John D. Diekman, Ph.D.
Chairman of the Board
Dr. Diekman is a founder and Managing Partner of 5AM Ventures. In addition, Dr. Diekman is a founder and former Vice Chairman of Bay City Capital, a General Partner of Aravis Venture I, L.P., a European-based life science venture fund, Chairman of the Singapore Biomedical Sciences Investment Fund, and Vice Chairman of Affymetrix, Inc. Dr. Diekman has an extensive operating history having served as CEO of Affymetrix and in senior leadership positions at Affymax N.V., Monoclonal Antibodies, Salutar, and Zoecon Corporation. Dr. Diekman currently serves on the boards of Ambrx, GenoSpectra, Hill Top Research, InGenuity Systems, Kalypsys, Metabolex, Phenomix, S*BIO, and Syrrx.
Richard D. DiMarchi, Ph.D.
Dr. DiMarchi was formerly Group Vice President for Biotechnology and Product Development at Lilly Research Laboratories, where he made major contributions to Lilly in biotechnology and endocrinology. Dr. DiMarchi was directly involved in the discovery and development of several Lilly drugs, including Humulin(R), Humatrope(R), Evista(R), Xigris(R), and Forteo(R). He was a co-inventor of Humalog(R), the first biosynthetic protein approved for human use. Additionally, at Lilly he championed the introduction and integration of cutting-edge biotechnologies, including genomics, proteomics, high-throughput screening, and combinatorial chemistry. Dr. DiMarchi is presently a Professor of Chemistry and the Jack and Linda Gill Distinguished Chair in Biomolecular Science at Indiana University. Dr. DiMarchi is a co-founder of Ambrx.
Shehan Dissanayake, Ph.D.
Dr. Dissanayake is the CEO of Tavistock Life Sciences. In this capacity he oversees all of its operations and investments in portfolio companies, including CovX, The Medical Device Group, Eidogen-Sertanty, Kalypsys, and Ambrx.
Stephen W. Kaldor, Ph.D.
President and Chief Executive Officer
Prior to joining Ambrx, Inc., Dr. Kaldor served as President and CSO of Takeda San Diego Inc., the US Discovery Research Center for Takeda Pharmaceuticals. He instigated and led the March 2005 $270MM acquisition of Syrrx Inc. by Takeda that resulted in the creation of Takeda San Diego. Dr. Kaldor ran Syrrx, a privately held, structure-based drug discovery company, as its President and CSO from 2003 -2005. Syrrx built a robust portfolio of metabolic diseases and oncology clinical candidates during his tenure including SYR-322 (Alogliptin), a dipeptidyl peptidase 4 inhibitor for the treatment of diabetes now in Phase III clinical trials. Prior to joining Syrrx, Dr. Kaldor gained over 12 years of drug discovery and development experience at Eli Lilly and Company, as both a researcher and Director with line management responsibility for groups of up to 270 people. He received his formal education in organic chemistry at Harvard University, (Ph.D., 1989) and Columbia University, (B.S., 1984). Dr. Kaldor is the co-inventor of multiple compounds that have advanced into the clinic including ViraceptTM, a marketed HIV protease inhibitor.
Allan Marchington, Ph.D.
Dr. Allan Marchington is General Partner of Apposite Capital, LLP, London, UK, responsible for life science investments. Prior to joining Apposite Capital, Dr. Marchington was the founder and CEO of Cambridge Discovery Chemistry, which was started in 1997, and purchased by Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc, in July 2000. He then relocated to Boston and joined the Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc., management team.
Dr. Marchington began his career as a medicinal chemist at Pfizer Central Research, Sandwich, UK, where he was responsible for a number of compounds entering clinical development. He holds a Doctorate in Synthetic Organic Chemistry from the University of Liverpool, UK.
Peter G. Schultz, Ph.D.
Dr. Schultz is currently the Scripps Professor of Chemistry at The Scripps Research Institute and Director of the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF). Dr. Schultz has made a number of major contributions to science including the discovery of catalytic antibodies, methodology that for the first time expands the genetic codes of living organisms, and the development and application of combinatorial methods in chemistry and biology including the first generation of combinatorial materials libraries. Dr. Schultz is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. He is active on many editorial and scientific advisory boards and is a founding scientist of Affymax Research Institute and co-founder of Symyx Technologies, Syrrx, Kalypsys, Phenomix, Ilypsa, and Ambrx.
David B. Singer
David Singer joined Maverick in 2004 from Oscient Pharmaceutical Corporation, where he also serves as Chairman of the Board. Prior to Oscient, Mr. Singer was the founder and former CEO of three pioneering biotech companies: Affymetrix, Inc., Corcept Therapeutics, Inc., and Genesoft Pharmaceuticals. Mr. Singer curently serves on the board of both Affymetrix and Corcept. Before these experiences, Mr. Singer was the senior financial officer at Heartport and Affymax. He began his career at Baxter International and worked at Goldman Sachs & Co. Mr. Singer received his B.A. from Yale University and his M.B.A. from Stanford University. He is a Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute, and a Sterling Fellow of Yale University.
August M. Watanabe, M.D.
Dr. Watanabe was formerly a senior executive at Eli Lilly & Company, where he occupied the positions of Executive Vice President of Science and Technology, President of Lilly Research Laboratories and a member of the Board of Directors. During his tenure the company became recognized as having one the strongest new drug pipelines in the industry, including Forteo® and Xigris® and the recently launched drugs Alimta®, Cialis®, Cymbalta® and Straterra®. From 1971 to 1990, Dr. Watanabe was a full time faculty member at Indiana University School of Medicine. He was professor and chairman of the department of medicine at the medical school from 1983 to 1990. Dr. Watanabe was also formerly a director of the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology, and a member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians. He served for six years as chairman of the Science and Technology Section of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturing Association of America (PhRMA). Dr. Watanabe is a partner in Twilight Venture Partners LLC and serves as Volunteer Chairman of BioCrossroads, Indiana's leading public-private life science network. He also serves as a director of Guidant Corporation, the Indiana University Foundation and the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation.
