Monthly Archives: July 2014

Industry veteran Dennis Steadman elected chairman and member of the Piedmont Pharmaceuticals Board of Directors

Greensboro, N.C. (PRWEB) July 15, 2014

Piedmont Pharmaceuticals, LLC, an innovative specialty pharmaceutical company focused on animal health and human therapeutics, today announced its Board of Directors and shareholders have elected industry veteran Dennis Steadman chairman and member of the Board of Directors effective immediately.

“There is no better person than Dennis Steadman to help Piedmont Pharmaceuticals as we transition the company to a fully integrated research and development, marketing and sales pet health business,” said Roland Johnson, founder, CEO and member of the Board of Directors of Piedmont Pharmaceuticals, LLC. “His strategic vision, combined with operational experience ranging from capital funding and product development, to building and leading commercial organizations is exactly what Piedmont Pharmaceuticals needs as the company enters its next phase of growth.”

Steadman, an experienced animal health executive was the founder and CEO of Velcera, Inc., a pet health company acquired in 2013 by Perrigo Company. Prior to Velcera, he held executive and consulting positions for more than 35 years, including Vice President, North American Operations and Global Management Committee Member with Merial Ltd., a leading global animal health company, multiple domestic, international and global executive positions with Merck animal health, and more than a decade with a consulting subsidiary of Chase Manhattan Bank. Steadman holds a master’s degree in Agricultural Economics and a bachelor’s degree in Business Management from Pennsylvania State University and has completed the Executive Program in Finance at the Harvard Business School.

“Piedmont has one of the largest and most impressive pet prescription product portfolios in the industry today including the first of its kind soft chew pet drug delivery platform,” said Dennis Steadman. “Piedmont has now built itself to the brink of breakthrough value and material industry impact and I look forward to helping accelerate the company’s success.”

About Soft Chew Formulation

In 2013, the US Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Veterinary Medicine approved Piedmont Pharmaceuticals’ invention of a canine soft chew formulation containing a veterinary medicine. The flavored soft chew formulation contains carprofen and is labeled for the relief of pain and inflammation from osteoarthritis and the control of post-operative pain in dogs. It is the first and only flavored, soft and chewable medicine in the pain category. The soft chew formulation provides pet owners with a convenient and friendly way to medicate dogs.

About Piedmont Pharmaceuticals, LLC

Piedmont Pharmaceuticals, LLC, is a strategic development and licensing company focused on animal health and human therapeutics with specific expertise in parasitology and drug delivery systems. For more information visit http://www.piedmontpharma.com.

Source: PRWeb

A startup wireless infrastructure company based in Greensboro will use about $800,000 in new angel investor funds to get its technology to the production stage, according to officials with the Piedmont Angel Network.

PAN led the investment round into Guerrilla RF with about $200,000 from its members, according to Fund Executive Andy Dreyfuss. Other private investors, mostly from Greensboro but not part of PAN, also took part in the funding, he said.

Guerrilla RF was founded in 2013 by Ryan Pratt, an experienced radio frequency engineer whose résumé includes RF Micro Devices (NASDAQ: RFMD) and Skyworks Solutions (NASDAQ: SWKS) and whose initial financial backers included William Pratt, his father and one of the co-founders of RFMD. Guerrilla RF also won a $50,000 prize last year in the NC IDEA entrepreneurship contest.

The company’s semiconductors are designed to be used in what are called “small cells” or “carrier-class WiFi,” a relatively new approach to mobile data transmission that allows carriers like Verizon and AT&T to increase network capacity using a large number of very small network access points, and without building new big cell towers.

The proliferation of mobile devices is going to drive demand for products like those developed by Guerrilla RF, Dreyfuss said, and that was attractive to the investors.

“What Ryan’s chips do is enable less noise and more isolation – it means the boxes are more powerful and can distribute and receive calls from further distances, so fewer are needed,” Dreyfuss said. “The trends on data usage are through the roof, and Ryan’s technology is both a cost saver and a better technology.”

Ryan Pratt was not available to comment, but Dreyfuss said the company has made good use of its resources so far to start building its management team and demonstrate its technology. The company recently had its first design “win” with a company in Texas, he said, and it will use the new investor funds to pursue more.

The $800,000 will fund “nine months to a year, then they’ll need more capital when they get into production,” Dreyfuss said. “The key now is to get four or five or six companies to say ‘these chips are really good, they’re better technically and they’ll save us money.’”

Source: Triad Business Journal