BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Harold E. "Barry" Selick, Chairman
Barry Selick is Chief Executive Officer of Threshold Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and a Venture Partner of Sofinnova Ventures, Inc., a venture capital firm. From January 1999 to April 2002, he was Chief Executive Officer of Camitro Corporation, a biotechnology company. From 1992 to 1999, he was at Affymax Research Institute, the drug discovery technology development center for Glaxo Wellcome plc, most recently as Vice President of Research. Prior to working at Affymax he held scientific positions at Protein Design Labs, Inc. and Anergen, Inc. As a staff scientist at Protein Design Labs, he co-invented the technology underlying the creation of fully humanized antibody therapeutics and applied that to PDL's first product, Zenapax, which was developed and commercialized by Roche for treating kidney transplant rejection. Dr. Selick received his B.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and was a Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell Cancer Fund Fellow and an American Cancer Society Senior Fellow at the University of California, San Francisco.
G. Steven Burrill
G. Steven Burrill has been involved in the growth and prosperity of the biotechnology industry for 35 years. An early pioneer, Mr. Burrill is one of the original architects of the industry and one of its most avid and sustained developers. Prior to founding Burrill & Company in 1994, he spent 28 years with Ernst & Young, directing and coordinating the firm's services to clients in the biotechnology/life sciences/high technology/manufacturing industries worldwide. In 2002, Mr. Burrill was recognized as the biotech investment visionary by the prestigious Scientific American magazine (The Scientific American 50). Mr. Burrill is a founder of the Foundation for the National Medals of Science and Technology. He also serves on the Boards of the Bay Area Bioscience Center, the Bay Area Science Infrastructure Consortium, the California Healthcare Institute, the Exploratorium, and the Kellogg Center for Biotechnology. Mr. Burrill is also on the Advisory Boards of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Foundation, the University of Hawaii Medical School, and the University of Wisconsin Foundation. In addition, he is a member of The World Bank's "Out of the Box" group as well as an adjunct professor at UCSF.
Ralph E. (Chris) Christoffersen, Ph.D.
Dr. Christoffersen is a general partner at Morgenthaler Ventures, and prior to that was most recently the President and CEO of Ribozyme Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biotechnology company whose mission is to commercialize the Nobel Prize-winning discovery of ribozymes for use as human therapeutics. He was formerly the Senior Vice President of Research at SmithKline Beecham, and Vice President of Discovery Research at The Upjohn Company, and President of Colorado State University. Christoffersen received an honorary doctor of law degree from Cornell College in 1983, the "Outstanding Research of the Year" Award from the International Society of Quantum Biology in 1981, and the "W. E. Upjohn Award" for contributions in biotechnology in 1988. He received his bachelor's degree in chemistry and mathematics from Cornell College, and Ph.D. in chemistry from Indiana University. Based in Boulder, Colorado, he is focusing on new biotechnology investments.
Charles S. Craik, Ph.D.
Charles Craik is a Professor in the Departments of Pharmaceutical Chemistry,
Cellular & Molecular Pharmacology and Biochemistry & Biophysics at the University
of California at San Francisco. He is also the director of the Chemistry
and Chemical Biology Graduate Program. He received his Ph.D. in Chemistry
from Columbia University in New York and carried out his postdoctoral research
at UCSF with Dr. William Rutter. He joined the UCSF faculty in 1985 and has
published over 200 research articles on various biochemical topics. He has
co-authored two books, and served on advisory panels for the National Institutes
of Health, the National Science Foundation, the National Academy of Sciences
and the Department of Energy. He has organized several international meetings
on topics including Protein Engineering, Drug Discovery, and The Biology
of Proteolysis. The current research in the Craik lab focuses on the chemical
biology of proteolytic enzymes and their natural inhibitors. A particular
emphasis of his work is on identifying the roles and regulating the activity
of proteases associated with infectious diseases, cancer and development.
These studies are providing a better understanding of both the chemical make-up
and the biological importance of these critical proteins.
Augustine Lawlor
Gus Lawlor has been a managing director of HealthCare Ventures since 2000. He was previously Chief Operating Officer of LeukoSite, Inc., a HealthCare Ventures III, IV, and V company. Before joining LeukoSite, he was Chief Financial Officer and Vice President of Corporate Development for Alpha-Beta Technology. He held similar positions at BioSurface Technology and Armstrong Pharmaceuticals. He was previously a management consultant with KPMG Peat Marwick. Mr. Lawlor is a member of the board of directors of the Slater Center in Providence, Rhode Island. He received a master's degree in public and private management from Yale University.
Nassim Usman, Ph.D.
Nassim Usman is the Chief Executive Officer of Catalyst Biosciences, Inc. Dr. Usman joins Catalyst from Morgenthaler Ventures, where he has served as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence beginning in June, 2005. Prior to joining Morgenthaler he was Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Sirna Therapeutics Inc. (Nasdaq:RNAI) from 2004 to 2005 and held various R&D positions at both Sirna and Ribozyme Pharmaceuticals, including VP of R&D and Chief Scientific Officer, from 1992 to 2004. Dr. Usman has entered several RNA-based drugs into clinical development, most recently Sirna 027, an siRNA for the treatment of Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD). He has completed more than 10 licensing deals with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and participated in private and public financings exceeding $250 million. 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 is a past director of Archemix Corporation (Cambridge, MA) and atugen AG (acquired by SR Pharma, LSE/AIM:SPA) and serves on the SAB of Noxxon Pharma AG (Berlin, Germany). He received his B.Sc. (Honours) and Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from McGill University.
James A. Wells, Ph.D.
Dr. Wells is the Harry W. and Diana Hind Professor in the Departments of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology at the University of California at San Francisco. From 1998 to 2005 Dr. Wells was a co-founder, Director, President and CSO of Sunesis Pharmaceuticals, a drug discovery and development company using a novel site-directed drug discovery technology. Prior to Sunesis, he held the position of Staff Scientist at Genentech for 16 years where he helped build the Protein Engineering Department and developed technology for designing second-generation protein therapeutics. Dr. Wells' current research focuses on protease signaling pathways and site-directed chemical biology, a new field that systematically interrogates the roles of specific sites on proteins in cells using small molecules.
Dr. Wells received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Washington State University in 1979 and was a Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell Post-doctoral Fellow in the Biochemistry Department at Stanford University prior to joining Genentech in 1982. He has published more than 200 peer-reviewed scientific papers, and been named inventor on more than 60 patents issued or filed. He has won a number of research awards including, most recently, the Hans Neurath Award presented by the Protein Society in 2003, the Cutting Award Lecture at Stanford University in 2005 and the Perlman Lecture Award of the ACS Biotechnology Division in 2006. In 1999 he was elected Member to the National Academy of Sciences, USA.
Asish K. Xavier, Ph.D.
Dr. Xavier is a Vice President, with
Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation, Johnson & Johnson’s
venture arm. Dr. Xavier is based in New Brunswick,
NJ and represents JJDC on the board of a number of its portfolio
companies. Dr. Xavier previously worked in business development
at BioRexis Pharmaceutical Corporation, King of Prussia, PA (recently
acquired by Pfizer). While at BioRexis, he assisted the company
in raising a $30 million second round of financing. He has
worked in business development and strategy at SGX Pharmaceuticals
(San Diego, CA; SGXP) and was a project leader at Message Pharmaceuticals
(Malvern, PA). Dr. Xavier holds an MBA from The Wharton School
at the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated with honors. He
holds a B.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology (Kanpur,
India) and a Ph.D. from the University of Houston both in Chemical
Engineering. He was a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department
of Chemistry at John Hopkins University.
