Peter Parker, Peter Parker is a Co-Founder of Cambridge BioLabs and a close advisor to the management team. Mr. Parker is the Chairman and Founder of BioInnovation, a global life-sciences seed-fund and a Senior Advisor at Ampersand Capital. Peter Parker was the founding CEO and President of Cequent Pharmaceuticals until its merger into Marina Biotechnology [NASDAQ: MRNA], valued at $46MM. In this function, he led Cequent from seed-stage to a clinical stage RNAi Therapeutic company with its first therapeutic candidate about to enter clinical trials. This drug for the indication of Familial Adenomatous Polyposis will be the first-ever oral RNAi therapeutic world-wide.
Peter is a close advisor to Cambridge BioLabs on finance, business and licensing questions. For 18 years, Peter Parker was General Partner and responsible for the Life Science portfolio at Ampersand Ventures, a Boston based Venture Capital Firm. He has served as a Director of numerous biotechnology and specialty chemical companies including ACLARA Biosciences, Tomah Products, VITEX, Magellan Biosciences, Dynex and Pentose Pharmaceuticals and as Chairman of Alexis, NOVEX, CoPharma, Huntington Laboratories, Protein Ingredient Technologies, Cyclis Pharmaceuticals, Nanodyne, Panacos Pharmaceuticals, AC Tech, Boston Heart Lab and TekCel. Prior to Ampersand, Peter spent fourteen years at AMAX, Inc. where he was President of Climax Performance Materials Corporation and Corporate Director of Research and Development. He holds B.S. and M.S. degrees from Columbia University.
Pamela Fekete (JD, MD), Dr. Pamela Fekete is a Registered U.S. Patent Attorney and has over 14 years of combined research, legal and regulatory experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. She is a shareholder at Polsinelli Shughart, in IP litigation and Life Sciences practice areas. Formerly VP, Intellectual Property and Legal Affairs at Cequent Pharmaceuticals, Pamela currently serves as VP, Intellectual Property and Legal Affairs at GnuBIO, Inc., VP, Business Development at BioInnovation and is a Boardmember at ViThera Pharmaceuticals.
Pamela’s research career started at Neurogen Corporation followed by Bayer’s Pharmaceutical Division where she focused on oncology, cardiovascular diseases, neurological and metabolic disorders. Her legal practice started at Frommer Lawrence & Haug LLP, and focused on IP litigation and FDA counseling for pharmaceutical and biotechnology clients. Following FLH, Pamela was Intellectual Property Counsel for Rembrandt IP Management, where she worked on medical devices and telecommunications. Pamela received her BS in Biology from the University of New Haven, cum laude with honors, and her MS in Biology at Southern Connecticut State University. She received her JD in Intellectual Property and Communications Law from Yeshiva University, Cardozo School of Law. Pamela received her MD from the University of Medicine and Health Sciences, St. Kitts. She publishes on legal and public policy issues in pharma and biotech.
Lisa Velardo, Ms. Velardo is a CPA with over 15 years of financial and operational experience in a broad range of venture-funded companies, with a focus in biotechnology. She contributes extensive financial management expertise in areas of financial operations and reporting, budgeting and forecasting, technical accounting, diligence and acquisitions and taxation. In addition to her finance operational roles, Lisa also served as Director of Finance at the private equity firm Watermill Ventures. During her tenure at Watermill, Lisa was responsible for leading the diligence process for the acquisition, repositioning and sale of multiple companies. In her role of VP of Finance, Lisa also led the diligence for the successful sale of software company Vality Technology to Ascential Software for a transaction valued at $100M. Ms. Velardo is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and holds a BS in Business Administration from Merrimack College.
Catherine Grillot Courvalin (MD, PhD), Associate Professor at the Pasteur Institute, Unit of Antibacterial Agents, Paris, France. Dr. Grillot-Courvalin trained as a pediatrician with a specialty in immunology and was appointed Assistant Professor at Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in 1980. She has pioneered the field of bacterial delivery and her group was the first to describe efficient delivery of plasmid DNA with engineered /E.coli/ into a variety of mammalian cells in a landmark article in Nature Biotechnology in 1998.
Numerous laboratories worldwide are using her technology to engineer E.coli as carriers for both DNA or protein therapeutics, and she is one of the most widely published and cited scientists in the area of bacteriofection. She is an editor of BioBugs, a publication focusing on the use of genetically modified bacteria for therapeutic purposes. Dr. Grillot-Courvalin’s laboratory is currently focusing on the improvement of bacterial delivery vectors for their use in gene therapy and vaccine development.
Thomas E. Spike (PhD) is founder and CSO of Biota Biosciences, Inc. Dr. Spike is highly skilled at identifying cutting edge technology that can be applied to animal health. In capacities which have included Sr. Research Scientist and Global Senior Technical Advisor with Elanco Animal Health, a division of Eli Lilly and Company, Dr. Spike is noted for his extensive expertise in the animal health industry with global marketing strategies, product technical support and training, and clinical study design and execution. Dr. Spike received Elanco’s first R&D Innovation Award in 2006, is published in numerous animal science journals and has been an invited presenter at many international animal science symposia. Formerly the owner-manager of an award winning 400-cow dairy, Dr. Spike established one of the first computer based record keeping systems for dairy herd management. He was founder and President of MicroSpike AgriSoftware, a global provider of farm management software. Dr. Spike received his B.S. in Dairy Science and M.S. in Biochemistry from Michigan State University and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry / Physiology and Biophysics at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
