Garo H. Armen

In addition to his role as Protagenic Therapeutics’ Executive Chairman, Dr. Armen is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Agenus Inc., the biotechnology company he co-founded in 1994. From mid-2002 through 2004, he also served as chairman of the board of directors of Elan Corporation, where he successfully engineered the restructuring of the company.

Prior to Agenus Inc., Dr. Armen established Armen Partners, a money management firm specializing in biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, and was the architect of the widely publicized creation of the Immunex Lederle oncology business in 1993. Earlier, he was a senior vice president of research at Dean Witter Reynolds, having begun his career on Wall Street as an analyst and investment banker at EF Hutton.

In 2002, Dr. Armen founded the Children of Armenia Fund, a nonprofit organization dedicated to significantly rebuilding and revitalizing impoverished rural Armenian towns to provide immediate and sustainable benefits to children and youth. He received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor in 2004 for his humanitarian efforts, and received the Sabin Humanitarian Award from the Sabin Vaccine Institute in 2006 for his achievements in biotechnology and progressing medical research. Dr. Armen was also the Ernst & Young 2002 New York City Biotechnology Entrepreneur of the Year, and received a Wings of Hope Award in 2005 from The Melanoma Research Foundation for his ongoing commitment to the melanoma community. Dr. Armen received a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the Graduate Center, City University of New York, after which he worked as a research fellow at Brookhaven National Laboratories in Long Island, NY.