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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.

Dr. McWilliams is the CEO of Glycomine. He was previously a Managing Director at Sanderling Ventures where he was responsible for its investment in Actimis Pharmaceuticals and, as CEO, led the company into the clinic and through to a successful exit via an acquisition by Boehringer Ingelheim. Prior to joining Sanderling, Dr. McWilliams worked at Genentech where, as a Product Manager in Oncology Commercial Development, he managed a pipeline of oncology products in pre-clinical and clinical development including the anti-angiogenesis therapeutic, Avastin®. Prior to that he was an Associate with Booz & Co (now PwC) in San Francisco where he focused on consulting projects for major US and International life science companies. Prior to that he worked for Oxford Molecular, one of the first companies in the field of rational drug design and bio-informatics. Dr. McWilliams received an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School, where he was an R.C. Kopf Fellow and was elected to Beta Gamma Sigma. He received a Ph.D. and M.A. in Chemistry from Princeton University where he received a Hugh Scott Taylor fellowship. He received a B.A. in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University.

Mike has more than 20 years of experience in the biotechnology industry, with the last 14 focused on creating and operating early stage therapeutic-focused companies. He was most recently Chief Operating Officer at Decibel Therapeutics, a biotechnology company focused on broadly treating hearing disorders. Mike’s involvement at Decibel was part of his work as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Third Rock Ventures; he led a team that created Decibel’s business plan resulting in a $52 M Series A round. Prior to Decibel, Mike was Chief Operating Officer at Ember Therapeutics, a Third Rock Ventures company focused on obesity and diabetes, and Chief Business Officer at Link Medicine, a neurodegeneration focused biotechnology company that was sold to Astra Zeneca. Mike was also a founder and VP of Discovery at Epizyme Therapeutics, a company focused on epigenetic modulators that is now a publicly traded company, and VP of Discovery at Hypnion, Inc a sleep disorder company that was sold to Lilly in 2007 for $325 million. Mike also spent two years as a biotechnology analyst at Bank of America Securities. He started his career at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, where he was project leader for multiple programs.