The ReGelTec team is a combination a world class academic team alongside experienced MedTech executives with prior experience guiding new technologies and companies from inception to exit.

Leadership Team

Bill Niland is a serial healthcare entrepreneur who has founded and successfully exited four different companies in the healthcare space.  Most recently, Mr. Niland co-founded Harpoon Medical, Inc.  Harpoon was sold to Edwards Lifesciences for $250M ($100M upfront with $150M in potential milestones) in less than 5 years with only $6.5M of dilutive funding, generating an IRR >100% for investors.  Prior to Harpoon, Mr. Niland founded Vapotherm to commercialize respiratory therapy technology he invented.  Vapotherm has treated over 1.5M patients, went public in 2018 (NYSE:VAPO) and was recently trading with a market cap >$1B due to the technology’s important role in keeping COVID-19 patients off a ventilator.  Mr. Niland also started a sleep diagnostic company in the early 90’s and grew the largest sleep testing company in the U.S. before selling it to Vital Signs.  He holds 22 patents, is an angel investor and sits on multiple medical device company boards.

Dr. Anthony Lowman joined Rowan University in 2013, first as the Dean of the College of Engineering and now as Provost. His research contributions have focused on the preparation, characterization and evaluation of the behavior of compatible, crosslinked polymers known as hydrogels. Dr. Lowman has published more than 100 refereed journal articles and book chapters and has more than 20 issued patents. Dr. Lowman co-founded Gelifex, Inc., a company pursuing non-invasive methods for using hydrogels for repair of the nucleus pulposus of the intervertebral disc which was acquired by Synthes in 2004.  Dr. Lowman received his education in chemical engineering at the University of Virginia (B.S., 1993) and at Purdue University (Ph.D., 1997) and has held academic appointments at Temple and Drexel.

Mr. Collins has a broad background in accounting, information systems, human resources, purchasing, operations and customer service.  Mr. Collins and Mr. Niland have worked together for 15 years.  For the last 5 years they worked together at Harpoon Medical, where Mr. Collins was the VP of Finance and Operations and for 9+ years before that at Vapotherm where he built a strong corporate foundation to support hyper growth from $1.37M in sales to a peak of $13.9M.

Erik Brewer is a polymer chemist at ReGelTec. In addition, he is a full-time lecturer and Chair of Innovations and External Partnerships at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey. Prior to joining ReGelTec, he was an Associate Scientist at Merch Research Lab’s Biopharmaceutics division. He is a graduate of Drexel University (BS ’07, PhD ’14), where he majored in Chemical Engineering.

Peter Wilson brings 25+ years of experience of medical device experience to ReGelTec.  Most recently, he was a co-founder and VP of R&D at Harpoon Medical where he oversaw all aspects of R&D and manufacturing and lead of team of six talented engineers.  He began his career at Boston Scientific where he worked on peripheral stents and vena cava filters for six years before working as an early employee with increasing levels of responsibility at Micrus Endovascular (acquired by J&J), Vivant Medical (acquired by Covidien), and Emphasys Medical (acquired by Pulmonix). Mr. Wilson is an inventor on more than 25 US patents.

Zita Yurko has over 20+ years of experience in medical device regulatory affairs and quality systems. She was the VP of RA/QS at Harpoon Medical where she was responsible for securing ISO 13485 certification and CE mark for the company’s MDD Class III device. She has experience with FDA pre-submission meetings, and supported the approval for all EU clinical sites where the Harpoon device was studied.

Robert Townsend is a results driven leader with expertise in bringing novel technologies to market with 12+ years’ expertise and a proven track record.  He has extensive experience in global clinical trial development, execution and management.  Mr. Townsend’s most recent achievements include a PMA approval of the Cartiva SCI device, a VC backed start-up, that resulted in entity acquisition by Wright Medical for $435M.  Mr. Townsend holds a Bachelors degree in Biology from Georgia Southern University.

Peter is a healthcare entrepreneur with a background in business, science and law.  He was a co-founding member of Harpoon Medical where he negotiated and managed all aspects of a complex structured financing and the subsequent nine-figure acquisition by Edwards Lifesciences. Mr. Boyd has worked an associate at Latham & Watkins in Silicon Valley and started in career in the life sciences industry with Mr. Niland and Mr. Collins at Vapotherm, Inc.  He is an inventor on seven patents and has a JD/MBA from the University of Virginia.

Clinical & Medical Advisors

Dr Schaer is the Director of the Penn Vet Institute for Medical Translation where he leads collaborations with the medical device industry to investigate new technologies. He is also an Executive Committee Member  of the Penn Health-Tech Center for Health, Devices, and Technology. He completed his VMD at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine.

Dr Nunley is currently the Director of the Spine Institute at Specialists Hospital Shreveport. He received his medical degree from the University of Kansas Medical College followed by residency at LSU Health Sciences Center. He also completed a spine fellowship at the University of Basel, Switzerland and at at the Dallas Spine Group.

Dr Beall is currently the Chief of Radiology Services for Clinical Radiology of Oklahoma and the Division Head of Interventional Spine Care  at the Spine Fracture Institute and Summit Medical Center. He received his medical degree from Georgetown University, completed residency at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, and completed a fellowship in musculoskeletal radiology at the Mayo Clinic.

Dr. Amirdelfan is one of the founding partners at IPM Medical Group, Inc., in Walnut Creek, California.  He received his medical degree from Texas A&M University, College of Medicine.  He completed his residency at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas, an affiliated facility with Southwestern School of Medicine. Dr. Amirdelfan completed his fellowship in Interventional Pain Management at Pacific Pain Treatment Centers with Dr. Elliot Krames, in collaboration with California Pacific Medical Centers in San Francisco.  He has served as the Department Chair of Pain Medicine at John Muir Medical Center and Doctors Hospitals in his area.  He performs extensive research and lectures various cutting edge methods in pain management at the national and international levels.