Board of Directors
These seasoned professionals bring a strong foundation of integrity and a wealth of experience in ophthalmology to Allegro. From research and development to manufacturing to corporate leadership, each member of this esteemed panel is crucial to our organizational and product development success.
Executive Board Members
Independent Board Members
Dr. Karageozian is an industry veteran in ophthalmic drug development with more than 25 years of experience building, leading, and fundraising companies in the ophthalmic pharmaceutical space. An ophthalmic surgeon by training, Dr. Karageozian is the co-founder of three ophthalmic biotech companies since 1993, including ISTA Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Vitreoretinal Technologies, Inc., and Allegro Ophthalmics, LLC. He has been the inventor or co-inventor of numerous ophthalmic pharmaceuticals with more than 82 patents issued on his drug discoveries. His co-inventions include some of the first enzymatic, osmotic, and integrin-based treatments for the eye and some of the earliest work in intravitreal injections (Vitrase®). Dr. Karageozian has been instrumental in securing over $240M in aggregate venture and institutional capital and corporate partnerships for these companies.
Dr. Karageozian has led the business execution, clinical development, and regulatory strategy on numerous ophthalmic pharmaceuticals, including several negotiated novel endpoints for first in class drugs, and has led numerous Phase 1, 2, and 3 ophthalmic clinical programs across the US, EU, Asia, and Latin America.
As a senior executive at Allegro, Dr. Karageozian has extensive experience in formulating and leading the corporate strategy, execution, fundraising, and business development efforts. Throughout his ventures, Dr. Karageozian has led numerous successful licensing transactions, partnerships, mergers and acquisitions and IPOs across the US, Asia, and Latin America. This includes the successful IPO of ISTA Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Dr. Karageozian graduated from the University of California, San Diego with degrees in biochemistry and cellular biology and received his medical degree from Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston. After completing an internship at UCLA, he completed his ophthalmology residency at the University of California, Irvine.
Mr. Karageozian has over 47 years of distinguished service in ophthalmic drug development. During his career, Mr. Karageozian has brought over 30 ophthalmic drugs to market and is an author or co-author of more than 150 worldwide issued patents. Mr. Karageozian is the co-founder and Chief Technical Officer of Allegro Ophthalmics. Previously, Mr. Karageozian was the co-founder and CTO of ISTA Pharmaceuticals and served as CEO at Allegro, Prima Pharmaceuticals, S K Pharmaceuticals and Vitreoretinal Technologies. He has previously raised numerous rounds of venture capital funding for several of these companies, as well as active involvement in the initial public offering of ISTA Pharmaceuticals.
Prior to co-founding Prima Pharmaceuticals, Mr. Karageozian spent 23 years at Allergan Pharmaceuticals in senior management positions, including corporate head of research & development. Mr. Karageozian’s extensive experience and expertise spans well beyond research and development to include drug discovery and development, domestic and international regulatory affairs, clinical studies, and API and finished product manufacturing.
Mr. Karageozian received his BSc in Pharmacy from American University of Beirut, his MSc in Biochemistry from MIT, and his MBA from University of California, Irvine.
Dr. Park leads the drug discovery, product development, and manufacturing process development activities in support of Allegro’s drug development platforms.
Dr. Park’s long history of bringing ophthalmic drugs from concept to market that spans four decades and covers drug discovery, research and development, as well as product development. In addition, he is a prolific inventor with more than 40 patents and peer-reviewed publications of which he is an author or co-author.
Dr. Park’s biotech development experience includes the co-founding of two additional biotech companies: SK Pharmaceuticals and Vitreoretinal Technologies, Inc. For more than 20 years, Dr. Park served in executive level positions at these two companies as well as at ISTA Pharmaceuticals, where he was responsible for product development, manufacturing and quality control. Before that, Dr. Park spent 16 years with Allergan Pharmaceuticals as principle research scientist.
At Allergan, Dr. Park conceived product ideas on potential anti-cataract drugs and novel concepts of making liposome drug delivery systems without the use of organic solvents. He initiated, executed and successfully developed commercially viable products. In addition, Dr. Park was responsible for the discovery of a novel oxidative disinfectant system employing a polymeric sustained drug delivery system, which was successfully developed into a number of commercial products generating over $1 billion in product sales and which led Allergan to present him with its “Patent of the Year” award.
Dr. Park was a Postdoctoral Fellow at California Institute of Technology after receiving his PhD in Physical Chemistry at the University of Houston. He received his MS in organic chemistry from Louisiana Tech and his BS in chemistry and physics from Yon Sei University in Seoul, Korea.
Dr. Link is co-founder and a managing director of Versant Ventures, a global healthcare investment firm where he specializes in early stage investing in medical devices. Prior to Versant, Dr. Link was a general partner at Brentwood Venture Capital.
With more than two decades of operations experience in the healthcare industry, Dr. Link has a proven record of building and managing large, successful medical product companies, including Chiron Vision where he was co-founder, chairman and CEO until it was sold to Bausch + Lomb in 1997. In addition, Dr. Link founded and served as president of American Medical Optics, a division of American Hospital Supply Corporation, which was sold to Allergan in 1986.
Mr. Carlson was the former chief customer officer of DocuSign where he worked to build the foundation of their enterprise business strategy focused on driving value in customer organizations. Prior to DocuSign he served as the CEO of Microposite (a clean technology materials company), managing director of 3 Points Partners (a CEO advisory firm), and was an early employee at Ariba (now SAP). He started his career as a robotics engineer at General Motors and was an early employee at GMF Robotics (now Fanuc Robotics), which still maintains the position as the world’s largest robotics company.
Mr. Carlson leads annual mission trips to Peru with high school students to build homes and work in the school that the group completed there in 2012. He holds a BS in mechanical engineering and an MSM from Purdue University.
Ms. Colbert is chief financial officer of Vertos Medical Inc., a medical device company that develops minimally invasive treatments for lumbar spinal stenosis. She has broad experience working for medical device companies, serving in both financial and commercial roles.
Prior to Vertos, Ms. Colbert held the position of vice president, customer and sales operations for U.S. Surgical, Bausch + Lomb. Ms. Colbert also served in several roles including vice president, finance and sales operations for eyeonics, an ophthalmic device company whose rapid growth and impending IPO prompted an acquisition by Bausch + Lomb.
Ms. Colbert began her career in public accounting with Deloitte. She earned a bachelor of business administration degree from the University of Texas and a master of accounting degree from the University of Southern California. She is a certified public accountant (inactive).
Dr. Kurtz is the president and CEO of RxSight (formerly Calhoun Vision), and developer of a proprietary intraocular lens (IOL) that can be enhanced post-operatively to reduce spectacle dependence. He was previously co-founder, president and CEO of LenSx Lasers Inc., which was acquired by Alcon in 2010, and of IntraLase Corporation, which was acquired by Advanced Medical Optics in 2008.
A retina specialist, Dr. Kurtz served on the faculty at the University of Michigan and the University of California, Irvine. Dr. Kurtz earned his BA in biochemistry from Harvard College and his MD from the University of California, San Diego.