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Science Pipeline Team News / Literature Connect

Dennis Podlesak
CEO and Chair

Dennis is CEO / Managing Partner of Axcelius LLC and advisory partner to Domain Associates. His board service or CEO leadership has resulted in many successful exits (Tobira/Allergan, Avanir/Otsuka, Corthera/ Novartis, Rightcare Solutions/Cardinal Health, Calixa/ Cubist, Cerexa/Forest, Peninsula/J&J). Previously, he held executive positions at Novartis, Allergan, and SKB.

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Eckard Weber, MD
Chief Innovation Officer

Bringing > 30 years experience, Eckard specializes in creating biopharm companies, many of which have been acquired or listed on public markets. He is venture partner at Canaan Partners and an advisory partner at Domain Associates. He is an inventor/co-inventor of numerous patents and has published > 130 papers.

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Michael Cordingley, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer

With > 30 years of experience across multiple therapeutic areas, Michael has held R&D positions at Merck and BMS prior to joining BI as Preclinical TA Head Virology and Infectious Disease and SVP, R&D Site Head, and member of R&D international leadership team. He has held positions at the NCI, NIH, and McGill University.

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Andrew Satlin, MD
Chief Medical Officer

Andy brings > 20 years of drug development experience and a focus on novel clinical and statistical methods for neurodegenerative disorders. He was EVP and CMO at Intra-Cellular Therapies, held positions at Eisai and Novartis, and was Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Director of Geriatric Psychiatry at McLean Hospital.

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Lynne Rollins
Chief Financial Officer

With > 40 years of experience in healthcare finance and business development, Lynne serves as CFO for several start-up pharmaceutical and medical device companies. Previously, she served 19 years with Baxter Healthcare Corporation with her latest position as VP Finance for the Cardiopulmonary Business.

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Rick Orr
Head, BD and Corp Counsel

Rick brings > 20 years of operational, development and legal experience creating and building life science companies. He serves on the board of SiteOne Therapeutics, was CEO of Adynxx, and held executive leadership positions at Corthera, Calixa, Cerexa and Peninsula Pharmaceuticals. Previously, Rick was an attorney at Cooley LLP.

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Walter Bee, PhD
SVP Preclinical & Biomarker Development

Walter has > 30 years experience in nonclinical development and preclinical safety testing. He served as VP Toxicology and Regulatory Consulting and Global Head of Safety Assessment and Regulatory Affairs for QPS, LLC. Previously, he held positions with Halozyme, J&J, Scios, CoCensys, and several leading contract research organizations.

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Mark Mugerditchian
VP Manufacturing

Mark has > 42 years CMC experience. His broad technical background covers several formats of drug substance (small molecule synthesis and biotechnology) and drug product (SVP, LVP, Solid Oral Dose, inhalation, transdermal, diagnostic). Recent posts include PvP Biologics, Laguna Pharmaceuticals, Sequel, NovaMedica and NovaCardia.

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Jay Soto
Head, Clinical Operations

Jay brings > 20 years experience in development operations, AI and clinical strategy. He has a diverse background, focusing mainly on neurodegenerative disorders, oncology, immunology, and amyloid-related diseases. Prior roles include VP, Clinical Operations at Prothena as well as positions at Pharmacyclics, Janssen Alzheimer Immunotherapy, Elan, and Amgen.

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Priya Jambhekar
Head, Regulatory

Priya brings > 30 years experience in regulatory and quality affairs. She is experienced in early stage to late state development and post approval activities supporting drugs, biologics, medical devices and combination products in several therapeutic areas. Prior roles include head of regulatory affairs for Baxter Critical Care, Ethicon, Alkermis, Paramount Biosciences.

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Ethan Geier, PhD
Senior Director, Research and Development

Ethan brings bioinformatic expertise and insight into neurodegenerative disease pathobiology to support the Company’s biomarker development and biomarker analysis for clinical programs. Previously, he was head of bioinformatics at PrimeFour Therapeutics, and a staff scientist at the University of California, San Francisco Memory and Aging Center. He also was President and Co-founder of Apricity Therapeutics where he led and coordinated preclinical discovery and development.

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Management Team

Dennis Podlesak CEO and Chair	Eckard Weber, MD Chief Innovation Officer	Michael Cordingley, PhD Chief Scientific Officer	Andrew Satlin, MD Chief Medical Officer

Lynne Rollins Chief Financial Officer	Rick Orr Head, BD and Corp Counsel	Walter Bee, PhD SVP Preclinical & Biomarker Development	Mark Mugerditchian VP Manufacturing

Priya Jambhekar Head, Regulatory	Jay Soto Head, Clinical Operations	Ethan Geier, PhD Senior Director, Research and Development

Advisory Boards

Scientific Advisory Board

John Sedivy, PhD Chair
Brown University

Kathy Burns, MD PhD
DFCI, Harvard Med School

George Church, PhD
Harvard University

Josh Dubnau, PhD
SUNY at Stony Brook

Rusty Gage, PhD
Salk Institute

Molly Gale Hammell
NYU Langone Medical Center

Bess Frost, PhD
Brown University

Clinical Advisory Board

Murali Doraiswamy, MD Chair
Duke University

Adam Boxer, MD
UCSF

Yanick Crow, MD, PhD
Univ. Edinburgh (AGS)

Merit Cudkowicz, MD
MGH

John Ravits, MD
UCSD

Dennis Podlesak
CEO and Chair

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Brent Ahrens
Director

Brent is a general partner at Canaan focusing on biopharma & medtech investments, many resulting in successful acquisitions. Current Boards include Abyrx, EndoGastric Solutions, Grey Wolf, Pathios, Relievant MedSystems, and ThirtyFiveBio. Previously, Brent held roles at General Surgical Innovations, Ethicon, and IAP Research and has several surgical instrument patents.

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Bill Harrington, MD
Director

Bill is Managing Partner at Osage University Partners, a venture capital firm investing in university licensees and spinouts where he is responsible for life science investing. Previously, Bill was General Partner at Three Arch Partners. He has invested in > 80 life science companies and serves the boards of Hyalex Orthopedics, Neuros Medical, MediSix Therapeutics.

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Daniel Hetu, MD
Director

With 20+ years of investment banking, corporate development, and licensing experience, Daniel manages Lumira Ventures’ Montreal. His activities focus on building therapeutic and medical device companies that impact patient care. Prior to Lumira, Daniel was a senior executive at Shire and Biochem Pharma and an investment banker at a major Canadian Investment Bank.

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Keith Katkin
Director

Keith brings almost 30 years of pharmaceutical/biotech experience at large cap, small cap and start-up companies. Keith has significant experience in clinical development, sales and marketing as well as business development. After the successful sales of Avanir and Urovant Sciences, Keith now serves on the Board of Directors of Syndax, Emergent BioSolutions and Eledon.

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John Pacifico
Director

With 20+ years as venture capitalist and healthcare CEO, John brings a wide-range of experience to the Board. He is a General Partner at Canaan, founder & CEO of Abyrx and founder & chairman of the board at Kairuku. He serves the boards of Axcelius, PrimeFour, and Aceiss. Previously, he was President & CEO of ORTHOCON®. He is an inventor of 20+ issued or pending patents.

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BT Slingsby, MD
Director

Founder & Managing Partner at Catalys Pacific, BT is a physician-scientist and biotechnology entrepreneur leading company creation efforts for the firm. Previously, he founded the GHIT Fund – the world’s first public-private fund focused on development of new medicines for low- and middle-income countries. He is an inventor of multiple patents and author of over 50 scientific papers.

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Eckard Weber, MD
Director and Chief Innovation Officer

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Board of Directors

Dennis Podlesak CEO and Chair	Brent Ahrens Director	Bill Harrington, MD Director

Daniel Hetu, MD Director	Keith Katkin Director	John Pacifico Director

BT Slingsby, MD Director	Eckard Weber, MD Director and Chief Innovation Officer

Team

Transposon is powered by world renowned, pioneering scientists, experienced drug development experts with a collective record of over 30 NDA approvals, and repeat entrepreneurs.

Management Team Board of Directors Advisory Boards