​Our Leadership Team

M. (Ken) Kengatharan, PhD, MBA
Co-founder, Director, and Chief Business Officer
Dr. Kengatharan is a co-founder of several San Francisco bay area based biopharmaceutical companies where he held responsibilities in R&D and corporate development. He is currently Chief Business Officer at Renexxion Ireland Ltd., President & CEO at Auxesia Orion, Inc., Executive Chairman at Helios Orion Corporation, a Director at Radix Blend Company, Managing Partner at Atheneos Ventures, and a member of the board at Apollorion Global (Ireland) Limited. Previously he was President & CEO of Armetheon, Inc. (renamed Espero Biopharma, Inc. following a merger) and prior to that President & CSO of Altheos, Inc. He is the former Vice President, Pre-Clinical R&D of Athenagen, Inc. (re-named CoMentis, Inc. following a merger).
  
During the last 21 years, Dr. Kengatharan has been critical to the development of multiple drug candidates from concept to clinical development. Since setting-up his first company in the late 1990s, with a great team and highly supportive investors in each case, he has been critical to setting-up 9 companies and raising >$160MM in private equity and for closing partnership transactions in excess of $1bn in deal value.
 
He has served on the boards of EPi3 (UK), Athenagen, Altheos, Armetheon, he has been an advisor/advisory board member at Spire-BioVentures, Cardinal Free Clinics (Stanford University School of Medicine), a mentor at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)’s entrepreneurship program and a panel judge for the Stanford Business School’s Ignite Program.
 
Ken trained as a cardiovascular pharmacologist in London and at Stanford after obtaining his PhD in pharmacology from the University of London under the supervision of eminent British pharmacologist and Nobel laureate, Prof. Sir John Vane FRS. Dr Kengatharan obtained his MBA (with Distinction) from Durham University in England, where he focused on Biotech Finance and Entrepreneurship. His current interests, based on previous experience, include capital efficient R&D, application of distributed ledger technology, AI, and novel paths to raising private equity in healthcare.