Scientific Leadership
Scientific Advisory Board
Alex Bridges, Ph.D.
Dr. Bridges has had a 25+ year big pharma and biotech career following six years in academics. Alex spent over 15 years at Parke-Davis/Pfizer where he eventually headed up the preclinical oncology program and the metabolic disease medicinal chemistry program. In his role at Parke-Davis/Pfizer, Alex was directly involved with several clinical candidates and phase 1 clinical trial starts in the kinase inhibitor area. After Parke-Davis/Pfizer, he spent five years as the senior director of preclinical sciences at Quatrx Pharmaceuticals. In this role, he headed chemical development, managed outsourcing, evaluated in licensing opportunities, and designed pharmacology and PK studies. Currently, he is a medicinal chemistry consultant. He has over 60 peer-reviewed publications, 25 book chapters and reviews, and 33 granted patents.
Prof. William Denny
Bill Denny, a founder of Pathway Therapeutics, received his PhD (organic synthesis) and DSc (drug design) degrees from the University of Auckland. He is Director of the Auckland Cancer Society Research Centre at the University of Auckland, and a founding scientist of the company Proacta Therapeutics Ltd. He is a past-President of the NZ Institute of Chemistry and the NZ Society for Oncology. He received the Rutherford Medal of the Royal Society of NZ in 1995, and was appointed an Officer of the NZ Order of Merit in 2003. His interests include all aspects of the design and evaluation of small-molecule chemotherapeutic agents, and he has been involved in the development of eight anticancer drugs to clinical trial, work reported in 530 scientific publications and 70 patent applications.
Leonard Post, Ph.D.
Dr. Leonard Post is BioMarin's Vice President of Drug Discovery. Prior to joining BioMarin, he served as Chief Scientific Officer for LEAD Therapeutics, from time of its founding through acquisition by BioMarin. Previously, Dr. Post served as Senior Vice President for Onyx Pharmaceuticals and was responsible for the co-development (50:50 with Bayer) of Nexavar from IND through FDA approval for renal cell carcinoma. Prior to that, he served Vice President of Discovery Research at Parke-Davis where he led a multinational drug discovery organization. He has also held several positions at the Upjohn Company, including Director of Infectious Disease Research. During his industry career spanning more than 25 years, he has led numerous programs that have resulted in multiple clinical candidates across various therapeutic areas. Dr. Post is a virologist by training and received a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin and a B.S. in chemistry from the University of Michigan.
Clinical Advisory Board
Jeffrey Engelman, MD, Ph.D.
Jeffrey Engelman received his MD and Ph.D. from Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York in 2000. He completed an internship and residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, followed by a fellowship at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Dr. Engelman is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and is an attending physician at Massachussets General Hospital Cancer Center. His research interests include targeted therapies and lung cancer.
Ursula Matulonis, MD
Dr. Matulonis received her MD from Albany Medical College, New York, in 1987. She completed an internship and residency at the University of Pittsburgh, followed by a medical oncology fellowship at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Since 1995, Dr. Matulonis has been an attending physician at Dana-Farber and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Her research focuses on gynecologic malignancies.
George Demetri, MD
Dr. Demetri is Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Center for Sarcoma and Bone Oncology in the Department of Medical Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts. Dr. Demetri received his undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from Harvard College and medical degree from Stanford University School of Medicine in 1983, and then went on to Internal Medicine residency and chief residency at the University of Washington Hospitals in Seattle. He is also an affiliate investigator with the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research. Dr. Demetri's research and clinical interests have focused on the translation of scientific discoveries into targeted drugs for the management of sarcomas as a model for solid tumor research and development. This work has led to the development of the oral drug Gleevec as an effective treatment for the gastrointestinal sarcoma known as GIST, and is continuing with the research leading to the new multi-targeted agent SUTENT for GIST resistant to Gleevec.
David R. Parkinson, MD
Dr. Parkinson is President and CEO of Nodality, a South San Francisco-based biotechnology company focused on the biological characterization of signaling pathways in patients with malignancy to enable more effective therapeutics development and clinical decision-making. Until October 2007 Dr. Parkinson was Senior Vice President, Oncology Research and Development at Biogen Idec. At Biogen Idec he oversaw all oncology discovery research efforts and the development of the oncology pipeline. Previously he had served as Vice President, Oncology Development, at Amgen and Vice President, Global Clinical Oncology Development at Novartis. During his tenures at Amgen and Novartis, Dr. Parkinson was responsible for clinical development activities leading to a series of successful global drug registrations for important cancer therapeutics, including Gleevec, Femara, Zometa, Kepivance, and Vectibix.
