Founders
Head of Clinical Research: Martin Angst, M.D.
Dr. Angst holds a full time appointment as an Associate Professor of Anesthesia at Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Angst is the founder and director of the Human Pain Laboratory at Stanford University Medical School. Dr. Angst pursues three inter-related areas of interest: the identification of objective pain biomarkers, the early validation or rejection of novel analgesic interventions, and the improved characterization of opioid pharmacology including genetic and immune-modulating aspects. Preclinical and clinical trials completed by Dr. Angst have been sponsored by the National Institute of Health, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the pharmaceutical industry. Dr. Angst has published over 50 peer-reviewed articles and has authored several book chapters. Dr. Angst serves as an expert consultant in clinical pharmacology to the biotechnical, pharmaceutical and legal industry.
Dr. Angst received his MD degree from the University of Berne, Switzerland in 1993, and completed his fellowship training in Clinical Pharmacology in 1996 at the Department of Anesthesia of Stanford University Medical School.
William Frey II, Ph.D.
Dr. William H. Frey II is Director of the Alzheimer's Research Center at Regions Hospital in St. Paul, MN, Professor of Pharmaceutics and Oral Biology, faculty member in Neurology and Neuroscience at the University of Minnesota, and consultant to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. His patents, owned by Novartis, Stanford University, the HealthPartners Research Foundation, and others, target noninvasive delivery of therapeutic agents, including stem cells, to the brain and spinal cord for treating neurological disorders, psychiatric disorders and obesity. Dr. Frey's non-invasive intranasal method for bypassing the blood-brain barrier to target CNS therapeutic agents to the brain while reducing systemic exposure and unwanted side effects has captured the interest of pharmaceutical companies and neuroscientists. Dr. Frey has over 90 publications in scientific and medical journals, such as the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Brain Research.
Dr. Frey earned his BA in Chemistry at Washington University in 1969 and Ph.D. in Biochemistry at Case Western Reserve University in 1975.
CEO and Chairman: Daniel Jacobs, M.D.
See under Board of Directors
Head of Science: David C. Yeomans, Ph.D.
Dr. Yeomans is the Director Pain Research and a tenured Associate Professor of Anesthesia at Stanford University School of Medicine. He is the chair of the scientific advisory board of three companies and an advisor to numerous pharmaceutical and biotech companies, as well as venture capital firms and intellectual property law practices. Dr. Yeomans has authored over 60 peer reviewed articles and 11 book chapters in the field of pain, and has been the recipient of numerous NIH grants. He has authored 9 patent applications and co-founded 2 companies devoted to the management of pain.
Dr. Yeomans earned an AB degree from Dartmouth College, received his PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Florida, and completed his research training as a NIH fellow at the University of Illinois.
Board of Directors
Mark R. Benham
Managing Partner, Celerity Partners, Menlo Park
Mr. Benham has eighteen years of experience in private equity and venture capital. Prior to co-founding Celerity Partners, from 1988-1992 he was a Senior Investment Officer of Citicorp Venture Capital, Ltd. in New York. Prior to joining Citicorp, Mr. Benham served as the U.S advisor of Yamaichi UniVen Co., Ltd, the venture capital unit of Yamaichi Securities International.
Mr. Benham holds a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, and an M.A. and M.B.A. from The University of Chicago, both with honors. Mr. Benham is a director of Nu Visions, Verari Systems, O Premium Waters, Rincon Industries and Peer 1 Network.
Urs Hlzle, Ph.D.
Senior Vice President, Operations & Google Fellow, Google
Dr. Hlzle served as Google's first vice president of engineering and led the development of Google's technical infrastructure. His current responsibilities include the design and operation of the servers, networks, and datacenters that power Google. Urs joined Google from the University of California, Santa Barbara where he was an associate professor of computer science. He received a master's degree in computer science from ETH Zurich in 1988 and was awarded a Fulbright scholarship that same year. In 1994, he earned a Ph.D. from Stanford University, where his research focused on programming languages and their efficient implementation.
As one of the pioneers of dynamic compilation, also known as "just-in-time compilation," Urs invented fundamental techniques used in most of today's leading Java compilers. Before joining Google, Urs was a co-founder of Animorphic Systems, which developed compilers for Smalltalk and Java. After Sun Microsystems acquired Animorphic Systems in 1997, he helped build Javasoft's high-performance Hotspot Java compiler.
In 1996, Urs received a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation for his work on high-performance implementations of object-oriented languages. He was also a leading contributor to DARPA's National Compiler Infrastructure project. Urs has served on program committees for major conferences in the field of programming language implementation, and is the author of numerous scientific papers and U.S. patents.
Daniel Jacobs, M.D.
Chairman and CEO
Dr. Jacobs has been a Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeon as well as medical product developer for over 20 years. As a clinical end-user, he brings a downstream focus to product development. He has had an interest in pain management since medical school, and as a surgical resident, implemented new analgesic protocols in the surgical ICUs of Los Angeles County/USC Medical Center.
He was founding CEO and inventor of Coapt Systems, where he took a bioabsorbable surgical fixation implant from design to early commercialization. He was founding inventor and Chief Medical Officer of AirXpanders, Inc., where he led the medical input to design a new implantable device for breast reconstruction after cancer surgery, and has consulted for multiple companies in product design and testing.
Dr. Jacobs graduated with highest honors from UC Davis in Biochemistry, and AOA Honors Society from Case Western Reserve Medical School. He completed residencies and board certification in General Surgery and Plastic Surgery from the University of Southern California.
Mark A. McCamish, M.D., Ph.D.
Global Head of Biopharmaceutical Development, Sandoz International
Mark McCamish is currently Global Head of Biopharmaceutical Development with Sandoz International, a Division of Novartis. He is a senior executive with broad therapeutic and commercial experience in pharmaceuticals and biotechnology in a range of international management organizations from the traditional hierarchical to the fully matrixed including private start-ups and mature pharma companies. Over a 25 year history in drug development, he has served as Chief Medical Officer of 3 biotech companies, was Global Development Leader at Amgen and Medical Director at Abbott Laboratories. He has demonstrated a commercial mindset in establishing clinical development strategies in a wide range of disease indications and regulatory categories including devices, medical foods, biologics and drugs.
He is Board Certified in Internal Medicine and Nutrition and Metabolism and practiced as an academic physician at the University of California, Davis and The Ohio State University.