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 Our
Team
S.
Douglas Sheldon, Partner
Dr.
Jeffery Z. Li, Partner
Howard
Weisman, Partner
Dr.
Tong Zhang, Director
S. Douglas Sheldon Partner
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Mr. Sheldon has over 30 years of international
and domestic experience in the pharmaceutical and related
healthcare industries. Prior to joining with his partners
in creating ESP Equity Partners,LLC, a private
equity fund , Mr. Sheldon co-founded ESP Pharma,
Inc. a specialty pharmaceutical company recently sold
to Protein Design Labs . Mr. Sheldon was a partner at ESP
Partners LLC, a healthcare consulting and investment firm,
the predecessor to ESP Pharma. Prior to co-founding ESP Partners
LLC in 2000, he was Vice-President of Strategic Partnership
Development at Parke-Davis Pharmaceuticals where he
co-founded an internal business accelerator that focused on
the company's largest, revenue-generating products. Mr. Sheldon
began his career with Pfizer, Inc. and spent nearly
17 years working in senior international finance, marketing,
country management and regional line management assignments
in both South America and Asia (Regional VP, Pfizer Asia).
During his tenure as Pfizer's Country Manager for Thailand/
Myanmar/ Cambodia, with P&L responsibility for Pharmaceuticals,
Animal Health, Hospital Products and Consumer Products divisions,
he significantly grew both sales and profitability through
market expansion and new product launches. He left Pfizer
in 1991 to form TTMC, Ltd (Thailand/Myanmar/Vietnam) a venture
company focused on healthcare and life sciences related businesses
in South East Asia in addition to real estate development
and construction in Thailand. In 1994, he founded Indochina
Healthcare Ltd. (IHL) joint venture operations in Thailand,
Hong Kong, Vietnam and Myanmar, merging TTMC's existing hospital
products business in orthopedics and urology with Hospira's (formerly F.H. Faulding and Mayne Pharma, Australia) oncology
and cardiovascular business. Mr. Sheldon has been actively
and continuously involved in building profitable start-ups
in Asia for the last 24 years and served several years on
the board of both the America Chamber of Commerce (Thailand)
and as Vice-Chairman (IPR) of the regional Asia Pacific Council
of American Chambers (APCAC). Mr. Sheldon remains active as
an Executive Director, and Chairman of the Board of IHL.
Mr Sheldon also serves on the Board of Directors of EKR Therapeutics ,Inc. (www.ekrtx.com ) a specialty Pharma firm based in the USA.
Mr. Sheldon received his BS in Chemistry from
LeMoyne College and MBA in Finance and Marketing from Syracuse
University. He served as an officer (Lieutenant Commander)
in the U.S. Navy in both active duty (S.E. Asia) and the reserves.
He is bilingual English/Spanish.
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Dr. Jeffery Z. Li Partner
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Dr. Li has more than 15 years of experience
in the healthcare industry ranging from scientific research,
biotech and specialty pharma entrepreneurship to sales, marketing
and business development with fully integrated pharmaceutical
companies. Prior to ESP Equity Partners, LLC, Dr. Li
was a co-founder of ESP Pharma, a specialty pharmaceutical
company where he identified and facilitated the acquisition
of the 4 corner stone products of the company including Cardene
IV, an intravenous 2nd generation dihydropyridine
calcium channel blocker indicated for the short-term treatment
of hypertension. The annual sales of Cardene IV grew from
$6 MM in 2001 to $60 MM in 2004 and became the key value driver
for the company. In March 2005, ESP Pharma was acquired
by Protein Design Labs (NASDAQ: PDLI) for more than
$ 500 MM dollars. Prior to ESP Pharma, Dr. Li was a
partner at ESP Partners, LLC, a healthcare consulting
and investment firm. Before founding ESP Partners, LLC,
in 2000, Dr Li held several management positions with increasing
responsibilities at Parke-Davis, the pharmaceutical
division of Warner-Lambert Company (Now part of Pfizer).
Prior to Warner-Lambert, Dr Li was a founding member
of Enzyme Design, a biotech company. Dr. Li received
his doctoral and post-doctoral training from Harvard and published
a number of peer-reviewed articles in leading scientific journals.
Dr Li has a strong interest in promoting the
exchange between the US and China pharmaceutical industries.
He is the president of HT Pharma, a consulting firm
dedicated to US-China healthcare opportunities; a board member
of BayHelix (www.bayhelix.org),
a business-focused non-profit organization for Chinese life
sciences leaders; and an executive council member of the Sino-American
Pharmaceutical Professional Association. Dr Li has also
organized several conferences and seminars (including:
www.uschinapharma.com) to introduce Chinese Pharma/Life
science companies to the US business and financial community.
Dr. Li holds a Doctor of Science from Harvard,
an MBA from the University of Michigan and a BS in Biology
and a BS in Physics from Tsinghua University at Beijing, China
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Howard Weisman Partner
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Howard Weisman is a co-founder and partner of
ESP Equity Partners. Formerly as co-founder, President, Chief
Operating Officer and Director of ESP Pharma, a specialty
pharmaceutical company, he led the company from initial angel
financing up until the its merger with Protein Design Labs
(now PDL Biopharma) . Mr.Weisman began his career at Merck
& Co, Inc. and held several positions of increasing responsibility
in hospital sales and marketing management for Merck's hospital
product line. Mr. Weisman joined Parke-Davis in 1994 as Director
of New Products and later was Senior Director, Diabetes Marketing
where he oversaw the launch of Rezulin in 1997.
He went on to become the Senior Director of Strategic Partnership
Development at Parke-Davis and co-founded the company E-Business
Unit in 1999. Mr. Weisman holds a BA in Chemistry from Rutgers
University and attended Princeton University Graduate School
of Chemistry.
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Dr. Tong Zhang, Director
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Dr. Zhang joined ESP Equity Partners with more
than 10 years of experience in scientific research, healthcare
consulting, and investment banking. Dr. Zhang provided investment
advice to institutional investors as an associate analyst
at Credit Suisse covering the pharmaceutical industry. Prior
to Credit Suisse he worked at Defined Health and
ISO HealthCare Consulting (part of Monitor Group), two
leading strategy consulting firms serving pharmaceutical,
biotech and healthcare investment industries. As a consultant
Dr. Zhang assessed hundreds of products for pharmaceutical
and biotech companies and facilitated business development
in several high-value licensing deals. He also helped clients
develop product development and commercialization strategy.
Dr. Zhang received his doctoral training at Columbia
University and conducted post-doctoral research at Sloan-Kettering
Cancer Center in New York. He is the author of a number of
peer-reviewed articles in leading scientific journals.
Dr. Zhang is a member of BayHelix, a business-focused
non-profit organization for Chinese life sciences leaders;
and Sino-American Pharmaceutical Professional Association
(SAPA). He was on the organizing committee for the US-China
Pharma/Life Science Opportunity Conference, a summit well
attended by US and China executives in pharmaceutical and
financial industry.
Dr. Zhang holds a Ph.D. in Biology from Columbia
University and BS in Biology from Wuhan University in China.
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