Leadership

Steven Hite was personally recruited by the board of directors to Taiho Pharmaceutical Co. (Japan), a member of the Otsuka Pharmaceutical Group, as the CEO to start up Taiho’s first subsidiary outside of Japan, its global clinical trials and business development operations in Princeton, NJ and led a team of several thousand members across three continents in the clinical studies management and out-license of a major anti-cancer drug to a major French pharma valued at $1.7B. Prior to and after Taiho as CEO he started up four additional pharmas and medical device companies, including again being personally recruited to startup a medical products commercialization company in Japan targeting the entire Far East.

When approached by Nova Oculus, he was quick to accept the position as CEO to commercialize Nova’s novel therapeutic that, for the first time, effectively improves vision in patients with Age-Related Macular Degeneration.

He is excited to see the Nova Oculus III medical device for the treatment of AMD be introduced into Canada later this year, which is the first country to issue approval for commercialization.

Dolores (Dee) Hernandez is the Vice President of Nova Oculus Partners LLC, and the lifeblood of the company, for close to a decade. As the primary administrative resource for the company, she has provided support to its executives in a vast number of areas that include a myriad of responsibilities.

Among them: she has been the company’s primary bookkeeper, preparing investment deposits, expense reports, payroll and account reconciliations; maintaining travel calendars and coordinating flight and hotel reservations for company officials and significant investors; managing and processing documents for investors; maintaining a database of current and prospective investors; and nurturing effective relationships with clients and vendors. More than that, she has been the public face and voice of the company.

Dee has made the Coachella Valley her home for 10 years. She is a native of the San Francisco Bay area, where she continues to have family and where her loyalty to Oakland-based sports teams continues to find expression.

For 14 years, she held a number of positions with legal firms in Santa Clara, including the Chugh Firm, where she was a paralegal, preparing visa and parole documents, drafting official letters and forms, and preparing client billing. She also worked with Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy as a team administrative lead for a team of 24 attorneys, paralegals and legal assistants; and for the Pearl Law Group, where she provided administrative support for the immigration legal department.

Dee lives with her husband in Bermuda Dunes.