Catalyst Biosciences
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Company
Team  » Management | Board of Directors | Scientific Advisory Board

 

MANAGEMENT
Nassim Usman, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer  

Dr. Usman is currently CEO and a member of the Board of Directors at Catalyst Biosciences. Dr. Usman joined Catalyst from Morgenthaler Ventures, where he is a Venture Partner. Prior to joining Morgenthaler in 2005, he was Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Sirna Therapeutics Inc. (Nasdaq:RNAI – acquired by Merck NYSE:MRK) from 2004 to 2005 and held various R&D positions at both Sirna and Ribozyme Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq:RZYM), including VP of R&D and Chief Scientific Officer, from 1992 to 2004. During his industrial career Dr. Usman has entered several drugs into clinical development, completed multiple licensing deals with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and raised capital in both private and public financings. Prior to moving into the biotechnology industry in 1992, Dr. Usman was an NIH Fogarty and NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow and Scientist in the Departments of Biology and Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1987 to 1992. He has authored more than 70 scientific articles and 130 patents and applications. Dr. Usman serves on the Boards of Mosaic Biosciences, Principia Biopharma and Osprey Pharmaceuticals, is a past director of Archemix Corporation (Cambridge, MA) and atugen AG (now Silence Therapeutics, LSE/AIM:SLN) and served on the SABs of RXi Pharmaceuticals and Noxxon Pharma AG. He received his B.Sc. (Honours) and Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from McGill University. In his doctoral dissertation he developed a method for the solid-phase synthesis of RNA that is widely used in science and in a marketed RNA product (Macugen™).

  
     
placeholder Edwin L. Madison, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer  
Dr. Madison received a Ph.D. in biochemistry from University of Texas - Southwestern Medical Center (UTSWC) in 1990. Following graduation, Dr. Madison accepted a faculty position at UTSWC with joint appointments in the Departments of Biochemistry and Internal Medicine. Dr. Madison then moved to The Scripps Research Institute as an Associate Professor of Vascular Biology. Prior to moving to Catalyst Biosciences, Dr. Madison was Vice President of Biological Research at Dendreon San Diego and Dendreon Corporation, Professor of Vascular Biology at the Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies, and Adjunct Professor of Vascular Biology at The Scripps Research Institute. Dr. Madison has achieved an international reputation in the fields of serine protease and serpin basic research, and he is one of the lead inventors of a currently marketed protease therapeutic agent.
 
     

William J. Dawson, Chief Financial Officer

  
Mr. Dawson joined Catalyst Biosciences as Chief Financial Officer in March 2010. Previously, he served from 2004 through 2009 as Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer of Cerus Corporation (Nasdaq:CERS), a commercial-stage blood safety products company, where he completed equity financings and helped launch the company’s European commercial sales subsidiary and spin-off the company’s clinical-stage immunotherapy business to a syndicate of venture capital firms. From 2002 until 2004, Mr. Dawson was Vice President, Finance & Operations and Chief Financial Officer of Dynavax Technologies Corporation (Nasdaq:DVAX), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, completing a final private round of venture financing in 2003 and then a strategic collaboration with a European pharmaceutical company and an IPO in early 2004. From 1998 until 2001, Mr. Dawson was Corporate Senior Vice President, Business Development, for McKesson Corporation (NYSE:MCK), a Fortune-20 pharmaceutical distribution and healthcare services company. He was also acting Chief Financial Officer of iMcKesson, an e-health IT subsidiary of McKesson. Prior to joining McKesson, Mr. Dawson spent 15 years as a senior officer in corporate finance with three investment banking firms. Mr. Dawson earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and an undergraduate degree from Stanford University in Mechanical Engineering. Mr. Dawson serves on the boards of directors of McGrath RentCorp (Nasdaq: MGRC), a business-to-business rental company, and Wellington Trust Company, a subsidiary of Wellington Management Company LLP, a private institutional fund management company.  
     
Eric Kunkel Eric J. Kunkel, Ph.D., Vice President, Assay Development and Screening  
Dr. Kunkel joined Catalyst from BioSeek where he served as Vice President, Biology and contributed to the development and commercialization of the company’s core high-throughput primary human cell-based discovery technology. In addition to leading several internal discovery projects, he was responsible for managing multiple external collaborations around the platform as a drug discovery tool. He has authored over 30 publications in peer-reviewed journals and is co-inventor on multiple patents. Dr. Kunkel received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame, his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Virginia focusing on mechanisms of leukocyte trafficking, and completed his postdoctoral training in immunology at Stanford University.  
     
Cammy DeLuca Camille DeLuca-Flaherty, Ph.D., Vice President, Project Management  
Dr. DeLuca-Flaherty has served as Executive Director, Project Management and Project Leader of the FVIIa/Hemphilia program at Catalyst.  Dr. DeLuca-Flaherty joined Catalyst in June 2006 from Exelixis where she was most recently Senior Director of Development Project Management. In this capacity, she served on numerous project teams that spanned development stages pre-IND through Phase 3 clinical trials. In the role of Director of Research Operations, Dr. DeLuca-Flaherty played a central role in the transition of Exelixis from a platform technology to a fully integrated drug discovery/development company. Dr. DeLuca-Flaherty joined Exelixis as the company's first alliance manager in 1998. Prior to Exelixis, Dr. DeLuca-Flaherty led diverse research teams in the identification of novel protease inhibitors first at Sandoz Agro and later at Affymax, where she interacted with drug discovery teams from Glaxo Wellcome's sites in Research Triangle Park, Verona Italy, and Geneva Switzerland. Dr. DeLuca-Flaherty received her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Colorado and completed her post doctoral training in structural biology at Stanford University.