Board of Directors and Advisors

ThalesNano

Dr. Ferenc Darvas is one of the true pioneers in the process intensification involved in modern chemistry. Dr. Darvas conceived the first industrialized solution-phase combinatorial synthesis technology (CMT). This was realized by ComGenex, the first European combinatorial chemistry corporation in 1992. In the mid-90′s, he focused to high-throughput ADME methodologies in combinatorial design, introduced combinatorial methodologies into chemical genomics and recently, the use of micro- and mesoscale flow reaction technologies for combinatorial synthesis and lead optimization when, as inventor, initiated and co-developed H-Cube®, the first bench-top hydrogenation reactor at ThalesNano, Inc.

Dr. Darvas received his first degree in organic chemistry, another in computer science and his PhD. in the use of artificial intelligence in drug design. Dr. Darvas is co-founder of the International Society for QSAR, the Society for Biomolecular Screening (SBS), the Hungarian Chapter of the American Chemical Society and the Hungarian Biotechnology Association. He was teaching in Budapest, Barcelona, Gainesville (Florida, USA) and still teaching as guest professor at Florida International University, Miami.

Gergely Darvas started his career in commercial real estate, then he led the Hungarian American Chamber of Commerce New Jersey in Budapest for two years until 2000. He joined the family business in 2001, first as a Director of Marketing at CompuDrug International, a US based pharmaceutical software company. He became a Chief Operating Officer at ThalesNano, a leading flow chemistry technology company until 2009. During this period, the company grown to the largest flow chemistry instrumentation company in the industry. Later he helped creating, funding and nurturing technology startups and were serving as a Board Member at the Cambridge (UK) based Nuformix until 2016, at the Ireland based Druggability Technologies and ComInnex. He still serving the Board of Aromax since 2012 and lately the new startup Smartaromix, and has an operative role as an investment director at Darholding.

He is a founder and Vice President of the Hungarian Spin-Off Association; holder of the R&D 100's Award and Duna TV’s distinguished Entrepreneur of the Year of 2007. He served 2 years as a Chair of the Audit Committee of the Family Business Network in Hungary. He holds a Professional Diploma in Management from Open University Milton Keys UK/Eurocontact Business School and an entrepreneurship management from Instituto de Empresa, Madrid.

Alex is a founder and former CEO of ThalesNano. He had a number of operating roles at the company between 2002 and 2007. Earlier he was chief financial officer at ComGenex Inc. and vice president of ABN AMRO Bank in London and then in Budapest. Before joining ABN AMRO, Mr. Drijver worked in different financial and investment related positions in London for 10 years. In April 2015, he was appointed as the CEO of ComInnex Inc., after 7 years as CEO of ChemAxon, a leader in providing chemical software development platforms for the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries.

Since February 2018, he continues to serve as a board member of ThalesNano and as head of strategic development, whilst remaining CEO of ThalesNano’s sister company, ComInnex Inc. He is the holder of the R&D 100’s Award and the Hungarian Venture Capital Association’s SME of the Year Award and served on the Board of the Pistoia Alliance (a cross industry alliance to bring down barriers to open innovation in pharmaceutical research IT) from 2010 to 2015.

George E. Pataki joined the ThalesNano Advisory Board in September, 2009. He was a partner in the New York law firm of Plunkett & Jaffe until 1987, was elected mayor of Peekskill, New York in 1981, and served in the New York State Legislature as an assemblyman and then a senator from 1985 to 1994. In 1994, he became the fifty-third Governor of the State of New York and was reelected in 1998 and 2002. He served as Governor from January 1, 1995 until January 1, 2007.

Geroge Pataki led the establishment of the first mandatory cap and trade carbon initiative (Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative) which now includes ten Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic States. The Governor implemented the first integrated strategy for creating clean, renewable transportation networks utilizing alternative fuels. In addition, Governor Pataki worked to create public private partnerships for clean energy generation in New York State resulting in one of the largest industrial solar power arrays in the U.S., two cellulosic ethanol pilot production facilities and one of the largest wind-power arrays in the Eastern U.S. He introduced metering to encourage alternative energy production in homes and established the nation’s first business park devoted to the development of clean energy technologies.

Governor Pataki joined the law firm of Chadbourne and Parke, LLP in 2007 as Counsel, focusing on environmental, energy and infrastructure practice areas. The Governor is also founder and Chairman of Pataki-Cahill Group, a consulting firm concentrating on climate change, energy and the environment. Since joining Chadbourne and Parke, Pataki served as Co-Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations Independent Task Force on Climate Change and as the Unites States Public Delegate to the United Nations General Assembly. Governor Pataki holds a Bachelor’s degree from Yale University (1967) and a Law degree from Columbia Law School (1970).

Dr. David Tapolczay has more than 20 years of experience in R&D management; his past roles include joint worldwide head of chemistry for Zeneca agrochemicals and senior manager of chemical development for Glaxo. He was responsible for the rapid growth of Cambridge Discovery Chemistry and was a key figure in two successful sales of the company initially to Oxford Molecular and then Millennium Pharmaceuticals. Post this last acquisition, Tapolczay was VP of Pharmaceutical Sciences with responsibility for over 230 scientists. On leaving Millennium, Dr. Tapolczay was a founder of Pharmorphix Ltd., which was acquired by Sigma Aldrich Fine Chemicals in August 2006. He has also been involved with the start up of 5 companies, all of which are still trading and one of which has been AIM listed. He was most recently VP of Technology Development for GSK pharmaceuticals and is currently the Chief Executive Officer of the Medical Research Council Technology Group (MRCT).

Dr. Tapolczay has an international reputation in the pharmaceutical chemical development, as well as an outstanding academic track record with a considerable number of patents and publications. He was a visiting Professor at Sussex University and has previously held the position of visiting lecturer at Nottingham, Reading and Durham Universities and a member of both the Technical Opportunities Panel and the User Panel of the EPSRC.

In addition to his Board responsibilities, Mr. Gallello leads key aspects of the company’s operations, including sales, marketing and the product realization process.

Mr. Gallello was Chief Executive Officer of Graphisoft from 2003-2008. Under his leadership, he restored Graphisoft to a high growth and profit company with an ever-expanding global footprint. This success culminated in the acquisition of all the shares of publicly traded Graphisoft by Nemetschek AG in 2007.

Prior to Graphisoft, Mr. Gallello was responsible for all product development as EVP, Products at Macromedia. For 10 years at Autodesk, he was EVP of the high growth Asia/Pacific division and Mechanical Market Group and later, the $600M Design Solutions Division. Mr. Gallello also spent 11 years at Intergraph Corporation in various management roles including serving as President of Intergraph Japan. He holds a BA and MBA from Monmouth University.