Management Team

Curt Bilby, PhD
Dr. Curt Bilby, the President and CEO of Terapio since 2007, has over twenty years of executive leadership experience in the biotechnology, healthcare and information technology sectors both domestically and in Europe. Previously, Dr. Bilby was President and CEO of Seahawk Biosystems Corporation which developed a biosensor based on technology developed at the Naval Research Laboratory. Prior to that, he was the Chairman and CEO of Evacyte Corporation, a company developing laser-based cancer detection and cell diagnostics using technology developed at The University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Bilby also served as the Président-Directeur Général of the multi-national company Eurimed, S.A. headquartered in Paris, France. Dr. Bilby has engineering degrees from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and Auburn University and conducted his doctoral work at The University of Texas at Austin. Of note is his selection as a Distinguished Young Alumnus of Rose-Hulman where he was also awarded an honorary doctorate.

Casey Cunningham, MD
Casey Cunningham, MD is the co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of Terapio. Dr. Cunningham received his fellowship training in oncology and hematology at the Harvard Medical School, where he subsequently served on the faculty. He was also one of the founding members of the Division of Experimental Medicine at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, where he established a basic research laboratory in Cell and Molecular Biology. Dr. Cunningham received his medical degree from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School with a residency in Internal Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Dr. Cunningham returned to Texas in 1999 as the Associate Director of the Mary Crowley Cancer Research Center in Dallas, a position he held until 2007. The MCCRC performs early phase drug development and Dr. Cunningham was the principal investigator on numerous trials, with a particular emphasis on gene and cell-based therapies. He has over 60 publications in peer-reviewed journals and many abstracts and meeting presentations.

Henry Hebel
Henry Hebel is the Vice President of Drug Development for Terapio. He has twenty years of experience in biologics development, production and regulatory compliance in major global markets. Mr. Hebel was previously Chief Operating Officer of VGXI Inc. where he led the virtual company to operational in-house cGMP production in support of FDA and USDA clinical submissions within two years. VGXI continued to expand operations under Mr. Hebel’s guidance and successfully obtained the world’s first commercial gene therapy medical device combination product approval. Prior to VGXI, Mr. Hebel served as Key Account Manager at Qiagen, Inc. for the strategic joint venture known as the “pAlliance”. Mr. Hebel worked on the pAlliance team that launched the venture to provide CMO capabilities to the then emerging biotech market and was responsible for sales, marketing and project management activities. Mr. Hebel also worked as the Senior Manager of Bioprocessing for GeneMedicine Inc. The Bioprocessing team at GeneMedicine designed, built and operated a cGMP manufacturing facility using novel manufacturing methods and was responsible for the production of human clinical materials through Phase II clinical trials. Mr. Hebel has additional antibody product development and manufacturing experience at Tanox Biosystems, Inc. Mr. Hebel holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Zoology and a Masters of Business Administration degree from Texas A&M University.

Elizabeth Leffel, PhD, MPH
Elizabeth Leffel, PhD, MPH, is the Vice President of Preclinical and Nonclinical Programs at Terapio. Dr. Leffel has over ten years of experience developing and using animal models for autoimmune and infectious diseases. She is a specialist in countermeasure models and characterizing models for regulatory approval under the FDA Animal Rule. Previously, Dr. Leffel was the Senior Director of Nonclinical Sciences of PharmAthene Inc., where she was responsible for nonclinical evaluation of three medical countermeasures for chemical and biodefense applications. Prior to that, she was Chief of the Aerosol Research Center at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. Dr. Leffel was a collaborator on over 15 research grants designed to investigate exposure to various biothreat agents, in addition to completing her own research on vaccines and therapeutics for anthrax. She has numerous publications and book chapters and has been an invited speaker to the Food and Drug Administration, Institute of Medicine, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Health Protection Agency of the UK, among others. Dr. Leffel earned her doctorate in Pharmacology and Toxicology at the Medical College of Virginia/Virginia Commonwealth University and a master’s degree in Public Health from The George Washington University.