Aegros

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The Team

Safe, secure, sustainable

Transforming The Lives of Patients with a Safe, Secure, Sustainable Supply of Therapeutic Plasma Products

Aegros is Latin for patient. Every day we strive to place the patient first by providing therapeutic plasma products they would not otherwise be able to access.
At Aegros we believe access to life saving therapeutic plasma drugs is a human right and not a privilege.

A timeline of Aegros’ history is available.

Meet The Team

The Team

Aegros Board of Directors

Ray Nolan
Mr Ray Nolan
Director and Chair

Ray Nolan is the CEO of the Nolan Group, has been a successful property developer for over 40 years. He is particularly successful obtaining approvals on difficult sites and has in the recent past brought approx. thirty cases in Land and environment court with 100 % success rate.

Ray’s mantra “It’s about planning the outcome from the beginning” that success is paying attention to the detail and the Nolan Group has the ability to look past the noise and apply the appropriate strategies that achieve positive outcomes for all stake holders.

Rays’ previous projects include the” Hunter Lakes Resort “Richmond Vale, Lower Hunter Valley an integrated project consisting of a 27-hole golf course, a 200-room hotel and 500 villas on 1000 acres. This was a three-year process, starting with more than 300 issues to be resolved and after development consent was on sold and land banked.

589-601 Old Northern rd Glenhaven. a retirement village, 29 acres encompassing 138 units and 85 villas with associated facilities , now owned by not for profit

Rays purchase of the Tallwood’s Resort, North of Forster, an integrated project with an existing 18-hole golf course, club house and 300 further lots to develop. This was purchased as a distressed asset and was successfully completed in 2017.

Ray’s current projects, where he is lead investor a 500-unit development at Westmead has just been declared a state significant project .This demonstrates his abilities to lead.

Mr. Damian Thornton

CEO and Managing Director

Damian has more than 35 years of experience in pharmaceutical manufacturing, engineering leadership and advanced production facility development. Prior to becoming CEO and Managing Director, Damian served as CEO of Aegros Engineering, where he played a central role in progressing the development of Aegros’ 125,000-litre Hyperimmune Haemafrac® manufacturing facility at Macquarie Park, NSW.

Damian has over 20 years of executive leadership experience specialising in business growth, enhancing profitability and Program delivery of biopharmaceutical and high potent pharmaceutical, plasma fractionation facilities and companion diagnostics & targeted therapies. Damian has been responsible for the design and construction of more than US$5 Billion of Biopharma facilities, across 4 continents, having served as Program Director for multiple large scale pharmaceutical projects up to US$500m in value.

Has held C-Suite positions for more than 10 years with global and regional responsibilities at the corporate and project level including contract reviews, project cost review and approvals, development of business development strategies, client development and executive leadership.
Damian brings to Aegros a wealth of leadership and commercial experience and a history of growth and profitability in business, allied to a strong entrepreneurial mindset and expert technical skills in Process engineering and manufacturing that will drive the company forward towards commercialisation and profitability.

Ms Anne Duggan

Non-Executive Director

Ms Duggan is a highly accomplished Senior Executive. She has held key roles as Chief Strategy Officer, Chief Financial Officer, and Chief Commercial Officer in major global and ASX-listed companies. Her career spans Australia, Asia, and Europe, where she has led transformational initiatives in complex, high-growth environments. With expertise in driving strategic growth, financial optimisation, and commercial innovation, she brings a wealth of experience across diverse industries, including infrastructure, real estate, and capital markets.

Her broad private sector and government experience spans investment banking, asset development and delivery and operational management with expertise in such sectors such as transport, utilities, energy/renewables, social infrastructure (health, education, justice and social/affordable housing).

Ms Duggan is a Chartered Accountant (Certificate of Public Practice), Solicitor (Admitted to practice, Supreme Court NSW) – Unrestricted Practising Certificate and has completed:

  • Company Directors Course (Australian Institute of Company Directors);
  • Executive Development Program (INSEAD, Fontonbleau France);
  • Master of Business Administration (Macquarie University, Sydney);
  • Master of Laws (University of Technology, Sydney)
  • Graduate Diploma in Chartered Accounting (Institute of Chartered Accountants, Australia);
  • Diploma in Legal Practice (University of Technology, Sydney);
  • Bachelor of Laws (University of Technology, Sydney);
  • Bachelor of Business (Accounting) (University of Technology, Sydney);
  • Financial Analysis Certificate (Financial Modelling) (University of Technology, Sydney);
  • Quantitative Project Management (University of Sydney).
Dr. Paul Macleman
Non-Executive Director

Dr Paul MacLeman BVSc MBA GAICD joined the Aegros Board of Directors in 2026 and brings deep expertise in biopharmaceutical development, finance, ASX-listed company governance, and specialty biologics commercialisation.

Dr MacLeman’s career spans executive leadership across multiple ASX, CSE and NASDAQ listed and private life sciences companies. He served as SVP Agenix (ASX:AGX) an antibody manufacturer, CEO of Genetic Technologies Ltd (ASX:GTG; NASDAQ:GENE), Managing Director of IDT Australia (ASX:IDT) – one of Australia’s leading Speciality Pharmaceutical manufacturers – Director of Nextleaf Ltd (CSE:OILS), and Executive Chair of Island Pharmaceuticals (ASX:ILA). He currently chairs AdAlta Limited (ASX:1AD), a clinical-stage company developing i-body immunobiologics and cell therapies. He drove the IPOs of Adalta, Nextleaf and Island, and an upgrade of the GTG NASDAQ listing.

Dr MacLeman’s background in pharmaceutical and biologics manufacturing is particularly relevant to Aegros’s development of scalable plasma fractionation capability through the Haemafrac® process.

Mr John Clarke
Non-Executive Director

Mr Clarke has had over 40 years’ experience in senior management, commercial development and corporate and project finance including international debt and equity markets. The last 25 years have been characterised by his astute leadership of an Australian infrastructure fund. Under his stewardship, the fund has expanded through strategic acquisitions and development, amassing over $5 billion in assets under management across substantial private enterprises, as well as energy and transportation projects.

Mr Clarke’s financial acumen is marked by a strong and disciplined approach to financial analysis and risk management. He has expressed his readiness to lend his expertise to the Company, contributing to the restructuring of its operations and guiding its evolution into a successful business.

Throughout his career, Mr. Clarke has consistently exhibited exemplary leadership and management skills. His tenure includes significant contributions to publicly listed companies, where he has been instrumental in devising and implementing innovative solutions that align with and fulfil strategic goals.

Mr Maxwell Grundmann
Non-Executive Director

Mr Grundmann matriculated from Melbourne High School in 1964 and went on to study economics and law.

Throughout his university education, Mr Grundmann engaged in a variety of part-time roles within the hospitality and sales sectors, ranging from assistant waiter and hamburger chef to porter, elevator operator, door-to-door salesman, and even lifeguard.

These diverse experiences honed his understanding of life and professional interactions. Mr Grundmann’s vibrant enthusiasm and affinity for economics indicated a natural inclination towards sales and business, aligning well with his personality and talents. Subsequently, he joined forces with his father, Harry, in the family’
Mr Grundmann’s inherent sales acumen allowed him to adeptly respond to the evolving trends within the homewares market. International procurement expeditions provided the Grundmann family valuable insights into advertising, branding, packaging, and pricing strategies.

In 1978, Mr Grundmann and Bill Ryan assumed leadership of the business. Their partnership catalysed the company’s expansion, with the business experiencing significant growth under their collective vision. The foundational principles of honour, integrity, and partnership have remained integral to the company’s ethos.

Following Mr Ryan’s retirement in 2021, Mr Grundmann acquired complete control of the business.

Over the past three decades, Mr Grundmann’s leadership has been pivotal to the development of H.A.G. Import Corporation, and his established record in strategic execution, coupled with his capacity to lead and inspire a substantial team, is anticipated to be a valuable asset to the Company.

Aegros History

Our History

We trace our roots back to Dr Joel Margolis who escaped out of Poland as WWII was erupting in September 1939. Joel migrated to Australia with his family and read medicine at Melbourne University before becoming a preeminent researcher in the haematology field. Joel was the first person to develop a process to make FVIII AIDS free in early 1980’s. Joel invented the tangential flow Electrophoresis process as an alternative to NASA’s attempts to do biological separations in space.
Dr Perry Manusu, an Australian Veterinary, Surgeon and entrepreneur, who created the largest vet practice and vet pharmaceutical company, joined with Joel to develop this process which they called The Gradiflow. The first Gradiflow patent was lodged in 1984.

In 1985 John Manusu joined the company and helped take Gradipore public in May 1986. Tangential flow Electrophoresis as applied to plasma protein purification was spearheaded by Dr Hari Nair when he joined Gradipore in 1998 and developed the various applications of the Gradiflow including viral and prion removal.

By early 2002 there were some 50 patent families covering a number of aspects of the Gradiflow technology. In 2004 the 3 founders (Perry, Hari, John) rebuilt Gradipore and acquired Serologics, a US plasma collection business specialising in hyperimmune plasmas through FDA approved centres. They used this acquisition to refine the plasma fractionation process, particularly for hyperimmune products. By 2007 the company, then called Life Therapeutics, was the largest non-fractionator plasma collection business in the world, collecting normal, hyperimmune and bioterrorism plasmas. They agreed to sell the business to the Italian fractionator Kedrion. Having announced this agreement the founders retired, and the new Board sold the collection centers.

In the meantime, John and Hari setup another company called NuSep which developed an IVF application for the Gradiflow technology. A successful clinical study was completed in 2008. In 2010, NuSep was offered a small cGMP facility in Singapore and the company chose to reactivate the plasma separation technology. Hari further refined the fractionation process particularly around the disposable cartridge which enabled the processing of plasma collected from emerging economies.

In 2013 this business was spun out into a company called PrIME Biologics and was funded by private equity. On 1st July 2016 PrIME Biologics obtained cGMP registration from the Singapore Health Sciences Authority for the fractionation of Albumin from human plasma. This was the critical regulatory approval necessary to enable this process to be used to manufacture a therapeutic plasma product. This was also the first time that a regulatory authority had granted GMP status to a company not using conventional Cohn/chromatography for plasma fractionation.

In May 2017 Hari and John established Aegros. Over the next two years Hari developed the HaemaFrac® process to fractionate hyperimmunes from plasma.