About Us

Management Team

John Osth, MBA, President and CEO:

John Osth is an experienced and well-rounded senior executive in the medical/scientific industry. At various points in his career he has served as CEO, President, CFO, head of R&D, VP of Business Development, head of sales and marketing, and manager of diagnostics manufacturing. Of particular note, he was President of the Immunotherapy Division of Baxter Healthcare and most recently was CEO of Celula, Inc., a VC backed genomics start-up pursuing the non-invasive prenatal diagnostic market.

Mr. Osth's career has been dedicated to bringing new medical products and services to market. His experience across a broad spectrum of scientific and medical products provides him with a deep understanding of the opportunities and obstacles inherent in introducing new technological advancements to the marketplace. As a leader of both large and small companies, he recognizes how to best leverage the talents of the workforce to maximally contribute to the commercialization of a medical product. For several years he has acted as a mentor and advisor to several start-up organizations.

Mr. Osth received his undergraduate degree from the US Naval Academy, a Master's in Engineering from the University of Illinois and an MBA from the University of Chicago's Executive Program.

Amin Khalifa, MBA, Chief Financial Officer:

Amin Khalifa is an accomplished management executive with experience in several industries, most recently in medical devices, diagnostics and home healthcare. Mr. Khalifa has extensive experience in financial operations, strategy, IT and leading large teams. He has also represented several large companies with investors and considers himself an effective communicator for the companies that he has represented.

Mr. Khalifa mostly held executive financial positions in the course of his career. His most recent role was Corporate Vice President and CFO for Iris International where he was instrumental in streamlining company operations and improving forecasts, leading to Danaher's acquisition of Iris in 2012, doubling the companies' market valuation.

Mr. Khalifa recently served eight years on the PetSmart board of directors. Previously, Mr. Khalifa was CFO and executive vice president at Apria Healthcare for three years, where he spearheaded the effort to gain a more detailed understanding of customer and product profitability. Before Apria, he served as Vice President – Finance and CFO of Beckman Coulter. Prior to Beckman Coulter, Amin was CFO of Monsanto's agricultural sector. Earlier in his career, Amin held the position of CFO of Aetna Health Plans and served in several financial and business development capacities during his fifteen-year tenure at PepsiCo.

Mr. Khalifa Amin holds a BS in industrial engineering and an MBA from Lehigh University.

Masato Mitsuhashi, MD, PhD, Chief Technology Officer:

Dr. Masato Mitsuhashi began his career as a pediatrician with a subspecialty in allergy/immunology. In 1985 he joined Dr. Goetzl's laboratory at the University of California, San Francisco as a post doc, developing an expertise in molecular technologies. He subsequently joined Hitachi Chemical Research Center, advancing to the position of CSO. During his tenure at Hitachi, Dr. Mitsuhashi served as president/CEO for two spin-off companies; Advanced Gene Computing Technologies, Inc. (1993) and RNAture, Inc. (2000). During this period, he also held the position of associate professor in the Department of Pathology, University of California, Irvine (UCI) (1992-2005). Dr. Mitsuhashi has been an early advisory board member for the Department of Biomedical Engineering at UCI School of Engineering and the Susan Samueli Center for Integrative Medicine at the UCI School of Medicine.

Over the past several years, Dr. Mitsuhashi's work has been focused on developing various approaches, techniques and products for the isolation and characterization of nanosomes (nano-particles that include exosomes and ectosomes). As the Chief Technology Officer at NanoSomiX, he is using this expertise to translate innovative research advancements using exosomes in blood into clinically applicable laboratory developed tests.

Dr. Mitsuhashi received his M.D. and Ph.D. from Gunma University, Japan.

Dennis Van Epps, PhD, VP Scientific Affairs

Dr. Dennis Van Epps is an experienced Research and Development Executive with a career that spans both academia and industry. He began his career as a tenured Professor in the Departments of Medicine, Pathology and Microbiology at the University of New Mexico Medical School. He later joined Baxter Healthcare Corporation as a Director of Immunology and became Vice President of Research for the Immunotherapy Division. He subsequently joined Nexell Therapeutics as a Corporate Officer and Vice President of R&D where the focus was development of FDA approved and CE marked human stem cell collection and delivery devices. He later joined CancerVax Corporation, a startup company developing a melanoma vaccine and an anti-angiogenic therapeutic antibody as Vice President of R&D and Corporate Officer.

Prior to joining NanoSomiX, Dr. Van Epps was Vice President Research for the Medical Device Division of Allergan focused on implantable and injectable aesthetic devices and Vice President, New Device Technology Assessment exploring new portfolio product opportunities. He has published over 140 scientific articles in immunology, neuroimmunology, stem cell technology and inflammation and has been an inventor on over 20 patents.

Dennis obtained his Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Illinois Medical Center in Chicago.