J. Kelly Ganjei

Biography

Mr. Ganjei joined Cognate in 2011 as the Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Ganjei has over 20 years of experience within the life science, venture capital and IT sectors and has lead companies through various stages of development, ranging from the virtual start-up, to the mid-cap restart, through the exponential growth phase, and into a public exit. Prior to joining Cognate, Mr. Ganjei was Principal at an SBA venture capital firm where he was brought on to support deal flow into and out of the fund, with a specific focus on regenerative medicine, immunotherapy and cell therapy investment opportunities. While in this role, he helped the venture capital firm exit the SBA program and was the key driver of several other strategic deals for various portfolio companies. Previously, Mr. Ganjei was the CEO and Co-founder of Remegenix, Inc. which transitioned to public exit with a $5 million funding commitment from Kodiak Capital. Prior to Remegenix, Inc., as the VP of Business Development at TissueGene, Inc., Mr. Ganjei helped close several tranches of TissueGene’s Series A and B funding and was responsible for developing the global informatics infrastructure for the company and its affiliates. Prior to TissueGene, Inc., he served as a Product Marketing Manager for LabVantage where he was the key technical sales and marketing lead for LabVantage’s life science software product offering globally and was responsible for the design of all life science product initiatives. Mr. Ganjei has published numerous scientific, peer-reviewed papers in a number of journals and has been an invited guest speaker and presenter at various business forums. Mr. Ganjei received his B.S. in Microbiology from the University of Maryland College Park in 1995 and began his career at NIH in May of the same year. 

Research Interest

Cell-based Products, Cell Therapy, cGMP Manufacturing, Cell-Based cGMP Product Manufacturing, Process Development