Our Team

Anthony J. (Tony) Varano

Anthony J. (Tony) Varano

Founder & CEO

Tony Varano is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Cervello Therapeutics. He brings more than 28 years of eClinical software leadership, pharmaceutical and medical device expertise and executive management experience to DSG, which he founded in 1992. Prior to DSG, he was a software development director at Unisys.

In 2017, in the pursuit of a cure for CCM (Cavernous Cerebral Malformation) he co-founded, funded and is also CEO of Cervello Therapeutics, a preclinical drug discovery company. CCM afflicts 1 out of 250, of the general population, but since the majority are asymptomatic, it is not a well-known disease. Those that are symptomatic, the symptoms are similar to stroke symptoms, mild to mortality. For more information about this disease, please visit www.angiomaalliance.org.

Tony manages the corporate strategy and growth at DSG and oversees company activity in eClinical software product development, sales, marketing, data management, partnerships and support. He is also responsible for DSG’s global facilities and solutions that serve specific markets such as biotech, pharmaceuticals and medical devices. Since the beginning, Tony has worked tirelessly to share DSG’s vision with customers, contract research organizations, partners and patients.

In 2009, Tony was recognized by Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year as an entrepreneur who demonstrates extraordinary success in the areas of innovation, financial performance and personal commitment to their business and communities. He has consistently demonstrated commitment to community, service, and philanthropy. This behavior has been exemplified when Tony focused his efforts on programs to help keep his former high school, Our Lady of Lourdes Regional School in Shamokin, Pa., open and increase enrollment by more than 50 percent through his generous donations of more than $1 million. In addition, he has provided support to nonprofit organizations such as the Angioma Alliance that bring critical awareness, education and research funding for a variety of diseases.

Tony graduated from the Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, earning his bachelor’s degree in mathematics and computer science. He began his career at Unisys, beginning as a software programmer in the international software applications group and culminating as the Director of Software Applications Development. During his tenure there he developed state-of-the-art product configuration systems for financial and artificial intelligence software applications and was part of the global implementation team. He successfully developed over 25 software applications for Unisys and gained the expertise needed to evolve his career. Prior to that, he served with the U.S. Marine Corps for four years receiving numerous outstanding achievement awards and meritorious promotions.


Matt Lee

Matt Lee

Ph.D in Pharmaceutical Chemistry

Matt Lee, PhD, is the Co-Founder of Cervello Therapeutics and has over 20 years of drug discovery industry experience in the biopharmaceutical Industry. He co-founded Cervello with the dream of leveraging innovative molecular design approaches to more nimbly develop clinical candidates. In addition to his role at Cervello, he currently serves as the Chief Scientific Officer of Drug Discovery at DSG, Research Fellow in Structural and Molecular Sciences at Cullgen and Founder & Principal at Molecular Cornerstones. Prior to his current positions, he developed drug hunting capabilities under scientific career paths and Amgen and Eli Lilly, as Senior Director of Drug Discovery at Mirati Therapeutics and as Director of Molecular Modeling and Design at the CHDI Foundation.

Matt received his Ph.D. In Pharmaceutical Chemistry from UCSF under the guidance of the late Peter Kollman, which included work on a ground-breaking microsecond molecular dynamics simulation with the first folding time prediction of a small protein, which was subsequently corroborated experimentally.