Board of Directors
John L. Higgins, Chairman
Dennis Henner, Ph.D., Director
Robert G. McNeil, Ph.D., Director
Fred Middleton, Director
Nicholas J. Simon, III, Director
Mark deBoer, Ph.D., Director
Mr. Higgins is President, Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors of Ligand Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Prior to joining Ligand, Mr. Higgins was Chief Financial Officer, and before that Executive Vice President of Finance, Administration and Corporate Development for Connetics Corporation, a public specialty pharmaceutical company. Previously, Mr. Higgins was Executive Vice President, Corporate Development, of BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, Inc. where he currently also serves as a director. He was also a member of the health care investment banking team at Dillon, Read & Co. Inc.
Mr. Higgins earned an A.B. in Economics, Magna Cum Laude, from Colgate University.
Dennis Henner, Ph.D., Director
Dr. Henner is a Managing Director of Clarus Ventures, LLC. He was at Genentech from 1981 to 2001 where his last position was Senior Vice President of Research and a member of the Executive Committee, Product Review Committee, and Research Review Committee. During his tenure, he oversaw the development of numerous products that have been fundamental to the success of Genentech including novel antibody products such as Herceptin. Henner is currently a director of Tercica, Ceregene, Cellerant Therapeutics, and Kalobios. He received his PhD from the Department of Microbiology at the University of Virginia and did postgraduate training at the Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation
Robert G. McNeil, Ph.D., Director
Dr. McNeil has over twenty-seven years experience as an active investor and management participant in seed and early-stage biomedical companies. He founded Sanderling Ventures in 1979 and has served since then as a Managing Director of Sanderling's six investment partnerships.
Sanderling Venture Partners has been the seed investor of Western Technology Ventures, Advanced Cardiovascular Systems (acquired by Guidant Corp.) and Ventitrex (acquired by St. Jude Medical), three highly successful companies. Dr. McNeil was a founder, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Stereotaxis, the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of ReGen Biologics, and the Chairman of Ista Pharmaceuticals, as well as other entities.
As an active investor, Dr. McNeil has been instrumental in the successful development of InfraReDx, Athenagen/Zapaq and GeminX. In each case, close relationships with management and careful understanding of the companies’ technologies have allowed successful development of products at very early stage.
Dr. McNeil earned his Ph.D. in the fields of molecular biology, biochemistry and genetics in 1972 from the University of California, Irvine.
Fred Middleton has over thirty years experience in the biotechnology and biomedical industries in both corporate management and as a new venture investor. Mr. Middleton joined Dr. McNeil in 1987 as a General Partner of Sanderling. Since 1987, Mr. Middleton has worked on venture capital investments and the corporate development of early-stage biomedical companies at Sanderling, serving as a founder, investor, management team member and director of many start-up ventures in Sanderling’s portfolio.
Over the last several years, he has played active management roles as Chairman, CEO or Director of a number of Sanderling portfolio companies, currently including Stereotaxis (NASDAQ: STXS), CardioNet (NASDAQ: BEAT), Novocell, Cylene, Endocyte, Altor and Actimis.
Mr. Middleton began his career as a consultant for McKinsey & Company's San Francisco office from 1973 to 1975. He subsequently worked as a Vice President in planning and corporate development Chase Manhattan Bank in New York. In 1978, Mr. Middleton joined Bob Swanson and Herb Boyer, the founders of biotechnology pioneer Genentech, Inc., as the third member of original management team, where he served in various capacities, including Vice President of Finance, Administration, Corporate Development, Chief Financial Officer, and as President of Genentech Development Corporation. While at Genentech, Mr. Middleton successfully completed over $200 million in corporate partnering and institutional funding transactions, including the Company's successful IPO in 1980.
After Genentech, Mr. Middleton founded Morgan Stanley Ventures in 1984, serving as Managing General Partner of an institutional fund raised to sponsor R&D funding arrangements at leading technology companies in the biomedical sciences and information technology fields.
Mr. Middleton earned his B.S. in chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1971 and an M.B.A with distinction from Harvard Business School in 1973.
Nicholas J. Simon, III, Director
Nicholas Simon has been a Managing Director of Clarus Ventures since the firm’s inception in 2005. In addition, Mr. Simon has over 25 years of operating experience in the biopharmaceutical industry including Genentech (NYE:DBA) from 1989 to 2000 where he was Vice President of Business and Corporate Development. Mr. Simon is also on the Advisory Council at the Gladstone Institute, a private not-for-profit research institute affiliated with the University of California, San Francisco. Mr. Simon received a B.S. degree in microbiology from the University of Maryland and an M.B.A from Loyola College.
Mr. Simon currently serves on the Board of Directors of Achillion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (ACHN), ARYx Therapeutics (ARYX), Avanir Pharmaceuticals (AVNR) and Poniard, Inc. (PARD), all publicly traded companies, and also Pearl Therapeutics, Inc., QuatRx Pharmaceuticals Company, Sientra, Inc., and Verus Pharmaceuticals, Inc., which are private biotech companies.
Mark has for the last ten years worked for, managed and founded early stage biopharmaceutical companies in the field of innovative novel biopharmaceuticals.
Mark graduated in Biochemistry and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Amsterdam. His research career was in the field of immuno-modulation and he has pioneered recombinant antibody technology. He teaches entrepreneurship in the Life Sciences at the Utrecht University in The Netherlands. Mark is a Partner with Index Ventures.