings and medical devices for the orthopedic and cardiovascular markets.

Affinergy's technology was patented at Duke University and was awarded 2005 Innovation of the Year by Frost & Sullivan in the category of Medical Device Coatings.

Executive Team

Peyton Anderson, MBA
Chief Executive Officer

Peyton is a successful entrepreneur who co-founded SciQuest, Inc. in 1995 as its founding CEO. SciQuest raised over $175 million in capital, including a successful Initial Public Offering in 1999. His responsibilities included raising capital, recruiting the management team, doing strategic partner deals, and orchestrating 8 acquisitions.

Peyton joined Affinergy as CEO in September 2003. Since that time, Affinergy has secured $5m in investor funding, recruited a Board of Directors, and negotiated partnership agreements with Boston Scientific, Synthes, DuPont, and MTF. Affinergy is now positioned as a platform technology in the rapidly growing market for combination products with opportunities to partner with medical device companies across several large markets as well as developing its own proprietary products.

Peyton is a frequent speaker at entrepreneurial conferences and MBA classes. He is on the executive committee of the Board of Directors for the Council for Entrepreneurial Development. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the U. of Richmond in 1989 and earned his MBA from UNC's Kenan Flagler Business School in 1995.

Jonathan Gindes, MBA
Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice-President of Business Development

Jonathan and Affinergy's scientific co-founders (M. Grinstaff, D. Kenan) began working together in 2002 to form Affinergy while Jonathan pursued his M.B.A. at Duke's Fuqua School of Business. Jonathan developed Affinergy's initial business strategy, negotiated the technology license from Duke University, and recruited a senior management team along with other scientific staff and business advisors. Jonathan now focuses his time at Affinergy building, strengthening, and managing relationships with Affinergy's present and potential medical device partners, as well as overseeing all of Affinergy's financial activities.

Prior to attending Fuqua, Jonathan spent several years working in the corporate strategy group at Deutsche Bank with the firm's senior management team. His work focused on merger integration, IT/Operations consolidation strategies, and business plan development for potential spinouts and involved significant periods of time working overseas, including extensive commitments to projects in London and Frankfort. Jonathan received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Rutgers University.

Paul Hamilton, Ph.D.
Vice-President, Research & Development

Paul has over 19 years of industrial experience in both diagnostic and therapeutic companies. From 2000 to 2004,Paul was the VP of R&D and site manager for Karo Bio USA. His responsibilities included setting science and business priorities and coordinating activities between the US and Swedish sites.

Paul was previously Director of Research for Novalon Pharmaceuticals where he helped to develop and industrialize the company's peptide-based technologies, including the use of phage display technology to identify peptides. Prior to that, he spent 11 years with Becton Dickinson.

Paul received his Ph.D. in Microbiology from the Ohio State University in 1984. He has published over 20 manuscripts and is a co-inventor on 7 issued patents.

Bud Nelson, Ph.D., J.D.
Vice President, Intellectual Property

Bud combines his scientific training with his law degree to efficiently and effectively build and manage a patent portfolio for biotech companies. He received a Ph.D. in Immunology and Microbiology, and a law degree, at the University of Buffalo. Bud has over 12 years experience as an intellectual property (IP) attorney in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries, and 7 years experience as corporate legal counsel.

Prior to joining Affinergy, Bud was Vice President, R&D and IP, at BioCrystal Ltd.; and Chief IP Counsel at Trimeris, Inc. In addition to protecting IP, Bud innovates in research and development, and is co-inventor on 10 issued U.S. patents.

Carmella S. Moody, Ph.D.
Vice President, Regulatory & Quality Affairs

Carmella brings over 20 years of experience in the development of biotechnology products and small molecules to Affinergy. She most recently served as Director, Regulatory Affairs for Constella Group, a large contract research organization. Previously, she has held roles of increasing responsibility in regulatory affairs, product development, and quality with Glaxo Wellcome, Covance Biotechnology Services, and Cato Research. Her experiences include drugs, biologics, and devices.

Carmella is highly creative and has a great passion for developing new therapies to help patients in a wide range of therapeutic areas. She earned her Ph.D. and M.S. in microbiology at North Carolina State University.

Daniel Kenan, M.D., Ph.D.
Scientific Co-Founder

Dan is an assistant professor of Pathology at Duke University Medical Center. Dan received his Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology at Duke. He later received his M.D. at Duke where he continued residency training in Pathology.

In 1997, Dan became the Director of the Combinatorial Sciences Center at Duke. Dan has published more than 30 manuscripts and is the principal investigator on 4 NIH grants.

Mark Grinstaff, Ph.D.
Scientific Co-Founder

Mark is an Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biomedical Engineering at Boston University. This professorship is funded by a $14MM Whitaker Foundation Leadership Award. Mark received his Ph.D. from U. of Illinois and was an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow at the California Institute of Technology.

Mark has published over 60 manuscripts. His awards include the ACS Nobel Laureate Signature Award, NSF Career Award, Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences, Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar, and an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship.