Burt Zweigenhaft is one of the few senior executives in the managed health markets biopharmaceutical services industry with an extensive experience in a broad spectrum of service channels; Wholesale, Retail, Chain, Mail, PBM, Specialty Pharmacy, Infusion Pharmacy, Disease Management, Managed Care, Medicare-Medicaid and Genomic Based Molecular Theranostic Diagnostics.
Today, Mr. Zweigenhaft is the CEO and Managing Partner of BioPharma Partners LLC, a strategic Health Markets services management firm with corporate offices in New York servicing Pharmaceutical, Biotech, Bio-oncology, Genomic and Managed Health markets and operating two strategic related companies OncoMed and YgeneX.
Mr. Zweigenhaft's responsibilities include CEO of OncoMed; a company focused on bio-oncology pharmaceutical care management and pharmacy services to over 800 Hematologists and Oncologists including the nationally recognized Cancer Centers of Excellence across the United States in coordination with Managed Care Payor contracts.
Mr. Zweigenhaft additionally serves as Chairman of YgeneX; a company focused on the genomic and theranostic molecular diagnostic management services. YgeneX provides strategic management services for developers of genomic and theranostics technologies and operates a commercialization contact center platform for developers and managed care payors.
Prior to the inception of BioPharma Partners, Mr. Zweigenhaft served as Executive Vice President of Corporate Business Development and Government Programs for NationsHealth, a publicly traded Diabetes Disease Management provider for Medicare Part B beneficiaries, headquartered in Sunrise, Florida. In his role he was responsible for forging the strategic JV with CIGNA to become one of the 10 approved CMS Medicare Part D National PDP (Prescription Drug Program) programs.
Mr. Zweigenhaft has also held the management position of Senior Vice President of Managed Care, Government Programs and Business Development Strategies for Priority Healthcare, a publicly traded company in the biopharmaceutical specialty pharmacy sector with over $2.3 billion in revenues before being acquired by Express Scripts in 2005. Mr. Zweigenhaft's main areas of responsibility were strategy, business development, clinical programs, pharmaceutical pipeline contracting, managed care sales, marketing and pharmaceutical care management programs. During his tenure at Priority Healthcare managed care and government programs enrollment grew to over 175 contracts covering 145 million lives and servicing 125,000 physicians specialists managing on average 85,000 patients monthly.
Prior to joining Priority Healthcare in 2002, Mr. Zweigenhaft had spent several years serving as the lead consultant to Medco, CuraScript, MIM BioScrip and several Blue Cross Blue Shield national payors developing specialty pharmacy programs.
Mr. Zweigenhaft also was President and CEO of American Prescription Providers, the nations largest specialty pharmacy disease management company focused on HIV/AIDS and organ transplant specialty pharmacy care programs, ultimately acquired by ChroniMed in 2000. Mr. Zweigenhaft has also held the position Vice President of Managed Care for CVS PharmaCare and was a co-founder and President of MediRx America, a publicly traded mail order pharmacy ultimately acquired by FlexRx and Medco. Mr. Zweigenhaft's early career started in the drug wholesale channel working in various capacities and climbing up the corporate ladder to become VP of Purchasing and then ultimately VP Sales for the Interstate Drug Company. Mr. Zweigenhaft started his business career in the pharmacy channel during college as the VP of Native Tan suncare products before getting serious.
Mr. Zweigenhaft lectures on numerous topics and serves on various pharmaceutical benefit and biopharmaceutical panels nationally. Burt holds a Bachelor of Science in Management and Economics from the University of Buffalo, where he also serves on the Dean's Advisory Committee and is active in supporting the School of Pharmacy programs.
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Kaveh (Kevin) Askari Askari is President and Founder, Supervising Pharmacist and Director of Clinical Programs for OncoMed Pharmaceutical Services, a Bio-oncology specialized pharmaceutical care management provider headquartered in Manhasset New York. Mr. Askari is responsible for the clinical, operational and reimbursement programs focused on delivering services to over 200 hematologists and oncologists, including 7 cancer centers of excellence in the greater New York metropolitan market, in coordination with Managed Care payors and bio-oncology manufacturers limited distribution agreements.
Mr. Askari as a young man was exiled to the United States from Iran to escape religious and political persecution and established residency in Minneapolis, Minnesota. After establishing his citizenship and seeking higher education opportunities in the United States, Mr. Askari entered the University of Minnesota. Mr. Askari started his career in bio-oncology pharmacy services as an intern in Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis, where he was trained intensively in IV, TPN, and compounded oncology admixture for 3 years. During this time Mr. Askari attended the University of Minnesota School of Pharmacy and graduated with Honors in 1988 with a B.S. Pharmacy Degree. Later that year he moved to NY and continued working in infusion and long term care pharmacies.
In 1991, Mr. Askari founded and opened his first specialized community pharmacy Manhasset Park Drug, in Manhasset, NY. Shortly thereafter he used his expertise in oncology pharmacy to establish OncoMed Pharmaceutical Services in Manhasset, NY in the spring of 2002. During this time Mr. Askari was approached by many community based hematologists and Oncologists to provide compounded infusion oncology and infusion pharmaceuticals. Mr. Askari continued to support the oncology community and expanded his service area to include the entire NY Metropolitan marketplace with “just in time” bio-oncology and injectables.
Mr. Askari’s expertise covers the entire spectrum of cancer oncology pharmacy and care management services. He has extensive experience in knowledge in physician infusion site operations. Additionally, Mr. Askari frequently speaks and advises Hematology and Oncology practice sites on operational, administrative, translational clinical pathways and best practice clinical protocols to maximize efficiency of drug and administrative nursing. Due to his vast experience in oncology mixing, OncoMed earned an exclusive contract with Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in NY and other Cancer care Centers of Excellence sites to provide their infusion needs, Bio-oncology and adjunctive care pharmaceuticals.
Mr. Askari is a member of the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP) and the Long Island Pharmacy Association (LIPA) and works in the community on numerous cancer care advocacy programs.
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Mr. Feigeles has 26 years of experience in his pharmaceutical career.
Throughout his career, Scott has primarily worked in the areas of institutional and pharmaceutical healthcare and provider settings. Mr. Feigeles initially practiced pharmacy at Franklin General Hospital where he learned how to compound IV solutions, antibiotic therapies, and TPN solutions. Additionally, he had operational responsibilities for medication cards, emergency stat dosing, and monitoring drug to drug and drug to health interactions for physicians, nurses or patients. Mr. Feigeles also went on to serve as Chief of Staff Pharmacist and Purchasing Director for Choice Drugs, a long term care institutional pharmacy provider, servicing over 20,000 hospital beds in the greater NY metro area. In this position, Mr. Feigeles' responsibilities also included negotiating contracts with manufacturers and was a member of the Pharmacy and Therapeutics Formulary Committee.
Mr. Feigeles joined OncoMed in July of 2006 and is responsible for clinical operations and pharmacy practice for the main central OncoMed pharmacy and facility. In this role, he is responsible for operations, quality assurance committee, HIPAA compliance and pharmacy practice according with national multi state pharmacy licenses.
Mr. Feigeles' pharmacy education began at Brooklyn College of Pharmacy. Then in June of 1980, he graduated from Arnold and Marie Schwartz College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, a division of Long Island University. In September of 1980, Mr. Feigeles received his license to practice pharmacy from the state of New York.
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