Board of Directors

James Sapirstein, one of our directors since February 2022 and Chairman of the Board since October 2023, has over 35 years of experience leading, founding, growing, and selling healthcare companies, specifically in the pharmaceutical space. Mr. Sapirstein is currently the President, CEO and Chairman of First Wave BioPharma, Inc. (Nasdaq: FWBI), where he has been since October 2019. His career began in sales at Eli Lilly, eventually rising to Director of International Marketing at Bristol Myers Squibb from July 1996 to June 2000, and later led the launch of Viread (tenofovir) at Gilead Sciences, Inc. (Nasdaq: GILD), where he served as Global Marketing Lead from June 2020 to June 2002. From November 2006 to January 2011, he served as founding CEO of Tobira Therapeutics (Nasdaq: TBRA), then a private company, and later acquired by Allergan (NYSE: AGN). Since then, he has served as CEO of Alliqua Biomedical (Nasdaq: ALQA) from September 2012 to February 2014 and CEO of Contravir Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: CTRV) from March 2014 to October 2018. He has been part of almost two dozen drug product launches and specifically either led or has been a key member of several HIV product launches into different new classes of therapeutics at the time. Additionally, Mr. Sapirstein has held board positions on ZyVersa Therapeitics, Inc. (Nasdaq: ZVSA) since January 2023 and Enochian Biosciences (Nasdaq: ENOB) since April 2018.  He previously served as a director of Marizyme (OTCMKTS:MRZM) (Executive Chairman) from December 2018 to June 2021, Leading Biosciences from 2016 to 2021, BioNJ, an association of biopharma industries in New Jersey,  from February 2017 to February 2019, RespireRX (OTCBB:RSPI) from April 2014 to January 2020, NanoViricides Inc. (NYSE: NNVC) from November 2018 to January 2020, and BWAC from December 2020 until its business combination with Clarus in September 2021. He is also a Board Director for BIO, the leading Biopharma Industries Organization promoting public policy and networking in the healthcare space, where he sits on both the Health Section and Emerging Companies Section Governing Boards. Mr. Sapirstein received a B.S. in Pharmacy from Rutgers University and his MBA from Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Dr. Neil J. Campbell has been President & CEO Blue Water Biotech, Inc. and a member of the Board of Director since October 2023. Dr Campbell currently serves as Chairman of Mosaigen, a commercial development company and Patriax Industries.  Dr. Campbell has over 30 years of successful experience with public and private companies in the life sciences, medical, healthtech, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, and high-performance computing technologies.  Previously, Dr. Campbell was Chairman, CEO, and founder of Celios, a respiratory and therapeutic device. Prior to founding Celios, Dr. Campbell was co-founder, President and CEO of Helomics, a personalized healthcare company focused on next-generation oncology therapeutics and diagnostics. Dr. Campbell has prior institutional investment experience as a partner in venture capital, and operating partner and industry advisor in private equity. Dr. Campbell  has also held senior executive positions at SuperNova Diagnostics, EntreMed Pharmaceuticals, Life Technologies, IGEN International (now Roche), Celera Genomics, and Abbott Laboratories. Dr. Campbell has also held academic positions at Johns Hopkins University and Medical Institutes, Hong Kong University of Science and Tech (HKUST), University of Liverpool (UK), University of Baltimore and Duquesne University. Dr. Campbell is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force. Dr. Campbell received his B.S. from Norwich University, M.A. and M.B.A. from Webster University and Doctorate from the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom.

Timothy R. Ramdeen has nearly a decade of experience in private equity and hedge fund investing, capital markets, and company formation.

Since June 2022, Mr. Ramdeen has been founder and managing partner of Dharma Capital Advisors, an investment and advisory firm focused on early-stage private and public companies. From March 2021 to March 2022, Mr. Ramdeen was co-founder, chief investment officer, and portfolio manager at Sixth Borough Capital Management, a multi-stage, event-driven hedge fund focused on both private and public equities.

Since 2022, Mr. Ramdeen has been the co-founder of Amplexd Therapeutics, which is a women’s health/biotechnology company focused on providing low-cost, effective, safe and accessible treatments for early cervical and HPV-related cancers worldwide. Mr. Ramdeen also serves as a corporate advisor/board member to multiple early-stage companies and investment funds.

Previously, Mr. Ramdeen was the fifth hire at Altium Capital Management (“Altium”), a healthcare-focused investment firm, where from July 2019 to March 2021 he served as the sole investment analyst on the private capital markets/special situations desk (privately-negotiated financings, direct investments, event-driven long/short, and private to public investments in micro and small-cap companies). During his tenure at Altium, Mr. Ramdeen was instrumental in co-creating the firm’s SPAC and reverse merger investment efforts and establishing extensive relationships with sell-side constituents, buy-side counterparts, and hundreds of private and publicly traded companies across biotechnology, therapeutics, healthcare services, medical devices and medtech.

Prior to Altium, from September 2017 to July 2019, Mr. Ramdeen served as the sole investment analyst at Brio Capital Management, a New York-based event-driven/special situations hedge fund focused on small-cap equities, where he invested as a generalist. In addition to spearheading all investments on behalf of the firm, Mr. Ramdeen assumed increasing degrees of responsibility and oversight including general fund/business operations, investor relations, capital raising/business development and compliance. Before entering public markets investing, Prior to 2017, Mr. Ramdeen also spent time in private equity working for both a private New York‑based family office and Focus Financial Partners, a publicly traded holding company.

Mr. Ramdeen received his B.S. in Biology from Temple University, where he conducted scientific research across neurology, oncology, and developmental biology. In addition, Mr. Ramdeen earned his MBA in Finance from NYU Stern School of Business.

Simon Tarsh, one of our Directors since August 2022, has more than 40 years of financial experience, working in both the UK and the USA.  He has recently retired from Deloitte Consulting LLP, where he was a Senior Managing Director in the Finance and Enterprise Performance Practice, where he had served global clients since 2007.  He led a growing global practice focused around Operational Transformation, including supporting Carve Out transactions, joint ventures and hybrid structures, both in the US and in international locations, such as India, China, Eastern Europe and Latin America.  He supported high growth companies with their finance operations as they globalized, and was able to advise them on their expansion, while balancing growth with appropriate controls.  Prior to moving to the United States in 2007, Mr. Tarsh’s consulting career began with PA Consulting Group, London in 1988, where he was elected as a Partner in 1997, and he built ISG’s business process outsourcing advisory practice in Europe between 2001 and 2006.  Mr. Tarsh’s early career was in finance, working with Marathon Oil and Dow Chemical, and during this period, he qualified as a Chartered Accountant.  Mr. Tarsh received a Bachelor of Science undergraduate degree in Business and Administration from the University of Salford, Manchester, UK in 1981, and an MBA from City University Business School, London, UK in 1988.  He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (1984), which is considered as a CPA equivalent.