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.