Dr. Mills serves as president and CEO of Osiris Therapeutics. Since arriving in 2004, he has transformed Osiris from a private, pre-clinical stage entity into the world’s leading commercial stem cell company. In 2012, Osiris received the world’s first approval for a stem cell drug, Prochymal®, indicated for the rescue of children suffering from graft vs. host disease.
At Osiris, Dr. Mills won a $224.7 million contract from the U.S. Department of Defense for the development and stockpile of a stem cell countermeasure for radiological warfare, and he led the commercialization of five stem cell products. In 2007 Osiris was named Biotechnology Company of the year, and in 2008 Dr. Mills was named Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst and Young.
Dr. Mills currently serves as chairman of Tissue Banks International (TBI), the largest eye bank in the world. Prior to joining Osiris, he was a co-founder and vice president of Regeneration Technologies, Inc., (RTI) He is the inventor of the company’s core technology, BioCleanse®, the first system approved by the FDA for the sterilization of human tissue for transplantation. For this effort, he was given the American Association of Tissue Bank’s George W. Hyatt Memorial Award for Scientific Leadership in Transplantation, and RTI received the World Economic Form’s Pioneering Technology Award.
Dr. Mills currently serves on the boards for Osiris Therapeutics and TBI, is an active member of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) Grant Review Board, and Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine Advisory Board. Previously he served at the appointment of the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services as a voting member of the National Institutes of Health and AIDS Research Advisory Council and was vice chairman of the American Association of Tissue Bank’s Standards Committee.
Dr. Mills holds a Ph.D. degree in drug discovery and development from the University of Florida, where he also completed an internship in clinical pathology. He holds seven issued patents.