Karl D. Handelsman
Managing Director, CMEA Ventures
Karl Handelsman joined CMEA Ventures in 1999. Karl has been involved with numerous CMEA investments such as: Ambrx, Ensemble Discovery, Ilypsa, Intellikine, Kalypsys, Maxygen, Phenomix, Rigel, Syrrx, Tetraphase, and Xenoport. Prior to joining CMEA, Karl was one of the first employees of Tularik, Inc., a drug discovery company, where his business development role spanned corporate partnering, technology licensing, and operations. Karl was also one of the first employees of Whitehead Institute, a premier research organization within Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); and he worked in business development at Millennium Pharmaceuticals. Karl holds graduate degrees from both MIT and Harvard Medical School.
Michael Kranda (Chairman of the Board)
Michael Kranda has served as a director since 2005. Since September, 2007 he has served as Chairman of the Board. Mr. Kranda led life sciences venture investments as Managing Director for Vulcan Capital through 2006 and continues to consult for Vulcan. He sits on the board of directors of several companies including BiPar Sciences and PTC Therapeutics. Mr. Kranda was the CEO of Oxford GlycoSciences (OGS) for six years, establishing the company as the leading proteomics platform-based drug discovery company. Prior to that, Michael spent 12 years at Immunex (now Amgen) where he served as president and chief operating officer. At Immunex, Mr. Kranda was responsible for sales and marketing, manufacturing and operations. Mr. Kranda holds a BA and an MBA from the University of Washington School of Business.
Patrick Enright
Managing Director, Longitude Capital
Patrick Enright is responsible for West Coast venture capital investments in health care, with primary focus on biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and health care information technology. Mr. Enright has more than 20 years of experience as an investor and as a senior executive. Most recently, he co-managed Delta Opportunity Fund, which specialized in investing in development-stage health-care companies such as SUGEN, Inc. and Cephalon, Inc. Mr. Enright also was a member of PaineWebber Development Corporation, which provided equity capital and product development funding to leading biotechnology firms such as Genentech, Inc., Amgen Inc., Centocor, Inc., and Alkermes, Inc. Mr. Enright's operating experience includes senior roles at Sandoz Corporation, Boehringer Mannheim, and Valentis, Inc. He is on the board of directors of Valentis, Inc., Raven biotechnologies, Inc., NuGEN Technologies, Inc., Threshold Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and Codexis, Inc. Mr. Enright graduated from Stanford University with a BS in Biological Sciences, and he received an MBA from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.
Jennie P. Mather, PhD
President and Chief Scientific Officer, Raven biotechnologies, inc.
Dr. Mather established Raven on pioneering research performed in her laboratory at Genentech. With more than 30 years of experience in cell culture and cell biology research, Dr. Mather is a recognized leader in the application of cell biology to technology and pharmaceutical product development. She has unusually broad experience that spans basic research in cancer biology and reproductive endocrinology as an Assistant Professor at The Rockefeller University to applied research in development and product discovery at Genentech. Prior to founding Raven, Dr. Mather was a Staff Scientist for 15 years at Genentech, engaged in all phases of drug discovery and development, from project conception through scale-up and the development of potential new products. Dr. Mather led or participated in 12 project teams that produced a number of Genentech's marketed products, including Herceptin®, a monoclonal antibody for treatment of patients with metastatic breast cancer; Activase®, a biosynthetic form of the human tissue plasminogen activator (t-PA) for treatment of heart attack, acute ischemic stroke, and acute massive pulmonary embolism; Pulmozyme®, an inhalation solution for management of cystic fibrosis; and Genentech's anti-IgE antibody currently in late-stage clinical trials for asthma. Dr. Mather's work led to a number of breakthroughs in cell technology and several key patents for Genentech, including serum-free media for the commercial production of t-PA and other products, genetically engineered production cell lines, several tissue progenitor cell lines, and use patents on several Genentech pipeline products. She also contributed to the design of the cell culture biomanufacturing processes used for commercial production of four of Genentech's marketed protein therapeutics. Dr. Mather is an inventor on 30 issued patents, the author of more than 150 publications, and the author or editor of five books on animal cell culture. She is on the board of directors of Healthcare Businesswomen's Association, and serves on the scientific advisory board of Springboard Enterprises as well as two bioscience companies. She received a PhD from the University of California, San Diego and was an NIH-INSERM exchange scientist in Lyon, France.
Frank Gentile, PhD
Hambrecht & Quist Capital Management, Inc.
Dr. Gentile joined Hambrecht & Quist Capital Management in September 2002 as Vice President, Research. His emphasis is on the analysis of private and public companies in the fields of functional genomics and proteomics, as well as cell and gene therapy. He is also an Adjunct Associate Professor of Biotechnology at Brown University. Previously, Dr. Gentile was Vice President, Technology Program Management at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, for which he was responsible for managing all technology platform development programs. Prior to joining Millennium, Dr. Gentile was Vice President of Product Development at Curis, Inc., a biotechnology company developing products in the area of regenerative medicine. He also served as Director and then Vice President, Program Management at Reprogenesis, Inc., and held several scientific and management positions at CytoTherapeutics, Inc. Prior to working in industry, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, Switzerland. He has written more than 120 peer-reviewed publications and is an inventor on 30 U.S. patents in the area of biotechnology. Dr. Gentile received a BE in Chemical Engineering from The Cooper Union and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from MIT.
William D. Young
CEO, Monogram Biosciences
Prior to his appointment in 1999 as Chairman and CEO of Mongram Biosciences (formerly ViroLogic)—a biotechnology company focused on developing treatments for viral, immunologic, and oncologic diseases—Dr. Young served in a number of positions at Genentech from 1980 to 1999, most recently as Chief Operating Officer, where he was responsible for all development, operations, and commercial activities. Previous to that, he held various positions at Eli Lilly and Company for 14 years. He serves on the boards of Biogen/Idec and Human Genome Sciences. Dr. Young is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering (1993) in recognition of his contributions to the development of manufacturing technologies for biotechnology-based pharmaceutical products, and he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Engineering degree from Purdue University (2001). He received a BS in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University and an MBA from Indiana University.
William R. Rohn (Vice Chairman)
Mr. Rohn has over 30 years of management experience in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry including more than 10 years in executive management positions at Idec Pharmaceuticals Inc. and, more recently, Biogen Idec where he served as Chief Operating Officer. He joined Idec in August 1993 as Senior Vice President, Commercial and Corporate Development, was appointed Senior Vice President, Commercial Operations in April 1996 and was promoted to Chief Operating Officer in May 1998. In January 2002, he became President, responsible for Sales, Marketing, Business Development, Manufacturing, Quality, Medical Affairs and CMC Regulatory Affairs. He was responsible for building Idec's initial commercial infrastructure to support the launch of Rituxan, the first monoclonal antibody approved in the United States for the treatment of cancer. Prior to joining Idec, Mr. Rohn held marketing and sales management positions at Adria Laboratories, now part of Pfizer, Abbott Laboratories, Warren-Teed Pharmaceuticals, Miles Laboratories and Mead Johnson Laboratories. Mr. Rohn serves on the Board of Directors of Pharmacyclics, Inc., Metabasis Therapeutics, Inc. and Cerus Corporation. Mr. Rohn received a B.A. in Marketing from Michigan State University. In late 2004 Mr. Rohn announced his retirement from Biogen Idec, effective January 31, 2005.
George Schreiner, M.D., Ph.D.
CEO, Raven biotechnologies, Inc.
Dr. Schreiner joined Raven in May 2006. He is experienced in all phases of drug development, from discovery through clinical development to commercial launch. Prior to joining Raven, Dr. Schreiner was Chief Scientific Officer and Chief Medical Officer at Scios until its acquisition by Johnson & Johnson, whereupon he was named President. In that capacity, he oversaw research and development programs at Scios in cardiovascular disease, inflammation, and oncology. He served on the Pharmaceutical Research and Development Committee for Johnson & Johnson and chaired its Early Research and Development Committee. Dr. Schreiner received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School and his Ph.D. in Immunology from Harvard University. He trained in Internal Medicine and Nephrology at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. He held joint appointments on the faculties of the Department of Medicine and Pathology at Harvard Medical School and the Washington University School of Medicine, where he received tenure. He was one of the founding scientists at CV Therapeutics where he served as Vice President of Medical Science and Preclinical Research.