Board of Directors
Bryan E. Roberts, Ph.D.
Chairman, General Partner, Venrock Associates
Bryan Roberts, Ph.D. joined Venrock as a Kauffman Fellow in 1997 and now serves as a managing general partner of the firm. He is based in Venrock's Palo Alto office and focuses on a broad range of healthcare investments. Bryan currently serves on the Board of Directors of athenahealth (NASDAQ: ATHN), as well as private companies including Achaogen, Fate Therapeutics, Ikaria, Ironwood, Satiety and Zeltiq. Past investments include Xenoport (NASDAQ: XNPT); Sirna Therapeutics (acquired by Merck) and Illumina (NASDAQ: ILMN). Immediately prior to joining Venrock, Bryan received his Ph.D. in Chemistry & Chemical Biology from Harvard University. He previously held positions in corporate finance at Kidder, Peabody & Co and received his B.A. from Dartmouth College. Bryan was named the highest-ranking healthcare investor on Forbes’ 2008 Midas List and in 2006, was named a Henry Crown Fellow by the Aspen Institute.
Scott M. Rocklage, Ph.D.
5AM Ventures
Dr. Rocklage has over 20 years of healthcare management experience with strategic leadership responsibilities that have resulted in the successful approval of three US NDAs (Cubicin, Omniscan, Teslascan) and six distinct NCE IND-level studies. Dr. Rocklage was formerly CEO of Cubist, President and CEO of Nycomed Salutar, President, CEO and Chairman of Nycomed Interventional, and held various R&D positions at Salutar and Catalytica. Dr. Rocklage currently serves as Chairman of Achaogen, Relypsa and Semprus, and as Board director at Pulmatrix, Variation and WaveRX. Dr. Rocklage is also a board member of the BIO Emerging Company Section and Massachusetts Biotechnology Council and is a member of the board of associates for the Whitehead Institute. Dr. Rocklage received his BS in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley and his PhD in chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Kenneth J. Nussbacher
Mr. Nussbacher has been an Affymetrix Fellow since 2000, having served as Executive Vice President of Affymetrix from 1995 and as Chief Financial Officer from 1995 to 1997. Previously, he was Executive Vice President for Business and Legal Affairs of Affymax Research Institute. In addition to Achaogen, he is a director of Fluidigm Corporation, and Xenoport Inc. At Affymax and Affymetrix, he played a central role in the development and implementation of business strategies for creating value in technology-based companies. His experience includes commercial and scientific collaborations, intellectual property licensing, and public and private financings. Mr. Nussbacher holds a B.S. in physics from Cooper Union and a J.D. degree from Duke University.
Camille D. Samuels
Managing Director, Versant Ventures
Camille Samuels specializes in early-stage biotechnology investing at Versant. Cami brings 14 years of venture capital and operating experience to her portfolio companies. She enjoys helping talented entrepreneurs build exceptional companies.
Cami joined Versant in early 2000, shortly after its formation. Prior to Versant, she was responsible for business development at Tularik, Inc. (subsequently acquired by Amgen) where she in-licensed two of the company's clinical-stage products and led Tularik’s Technology Acquisition Group. Before Tularik, Cami worked in corporate development at Genzyme and Millennium Predictive Medicine, and was a management consultant to healthcare and biotech companies at LEK Consulting.
Cami currently serves as a board member of the following companies: Achaogen, APT Pharmaceuticals, Muse Therapeutics, Kythera Biopharmaceuticals, and Transcept Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (TSPT), a public company. Cami was previously a board member at NovaCardia (acquired by Merck) and ParAllele (acquired by Affymetrix). In addition, she served as a board observer at several companies, including Alexza (public), Fluidigm, Genomic Health (public) and Syrrx (acquired by Takeda).
Cami earned her Bachelor's degree in Biology from Duke University and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where she graduated as a Baker Scholar. In 2002, The Aspen Institute named Camille a Henry Crown Fellow.
Thomas B. King
Thomas King has served as Alexza’s President, Chief Executive Officer and a member of the board of directors since 2003. From 2002 to 2003, Mr. King served as President, Chief Executive Officer and a member of the board of directors of Cognetix, Inc. From 1994 to 2001, Mr. King held various senior executive positions, including President and Chief Executive Officer from 1997 to 2000, and was a member of the board of directors at Anesta Corporation, until it was acquired by Cephalon, Inc. Before Anesta, Mr. King held various marketing, business development and corporate development positions with Somatogen, Inc., Abbott Laboratories and Anaquest, a division of the BOC Group. Mr. King received an M.B.A. from the University of Kansas and a B.A. in chemistry from McPherson College.
Christopher T. Walsh, Ph.D.
Christopher Walsh is the Hamilton Kuhn Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology (BCMP) at Harvard Medical School. He has had extensive experience in academic administration, including Chairmanship of the MIT Chemistry Dept (1982-1987) and the HMS Biological Chemistry & Molecular Pharmacology Dept (1987-1995) as well as serving as President and CEO of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute (1992-1995). Dr. Walsh has been a consultant to government and academic institutions, including NIGMS, a Trustee of the Whitehead Institute and the Helen Hay Whitney Foundation and a member of the scientific review board of Howard Hughes Medical Institute, as well as large pharmaceuticals (Merck, Roche, and Abbot), and been involved in scientific advisory capacity for such companies as Genzyme, Immunogen, Kosan Biosciences, and Millennium. He has been on the Board of Directors of Critical Therapeutics, Immunogen, Kosan, Leukosite., Transform, and Vicuron and is a current director at Magen, and Micriobia. He has been a scientific advisor to venture capital groups such as Clarus, MPM Capital, and Health Care Ventures. At Harvard Dr. Walsh teaches biochemistry, chemical biology, and pharmacology to medical students and graduate students and organic chemistry to undergraduates. He is chair of the faculty standing committee of the Harvard Integrated Life Sciences graduate program, which encompasses 12 PhD programs with 1000 doctoral students.
Robert More
General Partner, Menlo Park
Frazier Healthcare Ventures
Mr. More joined Frazier Healthcare in 2008 as a General Partner and is a member of the firm’s biopharma and medical device investment teams. Prior to Frazier Healthcare, Mr. More was a Partner with Domain Associates, having joined the firm in 1996 as a Kauffman Fellow and becoming a Partner in 2000. From 1997-1998, Mr. More served as the Chief Operating Officer of Small Molecule Therapeutics, a Domain portfolio company subsequently purchased by Morphochem AG. And from 1992 to 1995, Mr. More was with Pharmacia Biotech in sales. Prior to joining Pharmacia, Mr. More held a research position at Somatogen, a company developing a recombinant blood substitute that was subsequently bought by Baxter. While attending business school, Mr. More worked with MedVest, an early-stage venture group in Washington, D.C.
Mr. More managed successful investments in and served on the boards of ESP Pharma (acquired by Protein Design Labs, Inc.), Proxima Therapeutics (acquired by Cytyc Corporation), Onux Medical (acquired by C.R. Bard), NovaCardia (acquired by Merck), Esprit Pharma (acquired by Allergan) and IntraLase (acquired by Advanced Medical Optics, Inc.).
Mr. More serves as an advisory board member for Montagu Newhall Associates, Okapi Ventures, The Medical Industry Group of the NVCA and The Sulpizio Family Cardiovascular Center. He is also a past founding board member of the Kauffman Fellows Program.
Mr. More received his MBA from the Darden School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia and a BA from Middlebury College.
Feel free to contact him at bob.more@frazierhealthcare.com
J. Kevin Judice, Ph.D.
Chief Executive Officer and Chief Scientific Officer
In addition to setting corporate strategy and building the leadership team as President and CEO, Dr. Judice has also served as the company’s Chief Scientific Officer. In this role, he has been responsible for the overall scientific strategy, research priorities, and portfolio management. Previously, Dr. Judice held positions of increasing responsibility at Genentech and Theravance. As one of the first ten employees at Theravance, he played a key role in defining the company’s scientific strategies and led the team that discovered telavancin, a new antibiotic for the treatment of multidrug-resistant “superbugs”. Dr. Judice graduated magna cum laude with a BS in Chemistry from Texas A&M University. Following that, he received his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from UCLA and was an NIH postdoctoral fellow at UC Berkeley. In 2008, Dr. Judice was selected as a Henry Crown Fellow by the Aspen Institute. He is an author and inventor on over two dozen scientific papers and patents.