Ascend Therapeutics competitors

Michael Cola joined Medgenics as President and CEO in September 2013. Prior to joining Medgenics, Mr. Cola served as President of Specialty Pharmaceuticals at Shire plc, a global specialty pharmaceutical company, from 2007 until April 2012. He joined Shire in 2005 as EVP of Global Therapeutic Business Units and Portfolio Management. Prior to joining Shire, he was with Safeguard Scientifics, Inc., a growth capital provider to life sciences and technology companies, where he served as President of the Life Sciences Group. While at Safeguard, Mr. Cola served as Chairman and CEO of Clarient, Inc., a cancer diagnostics company subsequently acquired by GE Healthcare, and as Chairman of Laureate Pharma, Inc., a full-service contract manufacturing organization serving research-based biologics companies. Prior to Safeguard Scientifics, Mr. Cola held senior positions in product development and commercialization at AstraMerck, a top 20 U.S. pharmaceutical company, and at AstraZeneca, a global biopharmaceutical company. Mr. Cola received a B.A. in biology and physics from Ursinus College and an M.S. in biomedical science from Drexel University. He serves on the Board of Directors of Vanda Pharmaceuticals Inc., Sage Therapeutics, Ben Franklin Technology Partners and Pennsylvania BIO, the statewide association representing the bioscience community. He also currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Philadelphia.

Antony Loebel is a Chief Medical Officer at Sunovion Pharmaceuticals Inc and is based in New York, New York.

Jesse Shefferman is a co-founder of Protara and has led the Company since its inception through the addition of two late-stage assets, the establishment of multiple late-stage development programs and its listing on NASDAQ in early 2020. Jesse has spent over twenty years in the biopharma industry holding several strategic leadership and financial roles. Prior to co-founding Protara, Jesse was Vice President and Head of Business Development at Retrophin Inc., a leading rare diseases company where Jesse was a member of the executive leadership team and executed a number of company-defining transactions. Prior to Retrophin, Jesse served as Director, Strategy and Business Development at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Inc., where he focused on hepatology and rare disease programs. Jesse previously served as an investment banker with Barclays Capital and Lehman Brothers, where he focused on providing strategic and financial advice to the management teams and boards of directors of numerous biopharmaceutical companies. Jesse holds an MBA and Certificate in Health Sector Management from Duke University and a BA in Accounting from Gordon College.

Dr. James Breitmeyer is the president & CEO Oncternal Therapeutics, Inc., a San Diego cancer biotechnology company. He was instrumental in identifying and acquiring rights to ROR1 technology from UCSD and for developing ETS-family inhibitors based on discoveries from Georgetown University, while assembling Oncternal’s pipeline of oncology therapeutics. Dr. Breitmeyer was a lead author on the research grant submitted to the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) which resulted in the award of $18.3 million to UCSD to support development of lead program cirmtuzumab currently in Phase 1/2 clinical studies. Dr. Breitmeyer believes biomedical research and collaborations with academia are essential for targeting cancers where there are patients with critical unmet needs that aren’t being fully addressed by currently available therapies. At Oncternal, Dr. Breitmeyer is combining drug development expertise with exciting science for a synergistic combination to spur the development of novel product candidates that can potentially be applied across a large number of cancers. Dr. Breitmeyer is board certified in internal medicine and oncology. He holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of California and earned M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Washington University School of Medicine with fellowships at Washington University and Harvard Medical School. He held clinical and teaching faculty positions at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Breitmeyer has more than 30 years of experience across all aspects of the biotechnology industry in both large and small companies, and across multiple therapeutic areas. He is currently a member of the Boards of Directors of Oncternal Therapeutics Inc, Zogenix Inc, and Otonomy Inc.