Ascenta's Board of Directors brings together highly accomplished and notable investors, academics and veteran pharmaceutical executives, with both broad and deep experience in founding, nurturing and advancing entrepreneurial creativity.
- Eckard Weber, MD
- Lou Bock
- Marc Lippman, MD
- Mike Powell, PhD
- Norman Selby
- Drew Senyei, MD
- Mel Sorensen, MD
Mr. Weber joined Domain in 2001 as a partner where he specializes in creating companies around promising new pharmaceutical products. He has been founding CEO of multiple biopharmaceutical companies in the Domain portfolio including Acea Pharmaceuticals, Ascenta Therapeutics, Calixa Therapeutics, Cytovia, Domain Antibacterial Acquisition Corporation, NovaCardia, Novacea, Novalar Pharmaceuticals, Ocera Therapeutics, Orexigen Therapeutics, Sonexa Therapeutics, Syndax Pharmaceuticals, Tobira Therapeutics and Tragara Pharmaceuticals. He currently serves as interim CEO of Calixa Therapeutics and Sonexa Therapeutics, two seed-stage biopharmaceutical companies. He is Chairman of the Board at Ascenta Therapeutics, Calixa Therapeutics, Ocera Therapeutics, Orexigen Therapeutics, Sequel Pharmaceuticals, and Tobira Therapeutics. He was Chairman of Peninsula Pharmaceuticals until the company was sold to Johnson & Johnson in 2005, Chairman of Cerexa until the company was sold to Forest Laboratories in January 2007, Chairman of NovaCardia until the company was sold to Merck in September of 2007, and a Board member of Conforma Therapeutics and Cabrellis Pharmaceuticals until they were sold to Biogen-IDEC and Pharmion, respectively. Until 1995, Mr. Weber was a tenured Professor of Pharmacology at the University of California at Irvine. He has over 20 years of drug discovery and development experience and has been a consultant to biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. He is the inventor or co-inventor of over 40 patents and patent applications, and he has published over 130 papers in scientific periodicals.
Board Member, Scale Venture PartnersLou is an industry veteran and is focused on identifying emerging biopharmaceutical, device and platform technology companies. Lou sits on the boards of Ascenta Therapeutics, diaDexus, Horizon Therapeutics, Orexigen Therapeutics, SGX Pharmaceuticals and Zogenix. He is responsible for ScaleVP's investments in Dynavax Technologies (NASDAQ: DVAX), Prestwick Pharmaceuticals, Seattle Genetics (NASDAQ: SGEN), and Somaxon (NASDAQ: SOMX). Lou joined Scale Venture Partners (formerly BAVP) in 1997 from Gilead Sciences, where he held positions in research, project management, business development and sales. While at Gilead, Lou was the project manager for Gilead's approved antiviral drug, Vistide, and was responsible for the discovery of Gilead's novel thrombin aptamer. Previous to Gilead, he was a research associate at Genentech. Lou holds an MBA from California State University, San Francisco and a BS in Biology from California State University, Chico.
Board Member, Kathleen and Stanley Glaser Professor and Chair, Department of Medicine at the Miller School of Medicine of the University of MiamiDr. Lippman is one of the world's leading authorities in the field of breast cancer. Until May of 2007, he was the John G. Searle Professor and Chair, Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan. He was previously the Director f the Lombardi Cancer Research Center, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Oncology, and Professor of Medicine at Georgetown University Medical School. He was also Chief of the Division of Hematology-Oncology. Prior to his appointment at Georgetown, he was Head of the Medical Breast Cancer Section of the Medicine Branch of the National Cancer Institute. He received his B.A., magna cum laude from Cornell (1964) and his M.D. from Yale where he was elected to Alpha Omega Alpha (1968). He completed internship and residency in internal medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital on the Osler Service and further fellowship training at the National Cancer Institute where he remained until 1988 when he went to Georgetown University.
Dr. Lippman has attempted to bridge the gap between basic tumor biology and clinical application in the field of breast cancer. His work established the critical role of growth factors in human breast cancer and in an extensive series of studies has characterized and purified these factors and designed antitumor therapies based on these insights. He has received the Clinical Investigator Prize of the American Federation for Clinical Research, the Rosenthal Award of the AACR, the American Cancer Society Lectureship awarded by ASCO, the Astwood Prize of the Endocrine Society, and the Brinker International Prize for Basic Research in Breast Cancer. He has authored over 500 publications and one of the standard texts on breast cancer, and has successfully pursued clinical trials for every stage of breast cancer.
Dr. Lippman has extensive experience in business development in biotechnology. With sponsorship from Health Care Ventures, he was a cofounder of Oncologix, a diagnostics company successfully sold to Aronex. Subsequently, he co-founded Peregrine Biotechnology which was successfully sold to Techniclone. He is a senior managing director for Perseus, LLC.
Board Member, Sofinnova VenturesMichael Powell, PhD, joined Sofinnova Ventures in 1997. In his 20 years of pharmaceutical development experience, he has worked on close to 20 clinical products and authored almost 100 papers. Prior to joining Sofinnova Ventures, he was Group Leader of Drug Delivery at Genentech (1990-97) where his focus was developing new therapeutics. In 1987 he was part of the founding team of Cytel; as Director of Product Development, he was responsible for the company's early growth that culminated in a successful IPO. Before this he was Scientist and Project Team Leader at Syntex Research, where he held several positions that provided an appreciation and overview of the many aspects of traditional drug development. Dr. Powell is a Fellow of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists. He is Adjunct Professor at the University of Kansas, an Editorial Board Member of J. Pharm. Sci., a Scientific Advisor to the Controlled Release Society, and a Board Member for AVAC (AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition). He received his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of Toronto in 1981, and completed his post-doctorate work in Bio-organic Chemistry at the University of California, where he was subsequently a faculty member (1981-84).
Board Member, Perseus LLCNorman C. Selby is a Senior Managing Director at Perseus, L.L.C., a private equity firm with offices in Washington, D.C. and New York. He is responsible for Perseus’ strategy and investments in healthcare. Before joining Perseus, Mr. Selby was President and CEO of TransForm Pharmaceuticals, a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on innovation in the form and formulation of drug compounds that was acquired by Johnson & Johnson in April 2005. He was also an Executive Vice President at Citigroup/Citicorp from 1997-2000.
Mr. Selby spent the bulk of his career at McKinsey & Company where he was Director (Senior Partner) in the firm’s New York office. He held several leadership roles at McKinsey, including head of the firm’s Global Pharmaceuticals and Medical Products Practice, head of the New York office’s Healthcare and Consumer Industry Practices, and member of the firm’s Principals Committee. From 1987-1989, Mr. Selby took a leave of absence from McKinsey to serve as Chief Operating Officer of the New York Blood Center, the largest community blood organization in the country, where he led its financial and operational turnaround.
Mr. Selby is a member of the Board of Directors of NanoBio Corporation and Ascenta Therapeutics, Inc. He is also Chairman of Physicians Interactive LLC, and of Merz Pharmaceuticals, Inc, the U.S. subsidiary of Merz GMBH. Mr. Selby was on the Board of Millennium Pharmaceuticals (MLNM) from 2000 – 2008. He was also Chairman of Windhover Information, the leading B2B publishing and information company in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device industries, from 2004 – 2008, until it was recently sold to Reed Elsevier.
Mr. Selby serves on the Board of Trustees of the Central Park Conservancy, the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and the Ralph Lauren Center for Cancer Care and Prevention, all based in New York City. He is also a member of the advisory board of the Harvard Business School’s Healthcare Initiative, and a Board member of the National Parks Conservation Association in Washington D.C.
Mr. Selby holds a B.A. in Architecture from Yale College and an M.B.A. with Distinction from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration.
Board Member, Enterprise PartnersAndrew "Drew" E. Senyei, M.D., a General Partner and Managing Director of Enterprise Partners since 1988, has over 20 years experience in the building of emerging, high technology based companies with a focus on healthcare. Enterprise Partners manages over $1.1 billion in capital, and has invested in more than 135 emerging growth companies since 1985. Enterprise Partners’ investors include major university endowments, corporate pension funds and institutional funds. Senyei has served on the Boards of both private and public companies including: Ligand Pharmaceuticals (OTC:LGND), Corixa Pharmaceuticals Inc. (OTC:CRXA), Discovery Partners (OTC:DPII). In addition, he serves on The Northwestern University Board of Trustees and The UCI Medical School Board of Visitors. He also serves on the Advisory Board of The University of California Institute for Genomics and Bioinformatics and is the Vice Chair of the UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering Advisory Council. He is a trustee of The Bishop’s School of La Jolla and the San Diego Opera. Dr. Senyei is credited with 30 patents and over 45 publications in peer-reviewed journals including the New England Journal of Medicine and Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. He is the inventor of the first FDA-approved biochemical test (Fetal Fibronectin) to predict premature birth, which is now in use worldwide to help diagnose prematurity. His invention of a high throughput solid phase combinatorial chemistry system is now deployed in most major pharmaceutical companies. He is the recipient of the 1998 Jonas Salk Mentor in Medicine Award from the March of Dimes. Dr. Senyei received his M.D. from Northwestern University and completed residency training in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of California, Irvine, where he served on the faculty prior to becoming active full time with venture capital funding of early stage medical companies.
President and CEOMel Sorensen, MD, is a medical oncologist who has dedicated his career to clinical cancer research since completing his oncology fellowship at the Mayo Clinic in 1988. He joined Ascenta in August 2004 as President and Chief Executive Officer. Under his leadership, Ascenta secured $82M in two rounds of financing and advanced its lead program from preclinical development into multiple randomized trials.
Dr. Sorensen spent eight years in big pharma, in leadership roles in oncology clinical development, at Bayer and GlaxoSmithKline. He has experience with a broad spectrum of anti-cancer agents (cytotoxics, biologics, supportives, kinase inhibitors and other targeted agents) and all phases of clinical development (phase I-IV), regulatory approval and medical affairs. In 1996, he joined Bayer to build its first clinical oncology department, in West Haven, CT. In early 2001, he moved to GSK in the Greater Philadelphia area, where he was Vice-President, Global Leader and North American Head of Clinical Development and Medical Affairs for Oncology.
Prior to Bayer, Dr Sorensen spent seven years at the National Cancer Institute's Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program (CTEP), where he managed a portfolio of over 40 compounds with diverse tumor targets and mechanisms of action, collaborating with companies who were frequently the source of the compounds and with academic sites and clinics who performed the cancer clinical trials. Dr. Sorensen attended at a clinic for gastrointestinal tumors while at the NCI, organized and chaired the bi-annual Phase I meetings, and in later years led the NCI's Phase II grant program.
For several years, Dr. Sorensen has been active in fostering public-private collaborations for clinical cancer research, with the NCI, with C-Change, with Friends of Cancer Research (FOCR) and other organizations. He is a frequent speaker on cancer clinical research, including presentations on "Confronting Cancer Now" at the Woodrow Wilson Center in 2003; on "Ethical Issues in Large Clinical Trials" at the 2004 Symposium on Bioethical Considerations in Human Subject Research; at the 2005 Tokyo Pharma Partnering Conference; at Shanghai's 2005 Municipality Bio-Forum conference; and on "Biopharmaceuticals: The Innovation Pipeline Race" at the 2005 Milken Institute's Global Conference.
