AltaThera Pharmaceuticals is a pioneer in cardiovascular medicine, based in Chicago, Illinois, with a team operating across the United States. We develop and commercialize hospital-use intravenous therapies that personalize cardiovascular treatment for patients with serious cardiac arrhythmias — conditions that are life-threatening, costly to manage, and too often undertreated.
Our work is grounded in a belief that the right therapy, delivered the right way, at the right time, can fundamentally change outcomes. That conviction — and a commitment to lead a new era of innovative therapies for cardiac arrhythmia and critical conditions — shapes everything we do, from how we develop our science to how we support the physicians and health systems that rely on our therapies.
Our mission is to pioneer therapies that address critical gaps in cardiac care, by combining deep clinical insight, scientific rigor, and agile execution to deliver improved patient outcomes and elevate standards of care.
At the heart of what we do is one of medicine’s most urgent and under-served challenges: cardiac arrhythmia. Every therapy we develop, every study we support, and every patient we reach reflects three interconnected commitments.
Intravenous therapy can give physicians faster, more actionable information about a patient’s response to treatment.
Our science is built on pharmacometric modeling that accounts for individual patient physiology — enabling dosing decisions informed by data, not approximation.
By transitioning appropriate care from inpatient to outpatient settings, we reduce length of stay, improve patient experience, and free hospital resources for those who need them most.


John Ellis II has 40 years of hospital experience with pharmaceuticals, medical devices, biologics and distribution. He has held positions of increasing leadership with Davis & Geck, DeRoyal, Baxter Healthcare, Mallinckrodt and AltaThera. He has successfully launched 50+ new products into hospitals, scaled business units, and restored damaged brands. In addition to his commercial leadership, he has led corporate strategy, business development, funding for expansion, and has participated in multiple companies’ due diligence teams. He previously was the leader of Baxter’s plasma division, successfully relaunching IVIG into US hospitals by engaging GPOs and IDNs. John joined AltaThera in 2019. He is a graduate of Wingate University School of Business and the Northwestern Kellogg School of Management Executive Program.


Maria Gray, MA, RN, EdD is a seasoned healthcare and industry leader with over 20 years of experience in MedTech and pharmaceutical organizations, following a distinguished career in critical care nursing and education. She has deep expertise in medical device startups within the critical care space, where she has held roles across sales, clinical practice, and executive leadership and played a key role in guiding two companies through successful acquisitions. Maria is also a passionate educator and national speaker, known for her work in targeted temperature management. She holds a Doctor of Education in Leadership and Learning in Organizations from Vanderbilt University.




Adam Strickberger, MD, FACC joined AltaThera in 2013. The foundation of his involvement with scientific strategy, medical affairs, education, regulatory, KOLs, intellectual property, and commercial and clinical knowledge stems from his extensive clinical and academic cardiology and electrophysiology experience. He has authored over 200 scientific publications, chaired sessions and committees at international scientific meetings, and held multiple leadership positions. Adam holds a BS from Penn State and a MD from Johns Hopkins University. He completed his internal medicine and cardiology/electrophysiology training at The Johns Hopkins and Brigham and Women’s Hospitals.


Jim Perry, MD is an internationally recognized pediatric cardiologist and electrophysiologist with over 30 years of experience in congenital heart disease and cardiac rhythm disorders. After training at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Texas Children’s Hospital, he founded the pediatric electrophysiology program at Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego and later served as Chief of Pediatric Cardiology at Yale University. He has supported the cardiac program at Kapi‘olani Medical Center for Women & Children in Honolulu and conducted NIH-funded translational research in computational modeling of congenital heart disease at the University of California, San Diego. He has also collaborated on emerging cardiovascular technologies including AI-enabled ECG analysis and surgical system development.


James (J.) Reymond is a senior commercial leader with over 20 years of experience driving growth across the medical device and pharmaceutical industries. Throughout his career, J. has played a key role in building, scaling, and evolving sales teams and consistently delivered results in complex healthcare environments. Prior to AltaThera, he held leadership roles at Medtronic, where he developed deep expertise in cardiovascular care and hospital systems. He is known for his ability to align teams, build strong customer relationships, and execute with discipline and urgency, bringing a strategic yet practical approach to leadership.