MANAGEMENT
Stan E. Abel
President and Chief Executive Officer
Mr. Abel joined Corthera as President and Chief Executive Officer in October 2007, bringing to the company more than 18 years of operational, development and financial management experience. Prior to joining Corthera, Mr. Abel served as the Chief Financial Officer and Head of Business Development at Cerexa, Inc. from its inception in July 2005 through the successful sale of the company to Forest Laboratories in January 2007. At Cerexa Mr. Abel had responsibility for financial operations‚ treasury‚ and capital raising activities‚ as well as leading the company’s business development efforts. Mr. Abel played a key role in the sale of the company to Forest, which represented one of the largest private biotech acquisitions in recent years.
Prior to Cerexa‚ Mr. Abel was the Chief Financial Officer of Peninsula Pharmaceuticals, Inc. from January 2003 through the sale of the company to Johnson & Johnson in June 2005. Mr. Abel was responsible for all financial activities of the company, raising over $70M in private financing and leading the company through the initial public offering process. Mr. Abel also played a key role in structuring the spin-out of Cerexa and the acquisition of Peninsula by Johnson & Johnson.
Earlier in his career‚ Mr. Abel spent four years at Eli Lilly and Company within the finance and strategy organizations. He gained extensive valuation and negotiation experience while in Lilly’s Corporate Finance and Investment Banking group and played the lead financial role on many business development transactions. While in Lilly’s strategic planning group, Mr. Abel developed and implemented global strategies for their $2 billion diabetes franchise and led several product and technology licensing transactions for the Endocrine Therapeutic Area. Mr. Abel also held a variety of financial leadership positions during his nine years at DowBrands‚ Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company. He received a B.S. in business from Indiana University and an M.B.A.‚ with honors‚ from the University of Chicago. He received his CPA from the state of Indiana in 1995.
MJ Whitehouse, MD
Chief Operating Officer
Dr. Whitehouse joined Corthera as Chief Operating Officer in September 2007, bringing the company more than 18 years of drug development experience in small molecules and biologics across a wide range of therapeutic indications.
She has held management positions at multiple startups, including Syndax, Orexigen, Novalar, Novacea, and Ascenta Pharmaceuticals. Her responsibilities have included articulation of clinical strategy, design and implementation of clinical trials, integration of multi-disciplinary teams, and meetings with regulatory agencies. She has participated in creating over $150 million of new capital for privately held companies over the past 5 years. Prior to her focus on startups, she was a Medical Director at Chiron, leading the clinical development of FGF-2 in therapeutic angiogenesis.
She received her Medical Doctorate from University of California San Francisco where she also completed her residency and fellowship training. She received her B.S. in biochemistry from the University of Southern California. She is board certified in Internal Medicine and Rheumatology and was a practicing clinician for 12 years. She served as Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine at University of California in San Francisco and as a National Trustee and Chairman of the Northern California Chapter of the Arthritis Foundation.
Sam Teichman, MD, FACC, FACP
Chief Medical Officer
Dr. Teichman brings nearly 20 years of clinical and drug development experience, during which time he has worked on over 40 medical products in various stages of development from the earliest identification of leads in research to supporting commercial-stage products.
Sam has held senior level executive positions at Genentech, Medco Research (now part of King Pharmaceuticals), Glycomed (now part of Ligand Pharmaceuticals), and Mimetix. Most recently, Sam served as Vice President and Chief Development Officer at ARYx Therapeutics, where he was responsible for taking three products from research stage into development. At ARYx Sam and his group filed two US INDs in 18 months further enabling a significant private financing.
Dr. Teichman holds a Medical Doctorate with Honors from Columbia University and a B.S. in Chemistry from Columbia College, Columbia University. He also completed research and fellowship training at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. He is board certified in Internal Medicine and Cardiology. Dr. Teichman is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology (FACC) and the American College of Physicians (FACP).
Sam served as Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine at University of California in San Francisco from 1990-2001. He has more than 40 original publications, reviews and abstracts published in peer-reviewed and invited medical journals.
Elaine Unemori, Ph.D.
Vice President, Clinical Development
Dr. Unemori has studied Relaxin for over 15 years, starting at Genentech, Inc., where she performed key experiments that demonstrated Relaxin's ability to initiate remodeling of connective tissue in non-reproductive tissues.
As one of the founding members of Connetics Corporation and their Senior Director of Preclinical Research, Elaine led a multidisciplinary group that explored new indications for Relaxin. The work of this group led to several clinical trials in which Relaxin demonstrated clinically meaningful pharmacological effects.
In positions at Genentech, Stanford University's Department of Dermatology, and Connetics Corporation, Elaine has established collaborations with leading investigators in many scientific areas, including women's health, cardiovascular medicine, wound healing, rheumatology, and dermatology. Elaine has numerous publications in peer-reviewed journals and is the holder of five US patents, all relating to Relaxin.
Elaine received her Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley and did her postdoctoral training in connective tissue biology with Dr. Zena Werb at the University of California at San Francisco.
Ernst Rinderknecht, Ph.D.
Vice President, Process Science and Manufacturing
Dr. Rinderknecht is a highly experienced scientist and executive in the biotechnology industry. He was an early employee of Genentech, Inc., joining in 1980, and in 1994 left to become the Vice President of Process Science and Manufacturing at Connetics Corporation.
Ernst's particular strengths are in protein and peptide purification, characterization, and structure determination. Ernst has developed manufacturing processes for many recombinant proteins, including Relaxin, gamma-interferon, and TNF-alpha, to just name a few.
At Connetics, Ernst was responsible for the production of all of the company's protein and peptide products, including Relaxin and T-cell receptor peptides. His responsibilities included the selection of, negotiation with, and management of contract manufacturing organizations in both the US and Europe.
Ernst earned his Master of Science degree at the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich and received his Ph.D. from the University of Zurich in Switzerland. For his work on IGF (Insulin-like Growth Factor), Ernst received the Award of the Georg Friedrich Goetz Foundation and University of Zurich Medical School. Prior to joining Genentech, he worked at Stanford University in the Department of Neurobiology. Ernst is an author of many patents and publications.
Dennis Stewart, Ph.D.
Principal Scientist, and Founder
Dr. Stewart is an acknowledged world leader in the science of Relaxin. He has studied the compound for over 30 years and is the author of over 60 peer-reviewed journal articles. He has written several book chapters on the subject and fields inquiries from all over the world on its use. He has studied Relaxin in the human and domestic species and holds several patents on its use.
Dennis is a former faculty member of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology in the School of Medicine at the University of California - Davis.
Dennis earned a PhD in Endocrinology from the University of California, Davis and did post-doctoral work on Relaxin at the University of California - San Francisco. He received a Master of Science degree in Zoology and has two Bachelor of Science degrees, one in Chemistry and the other in Zoology, both from Iowa State University.