Who we are

MD FRACP FACP FACCP FBPhS
Founder – Chief Medical Officer – Executive Director

A renowned clinician-scientist, Professor Albert Frauman’s research has focused on autoimmunity, viral infection and biomarkers of cancer progression. Now As Executive Director and Chief Medical Officer of Esfam Biotech, he has a long-standing interest in biomarkers as diagnostics and drug targets and experience designing, conducting and analysing Phase I, II and III studies. Professor Frauman is trained in Clinical Pharmacology and Endocrinology and completed his research doctorate at the University of Melbourne, where he researched the pharmacokinetics of alternative insulin formulations in diabetes. He later completed postdoctoral research on the cell and molecular biology of the thyroid at Harvard Medical School and the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute.

With over 70 peer-reviewed research publications, Professor Frauman ’s career highlights include numerous novel patent registrations, founding early stage biotechnology company Esfam and Meizon Innovation – a dementia diagnostics company, serving as Medical Director of a phase 1 clinical trials facility, Nucleus Network and investigator on large Program Grants from the Victorian Government, Victoria Cancer Agency and Australian Cancer Research Foundation. He has been a Professorial Fellow at the Baker IDI Institute and a member of the Editorial Boards for the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, American Journal of Pharmacogenomics, Molecular Diagnosis and Therapy, and the Oncology Times.

Philanthropic Co-Founder

As Co-founder of Esfam Biotech, Liz Ferentinos brings her passion for transforming companies to be the best they can be. Ferentinos brings more than 30 years of entrepreneurial experience to Esfam Biotech.

As Managing Director and Co-Founder, Ferentinos’s diverse skills cover e-commerce, fundraising, project direction and management. She is also a Co founder of Meizon Innovation in developing early diagnostics and therapeutics for Dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, to people in times of significant vulnerability.

An active supporter of children’s wellbeing and social justice, Ferentinos is a board member of Creative Art Therapy Australia and a volunteer for organisations including Koala Kids (Kids Oncology and Leukemia Action), Shine and The Longest Night Appeal.

Albert Frauman
MD FRACP FACP FACCP FBPhS

A renowned clinician-scientist, Professor Albert Frauman’s research has focused on autoimmunity, viral infection and biomarkers of cancer progression. Now Director and CEO of Esfam Biotech, he has a long-standing interest in biomarkers as diagnostics and drug targets and experience designing, conducting and analysing Phase I, II and III studies. Professor Frauman is trained in Clinical Pharmacology and Endocrinology and completed his research doctorate at the University of Melbourne, where he researched the pharmacokinetics of alternative insulin formulations in diabetes. He later completed postdoctoral research on the cell and molecular biology of the thyroid at Harvard Medical School and the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute.

With over 70 peer-reviewed research publications, Professor Frauman ’s career highlights include numerous novel patent registrations, founding early stage biotechnology company Esfam and Meizon Innovation – a dementia diagnostics company, serving as Medical Director of a phase 1 clinical trials facility, Nucleus Network and investigator on large Program Grants from the Victorian Government, Victoria Cancer Agency and Australian Cancer Research Foundation. He has been a Professorial Fellow at the Baker IDI Institute and a member of the Editorial Boards for the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, American Journal of Pharmacogenomics, Molecular Diagnosis and Therapy, and the Oncology Times.

Mr Adrain Hondros
BComm GradDipBus(ProfAcc) GradDipBus(AppFin)

Mr Hondros has over 35 years of experience in the financial services and residential construction industries. Mr Hondros was previously the Chief Executive Officer of Porter Davis, Executive General Manager of Commonwealth Private Bank, CEO of St Andrew’s Australia, and Executive General Manager of NAB Private Bank.

Mr Hondros was appointed to the Esfam Board in August of 2022 after being an active shareholder since 2017, including being on the Esfam Advisory Board in recent years. Mr Hondros is also a Director of CBA’s Private Health Insurance Fund, CBHS. He was appointed to the Board in June 2017 and was appointed as a Director of CBHS Corporate in May 2023. He is also a Director of the Count Financial Board and Affinia Financial Advisers Limited. He has been a Director of several financial services organisations, including a Director of Commonwealth Private Limited, Chairman of Commonwealth Private Limited, Trustee Director of Commonwealth Bank’s Group Super Board and Chair of its Investment Committee.

Mr Hondros holds a Bachelor of Commerce, a Graduate Diploma in Professional Accounting, a Graduate Diploma in Applied Finance, and a Diploma in Life Insurance. He is an alumnus of INSEAD’s Advanced Management Program.

Dr Jenny Petering
BSc, Phd (Genetics), GAICD

Jenny Petering is a senior patent attorney in our Melbourne Biotechnology team and is one of the leading practitioners in the Australian Biotechnology space. She has extensive experience managing international patent portfolios, including strategic planning, due diligence, infringement and patentability advice, and coordinating opposition proceedings.

Jenny is regularly singled out by industry reviews of the world’s leading patent prosecutors, including Intellectual Asset Management, for her exceptional technical ability and client commitment. She has been recognised as an IP Star for patent prosecution in Managing Intellectual Property. With vast experience managing extensive portfolios, Jenny acts for a broad range of clients, including universities, hospitals, cooperative research centres, research institutes, and corporates, ranging from start-up companies to those appearing on the global stage. They all share one thing: they work on cutting-edge biological advancements, and clients have said that Jenny can be depended upon to produce flawless prosecution. Jenny is heavily committed to various commercialisation entities that provide financial, technical and industry support to start-ups, research institutes and PhD students.

Jenny is a CUREator Investment Review Committee member, the Expert Advisory Panel Mentoring Network in Stem, the Springboard Life Sciences Executive Committee, and a Springboard Life Sciences Boot Camps contributor. Her Qualifications include a BSc (Hons) majoring in biochemistry and genetics from Monash University and a PhD in molecular biology from the University of Adelaide. Jenny is professionally affiliated with the Institute of Patent and Trademark Attorneys of Australia, is a Registered New Zealand patent Attorney, a Member of AusBiotech, a Member of the Intellectual Property Society of Australia and New Zealand, a Member of the International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property and a Member of Asian Patent Attorney Association.

Mr Paul Scagliotti
BCom (Bus); BLaw; LLM (Commercial & Health), AICD

Company Secretary / Senior Legal Counsel, Commercial & Corporate Law. Paul is a highly accredited senior lawyer and leader with extensive commercial experience in research, commercialisation & innovation. Including business & commercial law, education, health and medical law, intellectual property, construction, and employment law. As an astute legal professional with strategic commercial experience in top-tier private practice, domestic and international in-house legal experience with financial and audit expertise who has acted as a trusted adviser reporting to Boards and executive teams.

Paul has specialist legal skills in commercialising medical technology in healthcare. He has held diverse roles as a General Counsel, Chief Financial Officer, Special Counsel, Non-Executive Director, and Company Secretary.

Paul is engaged in advisory to USyd and Monash University and undertaking advisory to La Trobe, RMIT, Monash University Medical Tech Commercialisation Teams and Westfarmers Healthcare. Paul holds a Bachelor of Commerce and a Bachelor of Law from the University of Western Australia 2008 and a Master of Laws: Commercial Law from the University of Melbourne 2022 Graduate Diploma of Applied Corporate Governance and Risk Management. His affiliations include admission to the Supreme Court of New South Wales and High Court of Australia (2009), Member of the Law Institute of Victoria (LIV), Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD), Fellow of the Governance Institute of Australia, Association of Corporate Counsel
(ACC).

B Comm, CTA, MAICD, FTA

Having previously served on the board of Esfam, Sergio remains a supportive advisor.

He has 23 years of experience as a senior tax partner in Global Investment and Innovation Incentives (Gi3), Deloitte’s pre-eminent global R&D advisory practice. He is passionate about the success of the Australian biotech industry, serving as a Board member of AusBiotech 2014 – 2023, and actively involved in advising and working with participants and the government, specialising in tax incentives, structuring and industry assistance programs, his 30+ year career has seen him work with blue-chip clients including CSL, Cochlear, Rio Tinto, ANZ, NAB, Jemena and Australia Post.

Duchini has extensive life science, corporate governance experience and commercial experience. He is currently Chairman of Lymphoma Australia. He served seven years as a member of the Deloitte Australia Board and three years as Chair of the Partner Remuneration Committee.

Director of the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity

Professor Sharon Lewin is an infectious diseases physician and scientist who is internationally renowned for her research into all aspects of HIV disease and pathogenesis. She is the inaugural director of the Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity at the University of Melbourne, consultant physician at the Alfred Hospital, and an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Practitioner Fellow. She was previously Head, Department of Infectious Diseases, The Alfred Hospital and Monash University (2003 – 2014) and Co-head, Centre for Biomedical Research, Burnet Institute (2010-2014).

Medical Doctor, portfolio career

Senior VP and VP Clinical and Regulatory Affairs Novo Nordisk; VP of R & D and VP President MDL GSK; Chief, Infectious Diseases and Board of Directors – The Wellesley Central Hospital and the University of Toronto; Medical Director Casey House Foundation; Director of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases University Health Network.

Director of the Department of Respiratory and Sleep Medicine at Austin Health

Honorary CEO of IBAS between 2009 and 2015. Her research interests include chronic lung disease and its management, including pulmonary rehabilitation and oxygen therapy. In June 2018, Professor McDonald became a Member of the Order of Australia for significant service to respiratory and sleep medicine as a clinician-researcher, administrator and mentor, and to professional medical organisations.

BVSc PhD DACVCP FANZCVS GAICD

Registered Specialist in Veterinary Clinical Pharmacology. Dean, College of Public Health, Medical and Veterinary Sciences, Tropical Health and Medicine, James Cook University.

Director of the Bio21 Institute, University of Melbourne

Former Pharmacist. CEO and Founder of Biopharma Global. James was Executive VP at Coté Orphan, VP for Accreditation and Recognition Operations at the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) and Director of the Healthcare Advisory Public Sector Practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

RPH MS FACHE

Portfolio Career. Previously Executive VP at Coté Orphan, VP for Accreditation and Recognition Operations at the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) and Director of the Healthcare Advisory Public Sector Practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

Ms Penelope Lane
AICD, MPH(Eco), Grad Cert (Cold Chain) Logistics, BSc/BBus.

Inspired by the impact of receiving globally innovative medical innovation at a young age, Penelope has built an international career in Biomedical and Healthcare Commercialisation and Innovation. Penelope has held leadership and advisory positions for global corporations and complex public and private health organisations as well as global NFPs and Government bodies, including Glaxo Smith Klein, Merck, Sanofi and Medtronic, The University of Melbourne, Global Health Insurance groups, The World Health Organization, The Mayo Clinic, The Victorian Government, The Australian Regenerative Medical Institute.

Penelope is now sought out for her ability to interpret the complex field of Pharmaceutical, Health and Med Tech innovation. Penelope has a passion for early-stage companies and has successfully successful early-stage research companies and public health services to multinationals, including: Securing USD 10M capital in 2010 from the Mayo Clinic Angels, scaling clinical device trials with the Mayo Clinic simulation teams into global markets, successfully exiting via US trade exit to multinational MedTech Terumo.

Building and scaling global population health Social Franchise, a greenfield healthcare business model, “Blue Star”, to 3,600 centres across 18 Countries with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Marie Stopes International and the WHO. Commercial advisor for Uni Melbourne for the Australian Stroke Alliance for the successful application to the Medical Research Future Fund for The Golden Stroke Hour project for rapid diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients across Australia – AUD 40M awarded. Penelope is a Non-Executive Director (NED) position with start-up Livac, a Medical Device innovation for minimally invasive surgery. She is NED for the Australian Friends of Sheba Medical Centre, Israel.

Penelope holds degrees in Business and BioMed Science from Monash University and a Grad Cert. in cold-chain logistics from Nanjing University, and is undertaking her master’s in public health economics and a Grad Cert. in Pharmacoeconomics at Harvard University.

MD FRACP FACP FACCP FBPhS
Founder – Chief Medical Officer – Executive Director

A renowned clinician-scientist, Professor Albert Frauman’s research has focused on autoimmunity, viral infection and biomarkers of cancer progression. Now As Executive Director and Chief Medical Officer of Esfam Biotech, he has a long-standing interest in biomarkers as diagnostics and drug targets and experience designing, conducting and analysing Phase I, II and III studies. Professor Frauman is trained in Clinical Pharmacology and Endocrinology and completed his research doctorate at the University of Melbourne, where he researched the pharmacokinetics of alternative insulin formulations in diabetes. He later completed postdoctoral research on the cell and molecular biology of the thyroid at Harvard Medical School and the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute.

With over 70 peer-reviewed research publications, Professor Frauman ’s career highlights include numerous novel patent registrations, founding early stage biotechnology company Esfam and Meizon Innovation – a dementia diagnostics company, serving as Medical Director of a phase 1 clinical trials facility, Nucleus Network and investigator on large Program Grants from the Victorian Government, Victoria Cancer Agency and Australian Cancer Research Foundation. He has been a Professorial Fellow at the Baker IDI Institute and a member of the Editorial Boards for the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, American Journal of Pharmacogenomics, Molecular Diagnosis and Therapy, and the Oncology Times.

Mr Thomas Collins
ACMA, GCMA, BCom (Acc, Econ)

Thomas is a professional accountant with global chartered qualifications and a highly experienced investor in listed and unlisted companies. Applying a commercial focus to the numbers and an investor mindset to the analysis and execution of business decisions underpins his approach to financial leadership.

Thomas has worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers as a corporate tax advisor, provided operational and restructuring financial support while at Volvo Construction Equipment and Sheridan Australia(Pacific Brands), and a decade of financial leadership for the Australian subsidiaries of the US-based Jarden Group.

Following 20 years of managing, analysing and forecasting company finances from within, Thomas became a full-time private investor in 2016, applying a deep understanding of business and financial information to analyse and forecast company performance from the outside. This included ASX and US-listed companies as well as unlisted start-up angel investing.

Thomas highly values service to his country, community and family as an investment in our collective future. As well as a dedicated father, he has served as a member of the Army Reserves while completing his Bachelor of Commerce (Accounting & Economics) at Macquarie University, as a Rural Fire Service volunteer for several years and since 2017, a director and Chairman of his local Community Bank, leading it’s turn around and managing the challenges of COVID.

Esfam Biotech’s extraordinary commercial and global health opportunities have attracted Thomas back to the CFO role to support the development and commercialisation of the unique science that has been developed. He is fully aligned with shareholders as an investor, applying an owner mindset to financial management and strategy as part of an experienced executive team.

Mr Paul Scagliotti
Senior Legal Counsel, Commercial & Corporate Law / Company Secretary.

Paul is a highly accredited senior lawyer and leader with extensive commercial experience in research, commercialisation & innovation. Including business & commercial law, education, health and medical law, intellectual property, construction, and employment law. As an astute legal professional with strategic commercial experience in top-tier private practice, domestic and international in-house legal experience with financial and audit expertise who has acted as a trusted adviser reporting to Boards and CEO’s.

Paul has specialist legal skills in commercialising medical technology in healthcare. He has held diverse roles as a General Counsel, Chief Financial Officer, Special Counsel, Non-Executive Director, and Company Secretary. Currently engaged in advisory to USyd, Monash University and currently undertaking advisory to La Trobe, RMIT and, Monash Universities Medical Tech Commercialisation Teams and Westfarmers Healthcare.

Paul holds a Bachelor of Commerce and Law and a Master of Laws specialising in Commercial Law from the University of Melbourne and is GAICD and accredited, Paul is committed to exceeding outcomes by assisting clients to minimise legal and governance risks and maximise the commercial and integrity-based opportunities in their markets.