Board of Directors
Jerry McLaughlin
Chairman, Independent Board Member
Jerry McLaughlin has been a director of Allarity Therapeutics, Inc. since October 2022. Mr. McLaughlin has three decades of experience in leading operational and executive management roles. He made key contributions to significant life science milestones, including product launches, acquisitions, and financings.
He is currently serving as CEO and Board Member of Life Biosciences, LLC, a development-stage biopharmaceutical company advancing therapeutics for patients with neurological and psychiatric diseases. Prior to serving in this role, he was President, CEO, and Member of the Board of Directors at Neos Therapeutics (acquired by Aytu BioScience.) Before joining Neos Therapeutics, he served as President, CEO, and Member of the Board of Directors at AgeneBio, Inc.
Earlier in his career, he held corporate leadership roles at NuPathe, Inc., Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc., and Merck & Co., Inc. He received his B.A. from Dickinson College and his MBA from Villanova University in Pennsylvania.
Thomas Jensen
Chief Executive Officer, Board Member
Thomas H. Jensen has been the Chief Executive Officer of Allarity Therapeutics, Inc. since December 2023, a director of ours since July 2022, and has been a part of the Company’s since its inception serving in a range of capacities. Mr. Jensen is also the CEO of TEQCool AB, a private medical technology company. Before becoming the CEO, Mr. Jensen has been the Senior Vice President, Investor Relations since June 2022, and a director of ours since July 2022. Previously, Mr. Jensen served as Senior Vice President of information Technology of Allarity Therapeutics, Inc. as well as of our predecessor, Allarity Therapeutics A/S, since June 2020. Mr. Jensen previously served as the Chief Technology Officer of our predecessor from 2004 to June 2020.
Mr. Jensen co-founded Allarity Therapeutics A/S in 2004. Mr. Jensen also established and currently leads our laboratories in Denmark. Alongside nurturing our global laboratories, Mr. Jensen is instrumental in building our investor relations operations, securing operational financing, and fostering the business growth of Allarity Therapeutics. Amongst Mr. Jensen’s accolades are his inventions of molecular biological guidelines combined with techniques for high quality reproducible RNA extraction and downstream processing. This allows for high resolution analysis of cancer patients’ biopsies.
Mr. Jensen’s inventions are an important foundation of the DRP® -Drug Response Prediction platform. Mr. Jensen also currently serves on the Board of Cardeon AB, a Swedish company that invests in innovative Nordic companies and start-ups in medical technology and Life Science. Mr. Jensen holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from the Technical University of Denmark, and conducted further studies in Biology at the University of Copenhagen.
Laura Benjamin, Ph.D.
Independent Board Member
Laura has served on the board of Allarity since the fall of 2023. She is currently also the CEO and President of BioHybrid Solutions, a therapeutics company with a polymer chemistry technology used build biologic medicines. Prior roles included building and growing the clinical stage company, OncXerna, advancing precision medicines and diagnostics for ovarian cancer and immune therapies. Prior to this Laura led oncology discovery efforts at Eli Lilly and Company with key roles in advancing and launching multiple products including Cyramza which is approved for Gastric, Colon, Liver and Lung cancers.
Laura received a PhD in Molecular Biology at the University of Pennsylvania, following a B.A. in Biology from Barnard College, Columbia University. After her postdoctoral work at Hadassah Hospital, Laura spent 13 years on the faculty of the Department of Pathology at Harvard Medical School. Her academic research at Harvard focused on cellular and molecular mechanisms driving vascular development and cancer biology, with a particular interest in the role of the microenvironment on cancer progression and response to targeted therapies. Her research was supported by multiple NIH and foundation grants and supported a large laboratory of students, postdoctoral fellows and residents. She was the Associate Director of the Center for Vascular Biology at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and was recognized by Harvard Medical School in 2009 for excellence in mentoring students, postdocs, and junior faculty.
Joseph Vazzano, CPA
Independent Board Member
Joseph (Joe) Vazzano joined Abeona Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: ABEO) as Chief Financial Officer in March 2022. While at Abeona, Mr. Vazzano has secured multiple equity raises including private placements, a registered direct offering, and at the market transactions. Before joining Abeona, Mr. Vazzano worked at Avenue Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATXI) from August 2017 to January 2022, most recently serving as Avenue’s Chief Financial Officer.
During his tenure at Avenue, Mr. Vazzano secured multiple equity financings and served in a leadership role for signing a complex, two-stage acquisition of Avenue with future contingent value rights. Previously, Mr. Vazzano served as Assistant Corporate Controller at Intercept Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: ICPT) from October 2016 to July 2017, where he helped grow the finance and accounting department during the company’s transition from a development-stage company to a fully integrated commercial organization.
Prior to Intercept, Mr. Vazzano has held various finance and accounting roles at Pernix Therapeutics, Inc. and NPS Pharmaceuticals. Mr. Vazzano began his career at KPMG, LLP and has a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from Lehigh University and is a Certified Public Accountant in the State of New Jersey.
