Board of Directors
Mahesh V. Patel, PH.D.
President & CEO
Jeffrey Fink, MBA
Chairman of Audit Committee
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Jeffrey A. Fink, M.B.A., has served as a member of our Board of Directors since January 2014 and has over 20 years of finance and strategy experience within the life science and healthcare industry. Mr. Fink is currently the managing director of Gambel Oaks Advisors, a strategic and financial advisory firm dedicated to the life sciences and allied industries, where he has worked since 2010. Mr. Fink spent over twenty years in the investment banking industry advising life science clients in the U.S. and Europe on the full range of financing and strategic advisory assignments. He was head of Healthcare Investment Banking for Robert W. Baird & Co. in Chicago until he retired in 2007, and prior to that was a partner in the Healthcare Group at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein (the successor firm to Wasserstein Perella) and head of Mergers and Acquisitions for Prudential Vector Healthcare, a dedicated biotechnology and life sciences investment bank. Mr. Fink received a B.A. in Economics, cum laude, from Kalamazoo College and holds an M.B.A. in finance, with distinction, from the University of Michigan. We believe that Mr. Fink’s knowledge of accounting and finance and his extensive experience in the life science industry greatly benefits the Board.
John W. Higuchi, MBA
President & CEO of Aciont Inc.
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John W. Higuchi, M.B.A. has served as a member of our Board of Directors since 2003. Mr. Higuchi served as Chief Executive Officer of Aciont Inc., an ocular therapeutics company in Utah from 2003 to 2022. Mr. Higuchi also is a co-founder and serves on the Board of Directors of Spriaso, LLC, a specialty pharmaceutical company in Utah. From 1997 to 2003, Mr. Higuchi served as our Vice President of Business Development and Corporate Treasurer. Mr. Higuchi received a B.S. in Chemistry from Hope College and an M.B.A. and M.S. in Information Systems from The George Washington University. We believe that Mr. Higuchi’s business development and management experience in the therapeutics industry, together with his significant knowledge of our Company obtained while serving as a director of our Company, greatly benefits our Board of Directors.
R. Dana Ono, PH.D.
Member of Compensation Committee & Audit Committee
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Dr. Richard Dana Ono, Ph.D. has served as a director of the Company since January 2014 and has over 35 years of experience managing public and private life science companies as well as venture capital. Since 2013, he has been an executive-in-residence to several universities in the United States advising their licensing offices in spin-outs and new company formation from promising technologies. Throughout his career, he has been engaged in strategic planning, product management, technology acquisition, and commercial development of life science start-ups and has been involved in a number of pioneering milestones in biotechnology. Dr. Ono has founded several biotech companies in the U.S. Dr. Ono is a founding director of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, Inc. (MassBio) and served on the Board of Trustees of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. He is a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London and a National Member of the Explorers Club. Dr. Ono received his A.B. in Earth & Planetary Sciences from The Johns Hopkins University and his A.M. and Ph. D. in Biology from Harvard University, where he also completed a program in business administration. We believe that Dr. Ono’s extensive experience with life science companies at each phase of development greatly benefits the Board of Directors.
Jill M. Jene, PH.D.
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Dr. Jill Jene, Ph.D., M.B.A., has served as a director of the Company since April 2022 and brings more than 20 years of biopharmaceutical strategy, leadership and deal making experience to the Company’s Board of Directors. Dr. Jene has amassed a deal sheet of over $6 billion of closed transactions and she is currently the Founder and Principal of Jene Advisors, a biopharmaceutical advisory firm, a position she has held since November 2021. Dr. Jene was the Vice President and Head of Corporate Development, Strategy, Portfolio Planning and Alliance Management at Adamas from August 2020, until the company was sold to Supernus in November of 2021. Before joining Adamas, Dr. Jene was Vice President of Business Development for PDL from May 2018 to August 2020, a publicly traded biotechnology company where she was responsible for executing deal-making to maximize value for shareholders. Before PDL, Dr. Jene led Business Development at twoXAR from May 2017 to May 2018, where she led deal-making, resulting in closing 6 new partnerships and securing Series A funding from Softbank and A16z. Prior to twoXAR, Dr. Jene was at Depomed (now Assertio) from April 2006 to May 2017, where she led over 36 transactions including licensing and M&A deals including acquiring 4 commercial franchises. Earlier in her career, she held positions of increasing responsibility at Baxter International, the 3M Company (Pharmaceutical Division now part of Valeant) and Cell Genesys (acquired by Biosante). Dr. Jene earned a B.S. from Bradley University, a M.S. and Ph.D. in Chemistry from Northwestern University, and an M.B.A. in strategic management from DePaul University. We believe that Dr. Jene’s extensive experience in biopharmaceutical business greatly benefits our Board of Directors.
Spyros Papapetropoulos, Ph.D., M.D.
Chairman of the Board
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Dr. Spyros Papapetropoulos, M.D., Ph.D. has served as a director of the Company since April 2022, and Chairman of the Board of Directors and Lead Independent Director since November 2022. Dr. Papapetropoulos is an experienced biopharmaceutical executive, recognized neuroscientist, neurodegenerative disease clinician and change agent. Since January 2023, Dr. Papapetropolous has served as President, Chief Executive Officer and as a Board Director of Neuphoria Therapeutics Inc. (formerly Bionomics Ltd) (NASDAQ: NEUP). Prior to Neurphoria, Dr. Papapetropoulos served as Chief Medical Officer at Vigil Neuroscience, a position he has held since September 2020, where he oversaw all the clinical development and medical functions. Prior to Vigil, Dr. Papapetropoulos served as SVP, Head of Development (CDO) at Acadia Pharmaceuticals Inc. from November 2019 to September 2020, CEO at SwanBio Therapeutics from March 2019 to October 2020, and Head of Research & Development and Chief Medical Officer at Cavion from June 2017 to March 2019. Before Cavion, he held senior/executive positions at Biogen Inc., Allergan plc, Pfizer Inc., and Teva Pharmaceuticals Inc. Dr. Papapetropoulos has overseen a broad spectrum of biopharmaceutical development programs including small molecules, biologics, and gene therapy leading to successful regulatory filings and new product launches worldwide. He holds appointments as Consultant with Massachusetts General Hospital and has been involved in research that led to the characterization of genetic forms of Parkinson’s disease and development of methodologies relating to the quantification of neuromotor function in clinical research settings. Dr. Papapetropoulos has published more than 170 peer reviewed articles and authored several book chapters and patents. Dr. Papapetropoulos received his M.D. and Ph.D. in Greece from the University of Patras, School of Medicine. We believe that Dr. Papapetropoulos’ extensive experience with clinical research and deve