Ron Laufer, MD - Ron started his career as a physician and entrepreneur, before moving into venture capital. He was a co-founder of Lilly Ventures, the venture capital arm of Eli Lilly & Company, and later a managing director at Visium Asset Management, a healthcare-focused investment firm, before joining MV in April of 2010.
Ron received his B.Sci., M.D. and M.P.H. from Hebrew University, and an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School. He is currently an adjunct Professor of business administration at the Kelley Business School. 

Matthew D. Perry - Mr. Perry is the Portfolio Manager of the Biotechnology Value Fund, L.P. (BVF). BVF is a private investment fund that manages approximately $600m. The fund focuses on small-cap, value oriented investment opportunities. Mr. Perry joined Biotechnology Value Fund, L.P. in December 1996 as an investment analyst.

Prior to joining BVF, Mr. Perry held the position of account executive with Feinstein Partners; a consulting firm with an emphasis on investor relations for emerging health care companies focused on the development and commercialization of therapeutic products. He was simultaneously an account executive with FPI’s affiliate, Kendall Strategies, a business development and strategy consulting firm assisting start-up through large public biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies.

Before joining Feinstein Partners/Kendall Strategies, Mr. Perry owned and operated a private business for two years and monitored the biotechnology sector through an active investment program. Mr. Perry is also a co-founder and director of Nordic Biotech Advisors ApS, a venture capital firm based in Copenhagen, Denmark. He holds a B.S. degree from the Biology Department at the College of William and Mary.

Bryan Roberts -Bryan joined Venrock as a Kauffman Fellow in 1997. Previously, he earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry & Chemical Biology at Harvard University and, prior to his doctoral program, held corporate finance positions at Kidder, Peabody and Co.  Bryan was named a Henry Crown Fellow by the Aspen Institute in 2006, he was named to healthspottr’s 2009 Future Health 100 list and has been the highest-ranking healthcare investor on Forbes' Midas List since 2008.

Luke Timmerman -Luke is an award-winning journalist specializing in life sciences. Before joining Xconomy, he was the U.S. biotechnology reporter for Bloomberg News, based in San Francisco. There, he led coverage of major medical meetings and broke news about the industry’s top companies. His stories appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, and International Herald Tribune. Before that, his passionate coverage of biotechnology won many awards for The Seattle Times.

While at the Times, Luke was the lead reporter on an investigation of doctors who leaked confidential information about clinical trials to investors. The story won the Scripps Howard National Journalism Award, the Sigma Delta Chi prize from the Society of Professional Journalists, the Society of American Business Editors and Writers award, an honorable mention Gerald Loeb Award, and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in public service. He was named one of the nation's top biotech writers in 2010 by FierceBiotech.
Luke holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 2005-2006, he was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT. In his spare time, Luke enjoys distance running, mountaineering, and fantasy baseball. Having grown up in Wisconsin, he is, naturally, a lifelong fan of the Green Bay Packers and the Wisconsin Badgers.

Kurt von Emster - Mr. von Emster is a founding partner of venBio LLC, a strategic investment firm.  He is also the Portfolio Manager of the venBio Select Fund, and a General Partner of the venBio Global Strategic Fund. Previously, as a Managing Director at MPM Capital from 2001 until 2009, Mr. von Emster founded and managed the MPM BioEquities Fund, a cross-over fund investing in public and private life sciences companies. Mr. von Emster also spent 11 years at Franklin Templeton, most recently as the founder and Portfolio Manager of the Morningstar five-star rated Franklin Biotechnology Discovery Fund, a $2B life science fund. Mr. von Emster is responsible for seven private company investments in his career and is an independent board member of Somaxon Pharmaceuticals and Metabolex, as well as a former member of Facet Biotech and observer of Acceleron Pharmaceuticals. Mr. von Emster is located in venBio’s San Francisco office.

Brian R. Dixon, PhD - Prior to joining BioRelix in October 2007, Dr. Dixon was a Vice President with Bayer HealthCare in West Haven Connecticut. In that position he led a multi-disciplinary organization of up to 130 employees that delivered state-of-the-art expertise in oncology biomarker discovery, new lead discovery, research drug formulation, pharmacokinetics and drug metabolism to Bayer’s global R&D business. In addition he held leadership roles in R&D licensing initiatives, strategic alliances and cross divisional collaborations in translational medicine. From 1998 – 2001 Brian directed Bayer drug discovery efforts in both the Osteoporosis and Oncology therapeutic areas, where his research groups advanced a number of drug candidates into pre-clinical development. Brian was an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, received his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and completed post-doctoral training at Harvard University.

Mark Leuchtenberger - Mr. Leuchtenberger joined Rib-X in March 2010, as the Chief Executive Officer, bringing significant expertise in commercial operations, business development and preparing biopharma companies for product approval and commercialization. His experience includes serving as President and Chief Executive Officer of Targanta Therapeutics Corporation where he led the Company's successful IPO and acquisition, President and Chief Executive Officer of Therion Biologics Corporation, a privately held cancer vaccine company, where he supervised the Company's lead product through development and commercial manufacturing build-up and raised over $120 million in private financing. He was also a senior officer at Biogen, where he led Avonex development and launch in the U.S. and subsequently ran North American and international commercial operations. Mr. Leuchtenberger currently serves on the Executive Committee of the MassBio Board of Directors and as a trustee for Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He is a co-founder of Albor Biologics and Alvos Therapeutics. Mr. Leuchtenberger received an M.B.A. from the Yale School of Management and a B.A. from Wake Forest University. 

David P. Perry - Mr. Perry has served as Anacor's President and Chief Executive Officer since March 2002 and has been a member of the board of directors since April 2002. In 1997, Mr. Perry founded Chemdex Corporation, which was acquired by NexPrise, Inc., a business-to-business marketplace company that focused on the life-sciences industry, and until November 2001 served as its Chief Executive Officer. In 1995, Mr. Perry co-founded Virogen, a biotech company based in Boston. Mr. Perry has a B.S. from the University of Tulsa and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. 

Susan Schaeffer - Susan serves as Managing Editor of BioCentury, the Bernstein Report on BioBusiness and the BioCentury Extra daily newspaper. She joined BioCentury in 2003 after 10 years as a writer and editor in the consumer packaged goods sector, most recently at international strategy consultant Kurt Salmon Associates.

Jeffrey Stein, PhD - Dr. Stein has served as our president and chief executive officer since February 2007 and on our board of directors since 2005. From 2005 through 2007, Dr. Stein was a Kauffman Fellow with the venture capital firm Sofinnova Ventures. He has also served as a Venture Partner with Sofinnova Ventures from 2007 until 2010 and as Director of Venture Development for the University of California, San Diego from 2005 to 2006. From 1999 to 2005, Dr. Stein served as executive vice president, chief scientific officer and a member of the board of directors of Quorex Pharmaceuticals, an anti-infectives company he founded in 1999, which was acquired by Pfizer in 2005. From 1995 to 1999, Dr. Stein was a scientist with Diversa Corporation where he most recently served as principal scientist and head of the anti-infectives discovery team. From 1993 to 1995, Dr. Stein served as Principal Scientist with the Agouron Institute, a private research institution, where he conducted research in bacterial genetics. From 1991 to 1993, he was an Alexander Hollaendar Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow with the California Institute of Technology. Dr. Stein holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry and microbiology from the University of California, at San Diego.

Brian Atwood - Brian specializes in biotechnology investing at Versant. He is a cofounder of Versant Ventures and before this spent four years at Brentwood Venture Capital where, as a general partner, he led investments in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and bioinformatics. Brian also has more than 15 years of operating experience in the biotechnology industry, with emphasis on therapeutic products, devices, diagnostics, and research instrumentation.

Prior to launching his career in venture capital, Brian was founder, president, and CEO of Glycomed, a publicly traded biotechnology company. At Glycomed, Brian concentrated on business development and strategic alliances, closing deals with Eli Lilly & Company, Millipore, Genentech and Sankyo, before leading the sale of Glycomed to Ligand Pharmaceuticals. Prior to this, he co-founded and served as director of Perkin Elmer/Cetus Instruments, a joint venture for robotics automation and genomics research instruments and products later acquired by Perkin Elmer. Under Brian's management, the venture developed and launched the GeneAmp® Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) system, the fundamental DNA amplification innovation responsible for fueling the explosive growth of genomics research. Brian served on the Board of Directors at Pharmion Corporation (sold to Celgene in 2008). Brian currently serves as a Board member at the private companies FivePrime Therapeutics, Inc., Veracyte, Inc., OpGen, Inc., PhaseRx, Inc., Clovis Pharmaceuticals, Immune Design Corp., and Groove BioPharma, Inc. (formerly Mirina Corporation), as well as the public companies, Cadence Pharmaceuticals (CADX), Helicos Biosciences (HLCS) and Trius Therapeutics, Inc.

Brian received a Bachelor's degree in Biological Sciences from the University of California, Irvine; a Master's degree from the University of California, Davis, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Jeron Eaves - Mr. Eaves brings to Campbell Alliance 12 years of experience working in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.  He leverages his scientific and business education, as well as real-world experience in the pharmaceutical and biotech space, to address strategic business development and commercial challenges for Campbell Alliance clients. 

Before joining Campbell Alliance, Mr. Eaves was a Business Development Analyst at Inspire Pharmaceuticals.  Prior to that role, Mr. Eaves held positions as a freelance Business Plan Consultant and in Corporate Finance for a Fortune 50 Company.  Before pursuing his MBA, Mr. Eaves worked as a synthetic organic chemist with a focus on the design and development of novel therapeutics for two biotechnology companies.

Mr. Eaves earned an MBA from the University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School and a BS in chemistry from the University of North Carolina. 

Janis Naeve, PhD - Dr. Naeve joined Amgen in 2005 as a Director in the Company's corporate venture capital fund. She directs the fund's investment in early-stage biotechnology companies focused on discovering and developing human therapeutics. From 2002 to 2005, Dr. Naeve was director of Corporate Development at X-Ceptor Therapeutics which was acquired by Exelixis. Prior to this she was director of Business Development at Aurora Biosciences where she led transactions for the ion channel technology business unit and managed the collaborations with Pfizer, Merck, Lilly and Bristol Myers-Squibb. Dr. Naeve holds a Ph.D. in Pathology from University of Southern California and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the California Institute of Technology.

Asish Xavier, PhD - Dr. Xavier joined Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation (JJDC) in 2004. He is based in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Dr. Xavier previously worked in business development at BioRexis Pharmaceutical, Inc., which was acquired by Pfizer in 2007. While at BioRexis, he assisted the company in raising a $30 million second round of financing. Dr. Xavier has worked in business development at Structural GenomiX, Inc., acquired by Eli Lilly in 2008, and was a project leader at Message Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Dr. Xavier received a PhD from the University of Houston and a Master of Business Administration from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated with honors. He received a Bachelor of Technology in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India. Dr. Xavier was also a postdoctoral research Fellow in the Department of Chemistry at Johns Hopkins University.

Scott Allocco - Mr. Allocco is the President and a co-founder of BioMarker Strategies, an emerging growth cancer diagnostics company that is developing the SnapPath™ live tumor cell testing system--a next generation platform designed to enable companion diagnostics.   SnapPath™ enables predictive, ex vivo diagnostics for targeted therapies, called functional signaling profiles, that are not possible using dead, fixed tumor tissue.  The company, which is based at the Johns Hopkins Science+Technology Park, was recently awarded an SBIR contract from the National Cancer Institute to use the automated SnapPath™ platform to develop a pathway-based companion diagnostic test for drug inhibitors targeting the ErbB signal transduction network in melanoma and other solid tumors.   The company will also be presenting the results of its preclinical research collaboration with the Wistar Institute at the 2011 Melanoma Congress in November.

As President of the company, Mr. Allocco coordinates all fundraising, external relations, strategic partnerships, communications and regulatory affairs for the company.  He is also an active member of the Personalized Medicine Coalition (PMC), the BIO Personalized Medicine and Molecular Diagnostics Committee, and ADVAMED Dx, where he is actively engaged in efforts to reform FDA regulatory and CMS reimbursement policies for next generation biomarker tests, including companion diagnostics.  He is currently the co-chair of the Personalized Medicine Coalition's Task Force on CMS Coverage, Coverage and Reimbursement Reform, which issued a white paper in the December of 2010, titled “The Adverse Impact of the US Reimbursement System on the Development and Adoption of Personalized Medicine Diagnostics.” 

Prior to founding BioMarker Strategies, he had 15 years of healthcare and pharmaceutical industry experience, including drug coverage and reimbursement issues for commercial and public sector health insurance programs. Most recently, Mr. Allocco was Vice President of State Government Relations for Coventry Health Care, one of the nation's largest health insurance companies. He was also Vice President for Business Development and Government Affairs at First Health Services, which he helped build into the nation's largest pharmacy benefits administrator of Medicaid drug-benefit programs.

Prior to joining First Health Services, Mr. Allocco was a Managing Director in the health public affairs group at Hill and Knowlton's Washington, D.C. office. He also served for four years as the Director of the Office of Government Affairs for the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services under Governor Christine Todd Whitman. He graduated cum laude with a B.A. in public policy from Hamilton College.

Steven M. Anderson, PhD - Dr Anderson received a PhD in genetics from Iowa State University. He has served in a variety of technical director positions for LabCorp during his 20-year tenure, including positions at the Center for Molecular Biology and Pathology (CMBP) and ViroMed Laboratories. Dr Anderson recently held the position of national director of research and development before assuming his current positions.

Dr Anderson has a professional history in the molecular diagnostics field, having participated in the development and validation of many commonly used diagnostic assays that utilize methods such as immunohistochemistry, fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), and molecular biology methods that characterize mutations and gene expression levels.  He has served as a principle investigator for many of the FDA-cleared molecular diagnostic methods.

Dr Anderson has authored more than 150 articles and abstracts that have been published in journals such as Genetics, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Clinical Chemistry, Journal of Infectious Disease, Human Pathology, American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Oncogene, Journal of the National Cancer Institute,  Clinical Cancer Research, and Journal of Molecular Diagnostics. 

Rollie Carlson, PhD - Dr. Carlson is President of Asuragen, Inc., a molecular diagnostic company specializing in personalized diagnostics since its inception in 2006. He has been responsible for growing Asuragen into one of the top 50 privately held companies in Central Texas and was a founder of Mirna Therapeutics, a spin-out of Asuragen, which is developing novel miRNA-based therapeutics for lung, liver and prostate cancer. He has over 25 years of commercial, business development, and new product development experience in biotechnology. Prior to joining Asuragen Dr. Carlson held several senior positions at Abbott Laboratories, including Vice President and General Manager of the Vysis molecular diagnostic business following its acquisition, where he drove significant increased personalized diagnostic test growth for oncology therapeutic applications (i.e., PathVysion® HER-2 diagnostic for Herceptin® therapy), and introduced several new products such as UroVysion® for early detection of bladder cancer and a broad line of leukemia diagnostic and prognostic products. He led the FDA and international regulatory campaign for these products, including reimbursement strategy resulting in the global expansion of the product line. He was also responsible for business development, licensing and strategic planning to establish new pharmaceutical and diagnostic platforms, and ran Abbott’s custom biopharmaceutical development, specialty generics and global bulk pharmaceutical business.

Vivek Mittal - Vivek is focused on building Health Advances’ expertise in transitional medicine through his work across therapeutics, diagnostics, and life science tools. He has worked on the commercialization of a novel companion diagnostic in infectious disease, helped set the CoDx strategy for a therapeutics company in autoimmune disease, and works with life science tools companies in developing product strategies to enable biomarker and CoDx development.

He recently presented at the Partnerships in Personalized Medicine conference and is working on an industry whitepaper highlighting the critical success factors to companion diagnostics from a drug developer’s standpoint.

Prior to his work at Health Advances, Vivek earned his Ph.D. in Molecular Cell Biology at Washington University in Saint Louis, studying G-protein regulation. While at WashU, Vivek founded the BioEntrepreneurship Core (BEC), a program designed to introduce life science students to the drug development process. Vivek received a BA in Biochemistry/Molecular Biology and an MA in Biotechnology from Boston University.

Christine Grygon, PhD - Chris Grygon is head of BI Partnering in the Business Development and Licensing group at Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals in Ridgefield, Conn. During the past year she was also acting head, Global Licensing-Oncology, where she had oversight for strategy and evaluation around external alliances for Boehringer’s oncology portfolio.  Prior to that, she was head of Technology Investments for North America, also in the Business Development and Licensing area, responsible for sourcing external innovation to support Boehringer’s Research and Development functions.  She has held positions as executive director of Biologics and Biomolecular Sciences in the Research and Development function, where she established and led a technology infrastructure group in support of the discovery of new protein therapeutics in collaboration with Boehringer’s research and development group in North America and manufacturing groups in Europe. Her team was also responsible for enabling specialized technology platforms to facilitate innovative drug discovery research for BI worldwide.

Grygon obtained her B.S. in chemistry from the University of Delaware and her M.A. and Ph.D. in chemistry from Princeton University.  She is an inventor on five patents and an author on more than 23 peer-reviewed scientific publications.  She was a 2008 finalist for the Connecticut Technology Council Women of Innovation, Research Innovation and Leadership Award.

Steven E. Hall, PhD - Steve brings more than 25 years of pharmaceutical experience from both multinational pharmaceutical companies and biotech organizations to Lilly Ventures. Prior to joining Lilly Ventures, Steve was Senior Vice President, Research and Development, at Serenex, Inc. where he was also a co-founder.  There he recruited and led a team in developing a novel discovery technology and applied it to a project that advanced from a novel screen to first patient dosed in just over three years. This novel orally-active Hsp90 inhibitor was the subject of strong interest across the industry and led to the acquisition of Serenex by Pfizer in April 2008.

Prior to joining Serenex, Steve was Site Director, Sphinx Labs, Eli Lilly where he oversaw lead generation efforts in the areas of combinatorial chemistry, automation, high-throughput screening, biomolecular research, and information technology.  There he was a key member of a small team that developed and executed a strategy to partner Lilly’s expertise in high-throughput chemistry with three Japanese pharmaceutical companies with an aggregate value of more than $75MM.

Steve is the author of more than 40 papers and 60 patents.  He received his BS in chemistry from Central Michigan University and his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Steve currently sits on the boards of FORMA Therapeutics, Hydra Biosciences, InnoCentive, and Cerulean Pharma.  He also is a board observer at Avid Radiopharmaceuticals and Viamet.

Michael Margolis, RPh - Margolis is a Managing Director in ROTH Capital Partners’ Healthcare Investment Banking group and joined the firm in December 2009. He was most recently a Managing Director of Healthcare Investment Banking at Merriman Curhan Ford. Previously Margolis was a senior vice president at Rodman & Renshaw. He had extensive financial and pharmaceutical industry experience before joining Rodman. Margolis worked at Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation in several roles, including as a director in the global business development and licensing group. He was an equity research analyst at Ursus Capital, and he began his career as at Eli Lilly & Company as a senior pharmaceutical representative.

Margolis is a registered pharmacist with an M.B.A. from New York University’s Stern School of Business and a pharmacy degree from Rutgers University, College of Pharmacy. He is based in our New York office.

Carl Spana, PhD - Dr. Spana, co-founder of Palatin, has served as president and chief executive officer since 2000. He has been a director of Palatin since 1996 and has been a director of Palatin’s wholly-owned subsidiary, RhoMed Incorporated, since 1995. From 1996 to 2000, Dr. Spana served as an executive vice president and chief technical officer of Palatin.

From 1993 to 1996, Dr. Spana was vice president of Paramount Capital Investments, LLC, a biotechnology and biopharmaceutical merchant banking firm, and of The Castle Group Ltd., a medical venture capital firm. Through his work at Paramount Capital Investments and Castle Group, Dr. Spana co-founded and acquired several private biotechnology firms. From 1991 to 1993, Dr. Spana was a research associate at Bristol-Myers Squibb, a publicly traded pharmaceutical company, where he was involved in scientific research in the field of immunology. Dr. Spana is a director of AVAX Technologies, Inc., a publicly-held medical technology company.

Dr. Spana received his Ph.D. in molecular biology from The Johns Hopkins University and his B.S. in biochemistry from Rutgers University.

Ali Tehrani, PhD - Dr. Tehrani is one of Zymeworks' co-founders and currently serves as President and CEO of the company. He has been an integral part of many of the Company's corporate achievements including raising seed and angel financing and overseeing the Company's technical operations and patent filings. Dr. Tehrani holds both Bachelors and Masters of Science degrees in Biochemistry from the University of Massachusetts, and has a Doctoral degree in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of British Columbia. While completing his PhD degree he co-founded the Student Biotechnology Network, for which he received the UBC Faculty of Science Achievement Award for Outstanding Leadership in 2002.

Dr. Tehrani has served on the MITACS Industrial Advisory Board, and BIOTECanada's Industrial and Environmental Committee. Currently, he is a member of the Board of Directors of LifeSciences British Columbia and the Student Biotechnology Network.

Mark R. Baker - Mr. Baker joined Progenics in 2005 as senior vice president and general counsel and secretary, and has since served as executive vice president, president, and was appointed to the board of directors. Mr. Baker began his career in 1979 as a corporate lawyer with the law firm Dewey Ballantine in New York, where he was a partner and co-chairman of the capital markets group, among other positions, until 1997. From 1997 to 2001, he served ContiGroup Companies, Inc. (formerly Continental Grain Company), a privately held international agri-business and financial concern, as executive vice president, chief legal officer and secretary. Mr. Baker was chief business officer, secretary and a director of New York Water Taxi, a privately held passenger ferry operation, from 2003 to 2005. He holds an A.B. degree from Columbia College and a J.D. from the Columbia University School of Law. 

C . Geoffrey Davis, PhD - Dr. Davis was a founder and the Chief Scientific Officer for Abgenix, Inc. in Fremont, California, where he led the development of the XenoMouse® technology, was involved in the research and development of Vectabix®, a fully human monoclonal antibody approved for colorectal cancer, and guided the discovery of 11 other antibodies currently in clinical trials.  Abgenix was acquired by Amgen in early 2006.  Prior to founding Abgenix, Dr. Davis was a faculty member at UCSF, an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and Director of Immunology at both Repligen Corp. and Cell Genesys, Inc.  Dr. Davis received his Ph.D. in immunology from the University of California, San Francisco and completed his postdoctoral work at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School at Dallas.  He is the author of 37 publications and is an inventor on 11 issued patents. 

Jonathan Drachman, MD - Dr. Drachman joined Seattle Genetics in November 2004. He oversees the company's research, preclinical and early clinical development activities. Prior to joining Seattle Genetics, Dr. Drachman was Associate Professor in the Hematology Division, Department of Medicine at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he remains a Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine. He also served as Senior Investigator in the Division of Research and Education and Medical Director of the Umbilical Cord Blood Program at the Puget Sound Blood Center. Dr. Drachman received a B.A. in Biochemistry from Harvard University and an M.D. from Harvard Medical School. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine and fellowship in Medical Oncology at the University of Washington. 

Michael G. King, Jr. - Mr. King is a Managing Director and Senior Biotechnology Analyst at Rodman & Renshaw, LLC. He has over 17 years of experience as a leading biotechnology equity research analyst, consistently ranking at the top of Institutional Investor magazine's annual sellР  Р †Р  ‚Р РЋ’side research survey in addition to being named that publication's "Home Run Hitter" in 2000. Most recently, Mr. King served as Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and Communication at ZIOPHARM Oncology (NASDAQ: ZIOP), a biopharmaceutical company engaged in the development and commercialization of a diverse portfolio of cancer therapeutics. Prior to joining ZIOPHARM, Mr. King was a Managing Director and Senior Biotechnology Analyst at Wedbush Securities.

Prior to that, Mr. King was a Managing Director and Senior Biotechnology Analyst at Merriman Curhan Ford with other prior positions at leading firms including Dillon Read, Vector Securities International, Robertson Stephens, Banc of America Securities and Rodman & Renshaw, where he was Director of Research. Mr. King began his career in finance in sales at Kidder Peabody.

Timothy B. Lowinger -Dr. Lowinger joined Mersana in 2008. He has over eighteen years of experience in the pharmaceutical/biotech industry and brings a wealth of international experience to his role in leading our Research team. From 1993 to 2007, Dr. Lowinger held a number of positions at Bayer Pharmaceuticals in the US, Germany, and Japan, where he contributed to the discovery of more than 15 pre-clinical and clinical candidates in a variety of indications. Most notably, he led the discovery team that invented and advanced Nexavar® (sorafenib), a pioneering anti-angiogenic, anti-cancer agent that is approved for indications including renal and hepatocellular cancer, with Phase 3 studies underway in numerous other cancers. Later, as the VP and Department Head of Chemistry Research in West Haven, he managed a department of over 140 scientists in the disciplines of medicinal, analytical, computational, combinatorial and synthetic chemistry, focused on the discovery and clinical proof-of-concept of new therapeutics for the treatment of cancer, diabetes and obesity. He also served as VP of Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences at Angiotech Pharmaceuticals where he managed a multidisciplinary team of scientists and engineers focused on developing polymer-based pharmaceutical products for local administration as well as medical devices incorporating pharmaceutical agents. Dr. Lowinger has a B.Sc. (Hons.) in Chemistry and a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, and he was a Merck Postdoctoral Fellow at the Ohio State University in the labs of Professor Leo A. Paquette. Tim has published over 40 scientific papers and is a co-inventor on over 30 patents.

Stephen Keane - Stephen Keane brings to Femta more than 20 years of experience in the biotechnology industry during which he has negotiated acquisitions and numerous strategic corproate alliances, established joint ventures and lead public and private financings. He has held senior positions with Ambit Biosciences, Dendreon Corp., Corvas International, Epimmune, Inc, SIBA Neurosciences and Molecular Biosystems.

Ronald W. Lennox - Ron invests in the biotechnology and molecular diagnostic sectors. He has served on the boards of eighteen companies including General Surgical Innovations, Inc. (acquired by Tyco International Corp.), GeneOhm Sciences, Inc. (acquired by Becton Dickinson), Protometrix, Inc. (acquired by Invitrogen Corp.), and Applied Molecular Evolution Inc. (acquired by Eli Lilly). He was founding CEO of Protometrix, Inc. as well as of CGI Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Prior to the founding of CHL Medical Partners, Ron was a general partner at Hancock Venture Partners (now HarbourVest Partners) where he invested in sixteen healthcare companies, ten of which had successful IPOs.

Ron graduated from the University of Glasgow with a B.Sc. in Molecular Biology, Oxford University where he received a D.Phil. in Cell Biology and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.  

Doug B. Neely - Mr. Neely is a Senior Director within the Customer Relations team. In this role, he helps manufacturers design and implement effective commercialization access strategies for oncology products and other specialty products.

Mr. Neely brings more than 17 years of experience in healthcare, with 10 years focused on the provider side of the industry. He combines his firsthand experience working inside physician practices and hospitals with his knowledge of patient and provider support programs to offer clients a real-world perspective of the challenges facing prescribers today. He is an experienced presenter (including the ACCC Annual Meeting and MGMA/AOHA) and has authored publications on reimbursement and access topics both in general and specifically related to oncology products.

A Certified Medical Practice Executive (CMPE) through the American College of Medical Practice Executives, Mr. Neely earned an MHA from the Medical College of Virginia / Virginia Commonwealth University and a BA from Wake Forest University.

William J. Newell - Mr. Newell has over 10 years of senior management experience in the biotechnology industry. He joined Sutro Biopharma as CEO in January 2009. Previously, he served as the President of Aerovance, Inc., a venture-backed company developing clinical assets for respiratory diseases. Mr. Newell also was Chief Business Officer and Senior Vice President at publicly-traded QLT, Inc. and served in several senior management positions at public-traded Axys Pharmaceuticals, Inc, where he ultimately served as Senior Vice President, Corporate and Business Development prior to Celera Genomics’s acquisition of Axys. For the 15 years prior to joining Axys, Mr. Newell practiced law at the law firm of Bingham McCutchen LLP.

Jeffrey Cleland, PhD - Jeff has 20 years of industry experience in research and development, including more than a decade at Genentech, Inc.  He held executive management positions at BaroFold, Novacea, and Targesome, and has managed directly all aspects of pharmaceutical development and late-stage research.  His experience in start-ups includes major roles in obtaining more than $70M of Series A through C venture capital as well as an exit via IPO.  Jeff also runs his own pharmaceutical and biotechnology consulting group for numerous start-ups and venture firms.  While at Genentech, Jeff served in product development and manufacturing roles. He held important leadership roles in the successful approval of two drugs, Herceptin® and Nutropin Depot®, as well as early work on Lucentis®, Avastin®, and Omnitarg®.  He holds a BS degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Davis and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  Jeff has authored more than 100 articles and four books, and holds several issued patents.

David Collier, MD - Dr. Collier is Managing Director of CMEA Capital and Chief Executive Officer of Velocity Pharmaceutical Development, a CMEA portfolio company. Dr. Collier joined CMEA Capital in 2001 to focus on investments in biotechnology companies developing drugs through clinical trials across many different therapeutic areas. Examples include Ardelyx (minimally-absorbed drugs acting on the GI tract), Bayhill Therapeutics (autoimmune disorders), Arcion Therapeutics (neuropathic pain), Altus Pharmaceuticals (malabsorption in cystic fibrosis) and Sorbent Therapeutics (hyperkalemia and chronic renal failure). Dr. Collier currently serves as Chairman of the Board of two CMEA drug development portfolio companies and as a board member of four others. Before joining CMEA, David was a Managing Director at Burrill & Co., a private merchant bank focused exclusively on life science companies, where he played a leading role in the management of the company’s life science venture capital funds. Earlier in his career, David was Assistant Vice President at First Options of Chicago where he directed a group of traders and managed a large portfolio of futures and options.

In his role as CEO of Velocity Pharmaceutical Development (VPD), Dr. Collier is pioneering a new business model for the development of promising drug candidates. VPD acquires the rights to individual therapeutic drug candidates from biotechnology companies, academia, and pharmaceutical companies, and invests in their development through clinical proof-of-concept (generally phase 2). Following proof-of-concept, VPD seeks to sell each drug asset to a major pharmaceutical company. VPD is structured as a holding company, owning a portfolio of virtual companies, each of which develops a single drug candidate, all managed by a single expert team. This development team is made up of several highly experienced former Chief Medical Officers from the biotechnology industry. 

Sanjay Shukla, MD, MS - Dr. Shukla has more than a decade of functionally versatile drug development experience. Most recently, he served as Vice President of Drug Safety and Pharmacovigilance at Vifor Pharma. Prior to Vifor's acquisition of Aspreva Pharmaceuticals, Dr. Shukla served in a variety of leadership positions at Aspreva, including Drug Development Operations, Data Management, Biostatistics, and Clinical Sciences. In addition, he spent time as Director of Investor and Media Relations at Aspreva.
Dr. Shukla received his medical degree from the Howard University College of Medicine, Washington DC. He also holds a master's degree in Epidemiology from the University of Maryland at Baltimore, with an emphasis in Medical Informatics.

David J. Strupp - has been Managing Director of Life Sciences and Healthcare Investment Banking Group at Rodman & Renshaw Capital Group, Inc., since June 2010. Mr. Strupp served as a Managing Director and the Head of Healthcare Investment Banking at The Maxim Group. He served as Managing Director of Healthcare Investment Banking Group at Maxim Group LLC since 2009. He has more than 17 years of healthcare investment banking experience. During his career, Mr. Strupp has completed over 70 transactions totaling over $25 billion across a broad range of products including M&A advisory, equity and equity-linked offerings, private placements and fixed income instruments. Prior to joining Maxim Group, he served as a Managing Director of Healthcare Investment Banking Group at Canaccord Genuity Inc. (alternate name, Canaccord Adams). Prior to that, he was a Partner and Head of Healthcare Investment Banking at ThinkEquity LLC (alternate name, ThinkEquity Partners), were he founded and built the ThinkEquity healthcare franchise. He held similar positions in the healthcare groups at Salomon Smith Barney (Citigroup), UBS, ING Barings, and NationsBanc Montgomery Securities. Mr. Strupp received a BA in Economics from Bates College and an M.Sc in Economics from the London School of Economics.

Hervé Brailly, PhD. - Mr. Brailly, age 49, was previously a researcher at Immunotech SA, a biotechnology start up acquired in 1995 by Beckman-Coulter (1986-1994), and then in charge of marketing, business development and R&D, as well as the business activities in China (1994-1998). Beginning in 1998, Mr. Brailly was the director of a business unit of the company with 65 employees, with annual sales of 30 million U.S. dollars.

Hervé Brailly is also treasurer of BioCluster Eurobiomed which groups companies in life sciences and technologies together in the PACA region, a member of the Board of Directors of INSERM transfert and of France Biotech.

Hervé Brailly is a graduate of the Ecole des Mines de Paris (1983) and a Doctor of Immunology, with a specialization in immuno-pharmacology.

Kevin N. Heller, MD- Dr. Heller received his Bachelor’s degree in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale University and his medical degree from George Washington University before training first in pediatrics and then pediatric hematology/oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.  Following fellowship, Dr. Heller joined the faculty of the Rockefeller University as Instructor and subsequently Chief Clinical Scholar of Clinical Investigation.  During this time, he served as principle investigator on clinical trials, including conducting and publishing his own NIH-funded research into T-cell mediated immune responses among patients with EBV-mediated lymphomas. 

Since joining BMS in 2007, Dr. Heller has worked on early development programs and was the US medical lead during the BLA filing of ipilimumab.  In this role, he led the writing of the FDA approved label and participated in the preparation of the REMS-Side Effect Guidelines for Ipilimumab.  He is currently director of immuno-oncology in the strategic transactions at BMS.

Carlos Paya, MD, PhD. - Dr. Paya joined Immune Design Corp. in May 2011 as President and Chief Executive Officer.  He previously served as President of Elan Corporation and led the biotechnology company’s commercial, marketing, clinical, research, and development teams from 2008 to 2011.  Before joining Elan, Dr. Paya was at Eli Lilly & Company as Vice President, Lilly Research Laboratories where he led various therapeutic areas encompassing discovery, clinical development, and the Diabetes and Endocrine franchise.  Prior to this, Dr. Paya was Professor of Medicine, Immunology, and Pathology, and Vice Dean of the Clinical Investigation Program at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.  He received his MD and PhD degrees from the University of Madrid and underwent postdoctoral training at the Institute Pasteur, Paris, France.

Timothy C. Rodell, MD - Dr. Rodell has been President and Chief Executive Officer of GlobeImmune, Inc., since 2004.  From 1999 until 2002, Dr. Rodell was President and Chief Executive Officer of RxKinetix, Inc., a private drug delivery company that was sold to Endo Pharmaceuticals Holdings Inc.  From 1996 until 2000, he held a number of positions at OXIS International, Inc., including Chief Technology Officer and Chairman and President of OXIS International, SA, the Company’s French subsidiary, and led the Company’s IPO on the Nouveau Marché of the Paris Bourse.  From 1985 until 1995, Dr. Rodell was Executive Vice President of Operations and Product Development for Cortech, Inc. where he led all development of three clinical programs and co-led the Company’s successful IPO.  Dr. Rodell is a founder of Barofold, Inc., a protein re-folding company and Managing Partner of SMG, Inc., a healthcare consulting company. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) and on the BIO Emerging Companies and Health Sections Governing Boards.  Before moving to industry, Dr. Rodell practiced academic Emergency Medicine, Internal Medicine and Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine.  Dr. Rodell earned his M.D. from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in 1980. He completed a residency in Internal Medicine and a fellowship in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Colorado and is board certified in Internal Medicine and Pulmonary Medicine as well as being a Fellow of the American College of Chest Physicians. He completed post-doctoral fellowships in molecular biology and cell biology at the Eleanor Roosevelt Cancer Institute and the Webb Waring Institute respectively.