Management, Directors & Scientific Advisory Board 

Management

John R. McDonald, Ph.D., President and CEO; and Director

Dr. McDonald retired as the Senior Vice President of R&D of MGI Pharma, Inc. at the end of 2005.  He joined MGI in 1994 as director, pharmacology and toxicology.  He assumed leadership of MGI’s R&D organization as vice president, research and development in 1997 and was promoted to senior vice president, research and development in 2001.  Prior to joining MGI, Dr. MacDonald held several positions within Parke-Davis Pharmaceutical Research, a division of Warner-Lambert Company, including senior research associate/group leader in the Department of Pathology and Experimental Toxicology.  Prior to that, he held a research faculty position in the Department of Pathology at University of California San Francisco School of Medicine.  Additionally, he served as Director at MethylGene, Inc. and is currently a Director of Minnesota-based Heart Failure Technologies, Inc.  Dr. MacDonald has published over 50 scientific papers and has been an author on nearly 80 abstracts.  He received a bachelor's degree in zoology from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and received a master's degree in toxicology in 1981 and a Ph.D. in pharmacology and toxicology in 1984, both from the University of Arizona, Tucson.  Dr. MacDonald is a member of numerous professional organizations, including the American Association for Cancer Research, American Society of Clinical Oncology, American Society for Investigative Pathology, and Society of Toxicology.  He is also a certified diplomat of the American Board of Toxicology.

Brian J. Jackson, Vice President; CFO; and Director

Mr. Jackson is a co-founder of PepTx and served as Chairman, President and CEO from 1999 to 2004.  Prior to founding PepTx, he was President of Bayside Capital, a financial consulting firm working with early stage medtech companies.  In that capacity he held positions with MP&E, Inc. (CFO), Dymedix, Inc. (CFO), Tactile Technology Systems, Inc. (CEO, CFO, and Director), TAMA Medical, Inc. (CFO and Director) and Pharma Target, Inc. (CFO). From 1988 through 1994, Mr. Jackson served as CFO and controller for Everest Medical Corporation, a manufacturer of medical devices.

Outside Directors 

Edward H. Erickson, Ph.D., Chairman of the Board of Directors

Dr. Erickson retired in 2001 after a 33-year career at 3M.  He progressed from a pharmaceutical research scientist in 1968 (Riker Laboratories was acquired by 3M in 1970) to the global head of pharmaceutical R&D in 1991, a position he held until 1995. In 1995, Dr. Erickson began to assume corporate operating responsibilities, leading to the role of general manager of the Medical-Surgical Division (1997-1999) and the Drug Delivery Systems division (1999-2000). Dr. Erickson holds a B.A. in chemistry and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Daniel T. Fagan, Ph.D., Director

Dr. Fagan has over 28 years of management experience in both the research and pharmaceutical peptide industries. Dr. Fagan is Chairman of the Board and CEO of Synthetech, Inc., a public company located in Oregon that specializes in the manufacture of bulk peptides, peptide building blocks, specialty resins, and multi-step chiral intermediates serving the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries.  From 2004 to 2006 he was President and CEO of PepTx.  Before joining PepTx, he was President of ProGen Biologics, LLC, for two years. ProGen is a privately held biopharmaceutical venture developing diagnostics and therapeutics for autoimmune diseases.  In addition, From 1992 to 2000, Dr. Fagan was General Manager of Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals’ bulk peptide business, where he was involved in the initial scale-up to market of Fuzeon, a 36mer peptide for the treatment of HIV infection.  Prior to that, he was employed in various capacities at Sigma-Aldrich from 1978 to 1991 and was President of the Sigma Chemical division from 1987 to 1991.  Dr. Fagan holds a B.A. from Otterbein College and a Ph.D. in chemistry from Case Western Reserve University.

David Lamm, Director

Mr. Lamm has nearly 30 years of experience starting, running, and selling companies.  In 1996 he founded TriSense, which provided software to companies that allowed monthly bills to be delivered to and paid by customers via the Internet.  In 2001, this company was sold to Group 1 Software.  In 1991 he co-founded Document Solutions, a company that pioneered check imaging for the banking industry.  This company was sold to BISYS in 1995 for $43 million.  From 1972 to 1991 he was a banking and software consultant for his consulting company Concepts in Software.

Franklin Pass, M.D., Director

Dr. Pass is a physician, biomedical entrepreneur and investment banker. From 2001 to the present, he has led the Life Sciences securities practice of Cherry Tree, a Minnesota investment banking firm. From 1992 to 2001, Dr. Pass was the CEO of Antares Pharma, Inc. and its predecessor, Medi-Ject Corporation, a manufacturer of device-based drug delivery systems. Dr. Pass spent the prior fifteen years organizing and leading three agricultural biotechnology companies, two in the U.S. and one in the Netherlands. Prior to that time, he was employed by Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the University of Minnesota as a professor and academic scientist in the field of dermatology and molecular virology.  Dr. Pass received his undergraduate and medical education at the University of Minnesota.

David Stack, Director

From 1998 to present Mr. Stack has been the President and General Partner of Stack Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a firm assisting emerging healthcare companies in commercialization of their products.  He is also a Venture Partner at MPM Capital.  From 2001 to 2004, Mr. Stack was the President, CEO and a Director of the Medicines Company, a biopharmaceutical firm specializing in cardiovascular drugs.  From 1995 to 1998, Mr. Stack was the President and General Manager of Innovex, Inc. (Americas), a marketing, sales, and clinical research contract firm servicing the pharmaceutical and biotech industries.  Prior to that, he was VP of Business Development and Marketing for Immunomedics, Inc., a biopharmaceutical firm focused on cancer and infectious diseases.  From 1981 to 1993, Mr. Stack held various management, sales, and marketing positions with Roche Laboratories.  Mr. Stack is a Director of Bio-Imaging Technologies, Inc. and Medsite, Inc.

Scientific Advisory Board

Kevin Mayo, Ph.D., Chairman

Dr. Mayo is Professor of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics at the University of Minnesota, with 25 years experience as an academic researcher and consultant to the pharmaceutical industry.  Dr. Mayo received his B.A. degree in Chemistry and Biology from Boston University in 1976 and his Ph.D. degree in Chemistry from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1979.  In 1980 and 1981, he held an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Munich, Germany, in the lab of Nobel Laureate Prof. Rudolf Mössbauer. Returning to the States, Dr. Mayo continued his postdoctoral training with Prof. James Prestegard in the Chemistry Department at Yale University, and started his academic career in 1984 as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Temple University in Philadelphia.  Following his promotion to Associate Professor in 1988, he moved to Jefferson University Medical School in 1991 with one of his mentors, Dr. Carlo Croce (co-founder of Centicor, Inc.).  In 1993, Dr. Mayo was recruited to the University of Minnesota.  At Minnesota, Dr. Mayo is a member of the Cancer Center, The Center for Biomedical Engineering, and The Minnesota Supercomputing Institute.  Dr. Mayo is the author of over 150 peer-reviewed scientific publications and 13 patents, as well as Principle Investigator on several research grants from the National Institutes of Health.

Arjan Griffioen, Ph.D.

Dr. Griffioen received his Ph.D. in 1991 from the Utrecht University for his thesis on human B lymphocyte activation.  After a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Pathology of the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam, he became Assistant Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the Utrecht Medical Center.  In 1997 he was appointed at the Department of Internal Medicine of the University Hospital Maastricht, and in 2005, to the Department of Pathology as Professor in Experimental Oncology and Angiogenesis.  Dr. Griffioen is head of the Angiogenesis Laboratory where over 20 researchers are working on the mechanisms of angiogenesis and the development of novel treatment strategies for cancer.  Dr. Griffioen is author of over 80 research papers and is Editor-in-Chief of the journal Angiogenesis.