Ketan Mehta | Founder & CEO
Ketan is the founder of Tris Pharma. Under his leadership, Tris Pharma has developed many innovative technologies, launched new products, and established itself as a leader among technology-driven pharmaceutical companies. Ketan’s work at Tris has led to many discoveries and inventions. Before founding Tris Pharma, Ketan worked for Capsugel (formerly a division of Pfizer) in sales, marketing, and business development for eight years. Prior to Capsugel, he spent approximately six years as a pharmaceutical scientist for three different large pharmaceutical companies. Ketan is a pharmacist by education and holds an MS degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Oklahoma.
Norma Cappetti | Senior Vice President, Regulatory Affairs
Since July 2014, Norma has led our Regulatory Affairs teams for both brand and generic regulatory operations. She has over 35 years’ international and domestic regulatory experience in the pharmaceutical industry and her therapeutic areas of expertise include CNS, respiratory, cardiovascular, and endocrinology. Norma received a BS degree from the University of Rochester with a double major in Biology and Toxicology, and has proven success in NDA and ANDA submissions in her previous leadership roles with Ono Pharma, Celltech Americas, Medeva Americas, and Fisons Corporation.
Peter Ciano | Chief Financial Officer & SVP Corporate Development
Peter joined Tris Pharma in April 2010 and leads our licensing and M&A initiatives. Peter brings to Tris a diverse background and an analytical approach steeped in pharmaceutical markets. He is a pharmacist by training and holds an MBA in finance from Rutgers University. After business school, he joined a boutique strategic management consulting firm where he spent six-plus years, serving as Vice President for the last three years. His clients included leading pharmaceutical firms such as Pfizer and Novartis, drug distribution companies, and health system firms. Peter then spent six years at Kos Pharmaceuticals, serving for the last two years as Executive Director of Corporate Development and Business Planning prior to Kos’ acquisition by Abbott Labs.
Eric Civick | Director, Head of Information Technology
Eric joined Tris in December of 2013 and is responsible for Tris’ technology infrastructure. Prior to joining Tris, Eric held Information Technology roles of increasing responsibility across industries such as banking, hospitals, pharmaceuticals and local municipalities. With over 20 years of experience, Eric leads a team responsible for Tris’ network and data security, IT business resumption planning, enterprise risk management and technical support.
Thomas Curatolo | Chief Commercial Officer
Tom has more than 20 years’ commercial brand leadership experience with large, medium, and start-up pharmaceutical companies. During his career he has held positions of increasing responsibility focused on sales, marketing, strategy, and operations. He has spent most of the last 2 decades working on or leading ADHD brands, including two of the three blockbuster products in the category. Most recently, Tom has worked with start-up companies, establishing their U.S. strategy and advancing commercialization plans. Prior to that he spent 10 years at Shire Pharmaceuticals, preceded by 10 years at Johnson & Johnson. Thomas holds an MBA in Marketing Management from St. John’s University and a BA in Environmental Economics from Rutgers University.
Judy Kando | VP, Head of Clinical and Medical Affairs
Dr. Kando joined Tris Pharma in January of 2018. She has over 20 years of combined experience in the pharmaceutical industry and in the pharmacy practice setting. During her career, she has held positions of increasing responsibility including serving as a Regional and National MSL Director, a Medical Director and the Head of Medical Affairs. Her area of expertise is CNS disorders, including ADHD, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression and eating disorders. Dr. Kando received a Bachelor of Pharmacy from Duquesne University and a Doctor of Pharmacy from the Virginia Commonwealth University. She completed her pharmacy practice residency at the National Institutes of Health and is a Board-Certified Psychiatric Pharmacist. She also held an adjunctive academic appointment at the Harvard Medical School from 1996‑2002.
Tushar Mukherjee | VP, Head of Research & Development
Dr. Mukherjee is Vice President, R&D at Tris Pharma. He is responsible for managing all CMC activities for specialty branded and generic products, both internal and external development. Dr. Mukherjee has over 18 years of strong formulation and process development experience, including scale-up and validation experience in large to mid-size pharmaceutical companies such as Wyeth, Schering-Plough, Johnson & Johnson, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Sandoz. Prior to joining Tris in 2017, Dr. Mukherjee was Director (Head), Scientific Affairs at Sandoz Inc. with responsibility for leading CMC aspects of new product development, acquisition and in-license opportunities in various stages of the development pipeline. He possesses an in-depth knowledge of product development in the areas of NDA, ANDA and OTC, including monographs. Dr. Mukherjee received a PhD. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Long Island University, NY.
Jeffrey Palmer | Vice President, Quality & Compliance
Jeffrey brings more than 20 years’ pharmaceutical industry expertise in quality systems, compliance, technical services, and validation. Jeffrey has held positions of increasing leadership and technical responsibility within Quality Management Systems (QMS), scale-up, product/process investigations, and process improvement business analytics. Jeffrey began his pharmaceutical career as a Validation Engineer at Alpharma (Actavis/Teva), then worked more than ten years in global quality systems at Schering-Plough/Merck and most recently was Head of Quality for Lupin Pharmaceuticals, managing its Somerset, NJ, site. He holds a master’s degree in Finance and an MBA in international business from the Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland and received an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from Clarkson University.
Ankit Patel | Head of Operations
Ankit joined Tris in July 2008 and is responsible for all aspects of our operations activities. Ankit joined Tris in the product development department and has taken roles of increasing responsibilities within Tris. He has effectively scaled up and troubleshot products and processes. Prior to joining Tris, Ankit worked in different companies as a pharmacist, a manufacturing chemist in a parenteral department, and a research chemist in a chemical lab. Ankit is a pharmacist by education and holds an MS degree in Pharmaceutical Engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
Cheryl Patnick | Senior Vice President, Human Resources
Cheryl joined Tris Pharma in 2010 and is responsible for both our Human Resources and Corporate Administration functions. With over 30 years of experience, she excels in developing cultures where leaders create highly engaged teams and companies develop workforces that maintain a high level of productivity during times of change and accelerated growth. Prior to joining Tris Pharma, Cheryl served as president of Capella Consultants LLC, where she led the human resources and management consulting groups and prior to Capella, Cheryl spent more than 15 years at Sovereign Bank, the last seven years as Executive Vice President, Human Resources. She is active in volunteer activities within the Central New Jersey business community and was a recipient of the HR Person of the Year Award from the Society of Human Resources Management. She earned a BS in business administration, summa cum laude, from the University of Richmond, Virginia.
Janet Penner | President, Generics Division
Janet joined Tris Pharma in May 2013 and leads the Generics business unit. Bringing a diverse background to Tris, Janet spent the first 12 years of her career working across multiple functional areas within GE and PepsiCo divisions in industries spanning consumer durables, financial services, and hospitality. In 1999 she joined Amerisource, eventually heading up the Generics group for Amerisource and then AmerisourceBergen. Since then, Janet has held senior management positions with smaller and midsized generic pharmaceutical companies. She holds an MBA from the Schulich School of Business at York University and a BA from Western University.
Jonathan Provoost | Vice President, General Counsel
Jonathan has more than 20 years’ corporate legal experience, with most of his tenure in large and medium-sized pharmaceutical organizations. His broad experience within the legal profession encompasses management of intellectual property, as well as serving as a Chief Compliance Officer and General Counsel, general transactions, litigation, and various business activities. Throughout Jonathan’s career he has enjoyed positions of increasing managerial responsibility, and most recently served as General Counsel for Business Development & Licensing at Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals. Jonathan earned a JD from Pace University School of Law, an MBA from Lehigh University, and a BS in Chemistry from SUNY Oswego, in addition to formally serving within the US Marine Corps Reserve. He is admitted to NY/NJ bars and is registered with USPTO.