Founded QR Pharma in May 2008 to develop better therapeutics for Alzheimer's disease. Was partner and director of two angel groups, Robin Hood Ventures and MidAtlantic Angel Group; Founder and CEO of Symphony Pharmaceuticals/Annovis a biotech company that sold in 2001 to Transgenomic; General Manager of Bachem Bioscience, the US subsidiary of Bachem AG, Switzerland and Head Molecular Biology Mallinckrodt; Dr. Maccecchini did one postdoc at Caltech and one at the Roche Institute of Immunology, her PhD in biochemistry is from The Rockefeller University.
Maria Maccecchini received her PhD in biochemistry from Rockefeller University and spent two years at Caltech as a postdoc in molecular biology. She took her first job at Mallinckrodt as research scientist and her second job as general manager of Bachem Bioscience, a US subsidiary of a Swiss company.
In the early 1990s she started her own biotech company—Symphony Pharmaceuticals. After acquiring the Scottish and Japanese company Cruachem, Symphony later changed its name to Annovis. The company developed, manufactured, and marketed a variety of nucleic acid-based products and services for businesses in the life sciences sector. In 2001, Annovis was acquired by Transgenomic Inc. of San Jose, CA.
Dr. Maccecchini serves on several boards of biotechnology companies, organizations that promote entrepreneurship, international trade as well as women and charitable organizations. Currently she is a member and director of two angel funds – Robin Hood Ventures and Mid-Atlantic Angel Group. Dr. Maccecchini not only invests dollars in early-stage companies, but also mentors them in start up, strategy, management and finance.
Dr. Maccecchini holds over 40 patents, has authored numerous technical as well as business articles and has frequently participated in scientific and business conferences as speaker or panelist .
Dr. Blake is the Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President of Clinical Research and Development of Aeterna Zentaris, Inc. Prior to that, he was Senior Vice President and then Executive Vice President of Worldwide Medical and Regulatory Operations at Cephalon, Inc. From 1992 to 1998, he held the position of Senior Vice President and Medical Director, Clinical Research and worked for ICI Pharmaceuticals (now Astra Zeneca) and G.D. Searle.
He qualified in medicine from the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, London University. He is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and a fellow of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians. He is also a fellow of the American College of Clinical Pharmacology. Some of the drugs he was involved in developing include: Tenormin, Zestril, Kytril, Relafen, Paxil, Coreg, Havrix, Hycamtin, Famvir, Requip, Avandia, Provigil and Fentora.
Dr Blake sat on the board of Memory Pharmaceutical, Inc., until it was purchased by Roche in 2009 and was a founding board member of Protez Pharmaceuticals, Inc. until it was purchased by Novartis in 2008. He was also a Director of ViaCell, Inc., until its purchase by Perkin Elmer in 2007. He has also served as a member of the Inter-Company Collaboration for Aids Drug Development and as a trustee of the Childrens Health Fund.
Dr. Broderson is the President of Rock Hill Ventures where he pioneered the use of
the virtual company business model for maximum start-up company capital efficiency.
Prior to that, he was a General Partner of Hillman Medical Ventures, a venture
capital fund. He started his career at SmithKline and French Laboratories (now GSK)
as the Associate Director of Strategic Planning and Analysis. Dr. Broderson has
been the CEO of six venture capital backed biomedical start-ups: Genvec, Corbec
Pharmaceuticals, Selectus Pharmaceuticals, Cogent, Focus and Agile Therapeutics.
He has a broad operational skill set with extensive experience identifying,
funding, managing and exiting biomedical companies. He has raised multiple
rounds of capital while advancing five product candidates from the pre-IND
stage, through Phase 2 clinical trials. During his career, he has structured
and managed liquidity events via stock purchases, asset purchases and IPOs
in both investor and management roles. Dr. Broderson received his MD from
the University of Kentucky College of Medicine and his MBA from
The Wharton School at the
Dr. Hefti is currently Chief Scientific Officer of Avid Radiopharmaceuticals, a biotech company developing imaging agents for neurodegenerative diseases. He also serves as advisor to several biotech companies developing therapeutics for neurological diseases.
Dr. Hefti is currently Chief Scientific Officer of Avid Radiopharmaceuticals, a biotech company developing imaging agents for neurodegenerative diseases. He also serves as advisor to several biotech companies developing therapeutics for neurological diseases. Previously, he was Executive Vice President of Drug Development at Rinat Neuroscience Corporation, a company acquired by Pfizer Inc. and which developed antibody therapeutics for Alzheimer's disease and chronic pain. Before joining Rinat, he was Senior Vice President of Neuroscience Research at Merck ∓ Co. for eight years, where he coordinated the company's neuroscience research worldwide, serving as site head for the neuroscience research centers in the U.K. and San Diego. During his tenure, small molecule drug candidates covering several diverse drug targets in the neuroscience area were taken into clinical studies. Prior to Merck ∓ Co., Dr. Hefti was Director of the Neuroscience Research Department at Genentech. Prior to Genentech, he spent more than a decade in academia as a Professor at the University of Southern California and Associate Professor at the University of Miami, where he carried out seminal research on therapeutic applications of neurotrophic factors. He published over 250 papers on neurotrophic factors and topics in neuropharmacology, as well as a textbook “Drug Discovery for Nervous System Diseases” (John Wiley & Sons). Dr. Hefti received his PhD from the University of Zurich and did his postdoctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Max Planck Institute in Munich.
Ms. Schilberg has more than 25 years of experience working with academic technologies and start-up companies in the life sciences sector. Under her leadership as CEO, BioAdvance has committed over $17 million to 42 seed-stage and pre-seed companies addressing important medical needs such as Alzheimer's disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity and infectious diseases. The BioAdvance portfolio companies have subsequently raised over $300 million in additional capital, and six companies have been acquired with aggregate valuations in excess of $650 million. Ms. Schilberg's industry experience includes senior management positions at Cephalon, Incara Pharmaceuticals, Advanced Medicine (now Theravance) and Locus Discovery, Inc. (now Ansaris).