Stuart Collinson, PhD
Dr. Collinson founded Tioga Pharmaceuticals with an initial investment from
Forward Ventures (a life science venture capital firm), where he is also a
partner.
Previously he was Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President of Aurora
Biosciences (acquired by Vertex Pharmaceuticals). Before Aurora, Dr.
Collinson was Chief Executive Officer of Andaris Limited (acquired by
Quadrant, now part of Perrigo). He held senior management positions at
GlaxoWellcome (now GlaxoSmithKline) and Baxter International, and was a
consultant with The Boston Consulting Group.
Dr. Collinson received an MBA from Harvard Business School and a PhD in
Physical Chemistry from the University of Oxford.
Arno Hartmann, PhD
Dr. Hartmann is the Head of the Corporate Patent Department for Merck KGaA.
Dr. Hartmann joined Merck KGaA in 1990 and worked in the Licensing
Department as well as the Business Development Unit before becoming the Head
of Patent Pharmaceuticals in 2000.
Dr. Hartmann received a degree in chemistry from the University of Giessen,
Germany in 1987 and earned a PhD in chemistry from the same institution in
1990. An expert in patent law, Dr. Hartmann has lectured extensively on due
diligence, patent strategy, licensing and exploitation of IP. In addition,
Dr. Hartmann is a core member of Merck KGaA’s Strategic Innovation Process,
a project that seeks to take products that are not part of Merck’s core
business and bring them into start-up companies financed by venture capital.
James Niedel, MD PhD
Dr. Niedel is a Managing Director of New Leaf Venture Partners, a
firm that invests in life science companies.
Prior to joining the venture industry in 2002, Dr. Niedel was Chief Science
and Technology Officer for GlaxoSmithKline and from 1995 to 2001 he was a
member of the board of directors of Glaxo Wellcome plc with responsibility
for Global Research and Development, Information Technology and Product
Strategy. From 1988 to 1995 he was Vice President Research and Senior Vice
President Research & Development for the US subsidiary of Glaxo.
Before joining the pharmaceutical industry, Dr. Niedel was Professor of
Medicine and Chief of the division of Clinical Pharmacology at Duke Medical
School, where he had completed an Internal Medicine residency and a
Hematology-Oncology fellowship. He received the MD and PhD (Biochemistry)
degrees from the University of Miami, was a Searle Scholar, and is a Fellow
of the Royal College of Physicians (London).
Martin Muenchbach, PhD
Dr. Muenchbach is a Partner at BB Biotech Ventures. Previously, he was
Partner at BioMedinvest and Investment Advisor at HBM Partners. At
BioMedinvest, he led several of the firm's investments, and served on the
board of portfolio companies. Before the merger of HBM Bioventures and NMT
New Medical Technologies, he was Investment Manager at NMT, where he was
focusing on international private equity investments in biopharmaceutical
and biotechnological companies. Before NMT, Dr. Muenchbach gained experience
in strategic marketing at Sanofi-Synthelabo.
Dr. Muenchbach holds a PhD in Protein Chemistry, a MSc in biochemistry and a
Master in Economics from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH),
Zurich.
Jason Brown, PhD
Dr. Brown has been a Managing Director with C-Bridge Capital, a healthcare
growth fund based in China, since October 2016. Previously, he was a Partner
with Thomas, McNerney & Partners, where he served as a member of the
investment team from 2007-2016. Prior to joining Thomas, McNerney, Dr. Brown
spend four years as an investment professional at Forward Ventures.
Previously, Dr. Brown conducted research in antimicrobial drug discovery and
bacterial genomics as a postdoctoral fellow in Infectious Diseases at
Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research and Development.
Dr. Brown earned a PhD in Biology at the University of California, San
Diego, where he was a National Science Foundation Fellow, and a BS in
Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from Purdue University.