Our Leadership Team
Robert Hennessey
Co-Founder & Chairman of Board
Co-founder and Chairman of the Board. Mr. Hennessey was the former Chairman, President and CEO of Genome Therapeutics, previously known as Collaborative Research. He restructured Collaborative Research into a drug discovery and genomics Company (1993-2000) and increased the market cap of the company from $15MM (3/93) to a peak of $1.53 billion (3/2000). He was also on the Boards of Repligen Corporation and Penwest Pharmaceuticals for over 10 years. Mr. Hennessey worked with multiple clients in the biotech and pharma space from 1990 to 1993 as an independent consultant. Prior to consulting, he spent 10 years as a Senior Vice President of Corporate Development at Sterling Drug, Inc. and was responsible for centrally directed strategic planning, licensing, acquisitions, and venture investments worldwide. Mr. Hennessey has also worked at Abbott Laboratories as a Director for International Strategic Planning and Business Development, SmithKline and Merck Sharp & Dohme International.
Jack Talley
CEO
Interim CEO of the Company. He was the CEO of Izun Pharmaceuticals and previously Alissa Pharmaceuticals, a company involved in the development of radio-immunotherapy with novel targeted antibodies for hematology and solid tumors. Mr. Talley was previously the Chief Executive Officer and President at Actinium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and President and Chief Executive Officer of EpiCept Corporation. Mr. Talley also served as the Chief Executive Officer of Consensus Pharmaceuticals and led Penwest Ltd.’s efforts in its spin-off of its subsidiary Penwest Pharmaceuticals Co. in 1998. Mr. Talley has more than 30 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, starting his career at Sterling Drug Inc., where he was responsible for all U.S. marketing activities and participated in the 1988 acquisition of Sterling Drug by Eastman Kodak Co. Mr. Talley completed his graduation from the Business school of New York University and undergraduation from University of Connecticut.
Robert Hemley
Co-Founder & COO
Co-founder, COO and Member of the Board. Mr. Hemley has been a consultant to the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry for 24 years and has worked on projects across geographical markets, therapeutic areas for small and large companies. He has also been involved in the formation of several new companies including the Immune Response Corporation, Cortex Pharmaceuticals, Auriga Pharmaceuticals, and CureMark. Mr. Hemley has been involved with assisting startup biotech companies in setting strategic direction, market assessment and tactical planning. He has worked with mid-size companies in setting priorities, assessing potential science and technology, defining strategic and tactical paths. He has also worked with large pharmaceutical companies in technology assessment and due diligence. Mr. Hemley received his graduate and post-graduate degree from University of Vermont and obtained his Business education from Lubin School of Business, Pace University.
Cynthia Arbeeny
CSO
CSO and Member of the SAB. Dr. Arbeeny has extensive experience within the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and academic sectors. She has broad knowledge across all functional areas of biopharma R&D with expertise in metabolic diseases. Dr. Arbeeny has been involved in advancing several compounds from discovery and preclinical research to Phase I clinical trials. She is currently the President of BioNavigation Consulting LLC and provides consulting services to large and medium sized companies, biopharma startups and investment groups. Dr. Arbeeny was the Head of Strategic Opportunities, Diabetes Co-Morbidities and Complications and Vice President for Portfolio Strategy and External Innovation at Sanofi and was Vice President for Endocrine and Metabolic Disease Research at Genzyme. She worked as an independent consultant for the Biopharma industry, as a Research Investigator at Bristol Myers Squibb and as an Assistant Professor at The Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She received a BS in Biology with highest honors from Richmond College and a Ph.D in Physiology from Rutgers University.
Mercedes Rincon
Scientific Founder
Co-founder of Mitotherapeutix and member of the SAB. Dr. Rincon is a Professor in Department of Immunology and Microbiology at the University of Colorado at Anschutz Medical Campus. She has over 149 publications, many in top journals such as Science, Nature, Cell, Immunity and her research has been well-funded for more than nineteen years. She has served in a number of review panels from the National Institute of Health (NIH), and is currently a standing member of CMI-A. She is member of Associate Editorial Board of several journals and has acted as a consultant for a number of pharma companies including Pharmacia, Novartis, Roche, ResVerlogix, and Genentech. Dr. Rincon is the primary inventor of two issued patents and four additional filed patents. Dr. Rincon is a national and internationally recognized immunologist with expertise in broad areas of research such as signaling pathways, allergy/asthma, arthritis and influenza infection. In addition, she has also been working for many years in molecular mechanisms of multidrug resistance in breast cancer, an area that brought her to the identification of MCJ as a key molecule in mitochondria function, and its role regulating chemotherapy response and metabolism. She joined the University of Vermont in 1996 as an Assistant Professor initially, Associate Professor with tenure later, and full Professor in Medicine since 2009 to 2019. She has established the SPARK-VT program at the University of Vermont to foster entrepreneurship in academic environments. Dr. Rincon received her Ph.D. from the University Autonoma of Madrid and trained as a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University School of Medicine.
Rajini Reddy
Director Business Development
Director of Business Development at Mitotherapeutix. Dr. Reddy is a scientist with both academic and industry familiarity, have considerable experience in laboratory research and expert at managing a laboratory research team. She is schooled about Entrepreneurship and attended multiple workshops to imbibe on the different aspects of business and technology commercialization and also trained to write grants by NIH and SBIR/STTR. Dr. Reddy is working on the scientific aspects of Mitotherapeutix along with business development. She has been a part of the R & D team of the start-up company LambdaVision to develop bacteriorhodopsin based retinal prosthetic for treating retinal degenerating diseases and established the cytotoxic study of bacteriorhodopsin in cultured retinal pigmented epithelium cells. Dr. Reddy did her postdoctoral research at the Department of Ophthalmology, Yale University where she Investigated the role of mitochondrial Uncoupling Protein UCP2 and its functional relevance with regard to physiological and pathological death of the retinal ganglion cells and established that UCP2 transgenic mice exhibited significantly less cell death when exposed to few excitotoxins. She received her Masters in Science in Physiology from Bangalore University and her Ph.D in Neuroscience from National Institute of Mental Health & Neurosciences.
Board of Directors & Advisors
Robert Hennessey
Co-Founder & Chairman of Board
Co-founder and Chairman of the Board. He was the former Chairman, President and CEO of Genome Therapeutics, previously known as Collaborative Research. Mr. Hennessey restructured Collaborative Research into a drug discovery and genomics Company (1993-2000) and increased the market cap of the company from $15MM (3/93) to a peak of $1.53 billion (3/2000). He was also on the Boards of Repligen Corporation and Penwest Pharmaceuticals for over 10 years. Mr. Hennessey worked with multiple clients in the biotech and pharma space from 1990 to 1993 as an independent consultant. Preceding to consulting, he spent 10 years as a Senior Vice President of Corporate Development at Sterling Drug, Inc. and was responsible for centrally-directed strategic planning, licensing, acquisitions and venture investments worldwide. Prior to Sterling, Mr. Hennessey worked at Abbott Laboratories as a Director for International Strategic Planning and Business Development, and SmithKline and Merck Sharp & Dohme International.
Robert Hemley
Co-Founder & COO
Co-founder, COO and member of the Board. Mr. Hemley has been a consultant to the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry for 24 years and has worked on projects across geographical markets, therapeutic areas for small and large companies. He has also been involved in the formation of a number of new companies including the Immune Response Corporation, Cortex Pharmaceuticals, Auriga Pharmaceuticals, and CureMark. Mr. Hemley has been involved with assisting startup biotech companies in setting strategic direction, market assessment and tactical planning. He has worked with mid-size companies in setting priorities, assessing potential science and technology, defining strategic and tactical paths. He has also worked with large pharmaceutical companies in technology assessment and due diligence.
Jack Talley
CEO
Interim CEO of the Company. He was the CEO of Izun Pharmaceuticals and previously Alissa Pharmaceuticals, a company involved in the development of radio-immunotherapy with novel targeted antibodies for hematology and solid tumors. Mr. Talley was previously the Chief Executive Officer and President at Actinium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and President and Chief Executive Officer of EpiCept Corporation. Mr. Talley also served as the Chief Executive Officer of Consensus Pharmaceuticals, and led Penwest Ltd.’s efforts in its spin-off of its subsidiary Penwest Pharmaceuticals Co. in 1998. Mr. Talley has more than 30 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, starting his career at Sterling Drug Inc., where he was responsible for all U.S. marketing activities and participated in the 1988 acquisition of Sterling Drug by Eastman Kodak Co.
Dan Wagner
Member
Mr. Wagner is responsible for evaluating investment opportunities, structuring investments and monitoring portfolio companies through active board participation. He has led or assisted with Connecticut Innovation’s (CI) investments in AxioMx (acquired by Abcam); Affomix (acquired by Illumina); CyVek (acquired by Bio-Techne); Cara Therapeutics (NASDAQ: CARA); HistoRx (acquired by Genoptix); Melinta Therapeutics, formerly Rib-X (NASDAQ: MLNT); RemoteReality (acquired by RTI); Biohaven Pharmaceuticals (NYSE: BHVN); and Arvinas (NASDAQ: ARVN). Mr. Wagner contributes to CI’s expertise in biotech with more than 10 years in the industry. He was previously employed CuraGen Corporation. Where he held a variety of scientific and operational management positions in research and development, technology assessment and implementation of next-generation scientific technologies that supported CuraGen’s growth from a genomic and proteomic platform company into a biopharmaceutical firm.
Fenel Eloi
Member
Chairman of audit committee in the company. Mr. Eloi is seasoned executive with proven track record in executive leadership and operational roles. A strategic thinker that is equally pragmatic to execute systematically towards specific end goals. He has experience in leading the transformation of small and mid-size companies to large operating global organizations. His professional experience includes Board roles, C-level Executive roles, M&A, Strategic Partnerships, Licensing, International Expansion, Operational Scale-up, Equity and Debt Financing both Public and Private and Corporate Board governance roles. Mr. Eloi’s preponderance of professional career has been in Life Sciences covering companies of different sizes from start-up to global commercial operations. Life science sectors includes R&D, Diagnostics, Medical Device, Biological Reagents, Therapeutics. He obtained his Master of Business Administration in Finance and growth from Anna Maria College and bachelor’s degree in Business/Commerce from Lee University.
David Meeker
Advisor
Board advisor. Dr. Meeker is the President and CEO of Rhythm Pharmaceuticals and previously KSQ Therapeutics. He spent 17 years at Genzyme from being a Medical Director to Senior Vice President and later became the Business Unit leader for Genzyme’s Lysosomal Storage Disease and Thyrogen programs in Europe. Dr. Meeker was promoted to be the President of the Global LSD business unit where he oversaw the global launches of Aldurazyme, Fabrazyme and Myozyme. Prior to Genzyme, he was the Director of the Pulmonary Critical Care at the Cleveland Clinic and an Assistant professor of medicine at Ohio State University. Dr. Meeker received his M.D. from the University of Vermont Medical School and completed Internal Medicine residency at Beth Israel Hospital and a Pulmonary/Critical Care fellowship at Boston University. He completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School in 2000.
Frank Marco
Advisor
Board advisor. Mr. Marco is Special Counsel to the law firm Wiggin and Dana, member of the firm’s Corporate Practice Department and former Chair of the firm’s Emerging Companies and Venture Capital Practice Group. He has over 40 years of experience in corporate, finance and securities law. Frank’s experience includes six years in the General Counsel’s office of General Electric Company, where he was also General Counsel to General Electric Venture Capital Corporation, giving him a unique background in the venture capital process and in corporate ventures. He is admitted to practice in Connecticut and New York. A frequent lecturer, Mr. Marco regularly addresses legal and business groups regarding venture capital finance, public offerings, corporate governance, business strategy, licensing, strategic alliances and other matters relating to the growth and development of emerging companies. He is a regular lecturer at the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute. Mr. Marco is a graduate of St. Lawrence University (1969) and was awarded his J.D. cum laude from Fordham Law School (1972), where he was an editor of the Fordham Law Review.
Scientific Advisory Board
Richard Gregory
SAB Chair
Chairman of the SAB. Dr. Gregory has been an independent consultant to biopharma companies since September 2019. He is the co-author of over 60 peer-reviewed publications and 23 issued U.S. patents in the area of biotechnology. He is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. Dr. Gregory worked in ImmunoGen from 2015 for 4 years and was responsible for research leading to new antibody-based therapeutics to address the unmet needs of patients with cancer. Prior to that, he worked for Genzyme Corporation where he spent 25 years in positions of increasing responsibility. In 1990, his group at Genzyme was the first to express the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) protein and to determine the molecular defect caused by the most common mutation of CFTR. This work led to the founding of Genzyme’s gene therapy platform, which Dr. Gregory led until 2001. He then became Senior Vice President and Head of Research for Genzyme Corporation leading early R&D, from discovery to development, in all therapeutic areas and platforms. In 2011, following the acquisition of Genzyme, Dr. Gregory was appointed Head of the Sanofi-Genzyme R&D Center. He received his Ph.D in Biochemistry from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1986, followed by post-doctoral research in cancer genetics at the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology.
Mercedes Rincon
Scientific Founder
Co-founder of Mitotherapeutix and member of the SAB. Dr. Rincon is a Professor in Department of Immunology and Microbiology at the University of Colorado at Anschutz Medical Campus. She has over 149 publications, many in top journals such as Science, Nature, Cell, Immunity and her research has been well-funded for more than nineteen years. She has served in a number of review panels from the National Institute of Health (NIH), and is currently a standing member of CMI-A. She is member of Associate Editorial Board of several journals and has acted as a consultant for a number of pharma companies including Pharmacia, Novartis, Roche, ResVerlogix, and Genentech. Dr. Rincon is the primary inventor of two issued patents and four additional filed patents. Dr. Rincon is a national and internationally recognized immunologist with expertise in broad areas of research such as signaling pathways, allergy/asthma, arthritis and influenza infection. In addition, she has also been working for many years in molecular mechanisms of multidrug resistance in breast cancer, an area that brought her to the identification of MCJ as a key molecule in mitochondria function, and its role regulating chemotherapy response and metabolism. She joined the University of Vermont in 1996 as an Assistant Professor initially, Associate Professor with tenure later, and full Professor in Medicine since 2009 to 2019. She has established the SPARK-VT program at the University of Vermont to foster entrepreneurship in academic environments. Dr. Rincon received her Ph.D. from the University Autonoma of Madrid and trained as a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University School of Medicine.
Cynthia Arbeeny
CSO
CSO and Member of the SAB. Dr. Arbeeny has extensive experience within the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and academic sectors. She has broad knowledge across all functional areas of biopharma R&D with expertise in metabolic diseases, diabetes and associated co-morbidities, NASH and ffibrosis, rare metabolic and kidney diseases. Dr. Arbeeny has been involved in advancing several compounds from discovery and preclinical research to Phase I clinical trials. She is currently the President of BioNavigation Consulting LLC and provides consulting services to large and medium sized companies, biopharma startups and investment groups leveraging expertise to provide guidance in the areas of drug discovery, preclinical R&D, business development strategy and competitive assessments. Dr. Arbeeny was the Vice President for Portfolio Strategy and External Innovation before being the Head of Strategic Opportunities at Sanofi. She was the Vice President of Genzyme for Endocrine and Metabolic Disease Research for 13 years. Dr. Arbeeny worked as an independent consultant for few years prior to being a Research Investigator at Bristol Myers Squibb. She worked at the Department of Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine as an Assistant Professor of Medicine after being a Research Fellow. She received a BS in Biology with highest honors from Richmond College, and PhD in Physiology from Rutgers University.
Patrick Shao
Member
Dr. Shao is a seasoned drug discovery scientist with two decades of experience in large pharma and biotech industry. He was the head of chemistry at Vanessa Research, a startup biotech company focusing on drug discovery and development for intestinal disorders. Prior to Vanessa Research, he was a director of medicinal chemistry at Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals in charging extrahepatic siRNA drug discovery programs. Dr. Shao started his drug discovery career at Merck Research Labs, where he spent seventeen years as a senior scientist, research fellow and principal scientist. Dr. Shao was a team member and program leader for numerous drug discovery programs in the fields of diabetes, cardiovascular, oncology, CNS, and antibacterial drug discovery. He was the principal inventor of four drug development candidates. He received his Ph.D. in organometallic chemistry from University of Victoria, Canada.
James DiGregori
Member
Member of the SAB. Dr. DeGregori currently is a Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics and the Associate Director for Basic Research at the University of Colorado Cancer Center. His lab is working to understand the evolution of cancers and to identify cancer cell vulnerabilities that could be exploited therapeutically, with a focus on leukemia. He has been a member of the CMI-B and TWD-A NIH study sections, has served on numerous grant panels (NIH/NCI, HHMI and private foundations), and is an associate editor for Molecular Cancer Research. Dr. DeGregori has more than 100 publications in high quality journals (Nature, Cancer Cell, PLoS Biology, PNAS, Cancer Research, JCI, etc.), and a continuous record of peer-reviewed extramural research funding. His lab is currently supported by 2 R01s, 1 R21, and a Lung SPORE project (all from the NCI). The expertise of the DeGregori lab is broad, ranging from the basic biochemistry, to molecular genetics/genomics, to evolutionary biology, to computational biology, to pre-clinical mouse models for the development of cancer therapeutics. He received his B.A. in Microbiology from the University of Texas Austin in 1987 and his Ph.D. in Biology from MIT in 1993. Dr. DeGregori did his postdoctoral fellowship in genetics at Duke University Medical Center.
Gerald Shadel
Member
Member of the SAB. Dr. Shadel is the Adjunct Professor at Salk Institute for Biological Studies and studies the basic biology of mitochondria and mtDNA, and, in doing so, has identified novel ways that mitochondria contribute to disease, aging and the immune system. He is also interested in understanding how mitochondria are involved in cellular signaling processes. He seeks to identify what the signals are, what pathways they trigger and how they play a part in aging, cancer, metabolic and degenerative diseases. His group takes a multidisciplinary view, exploring mitochondrial function-and dysfunction-via cultured cells, model organisms, and other genetic and biochemical approaches. Dr. Shadel served as an Assistant Professor at Emory University prior to moving to Yale as the Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology and Director of Yale Center for Research and Aging. He studied Chemistry from the University of Nevada and obtained his graduation from Texas A & M university and did his post-doctoral training in Stanford University.
Geoffrey White
Member
Member of SAB. Dr. White is the Co-founder of CBT4CBT, LLC, a computer-based therapy for cognitive behavioral therapy and obtained exclusive rights from Yale through a tough negotiation resulting in a free and clear license with no royal payments. He recently led the successful effort to obtain the first CPT reimbursement code for a stand-alone therapeutic software product. Prior to that, he was the CEO of Canget Bio TekPharma, which is now on the cusp of Phase I clinical trials of its lead anti-cancer molecule. Dr. White has expertise in drug discovery and development; medical device discovery and development; medical software development; FDA interactions and reimbursement strategies; and business strategy. He holds and has held a business and scientific advisory role at numerous companies. He has served over 350 clients as an independent consultant and has helped raise over $170 million in NIH/NSF/DoD funds in the past 10 years.
Maria Martinez-Chantar
Member
Member of the SAB. Dr Martínez-Chantar, the head of the Liver Disease Lab in CIC bioGUNE and Professor at School of Medicine in Deusto University has been investigating the molecular mechanisms involved in the development of NAFLD and its progression to cirrhosis and liver cancer for the last 20 years. She has a high-level track of record productivity in Nature, Nature Communications, Cell Metabolism, Hepatology and Gastroenterology journals. Since 2005, when she initiated her laboratory as a Principal Investigator her group has been continuously financially supported by government and private funding competitive sources, both national and international like NIH grants and European projects. Dr. Martínez-Chantar is the coordinator of the Translational Area of the National Institute for the study of Liver and Gastrointestinal Diseases (CIBEREHD) and the Scientific Advisory Board of the Molecular Medicine Center C3M in Nice and Health Institute of Valdecilla (IDIVAL). She is also part of the select multinational group “Women in Hepatology” composed only of women, experts in the field of Hepatology, with representatives from Europe and USA. Dr. Martinez-Chantar held collaborations with Pharmaceutical companies AGIOS, Takeda Pharmaceutical and Silence Therapeutics among others and maintained a closed partnership with the company OWL Metabolomics in the development of OWLiver® Care and OWLiver®, two non-invasive assays for fatty liver screening and for NASH diagnosis.
Wajahat Mehal
Member
Dr. Wajahat Z. Mehal is a gastroenterologist in West Haven, Connecticut and is affiliated with multiple hospitals in the area. He has been in practice for more than 20 years. Wajahat Zafar Mehal, MD, PhD, director of the Yale Weight Loss Program; Gastroenterologists diagnose and treat digestive disorders, such as stomach pain, ulcers, reflux, constipation and Crohn’s disease.
Wajahat Zafar Mehal, MD, PhD, director of the Yale Weight Loss Program, focuses on trying to understand why so many people who are overweight develop liver disease, among other illnesses.