Noah D. Beerman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Mr. Beerman has over 25 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry.  He has extensive expertise in building and advancing biopharmaceutical product pipelines as well as leadership experience in business management and operations.  Mr. Beerman served as Executive Vice President, Chief Business Officer at Indevus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. until the company’s acquisition by Endo Pharmaceuticals in 2009.  While at Indevus, Noah was responsible for the development and implementation of the company’s corporate development strategy to ensure near-term and long-term growth and success.  Noah was also responsible for overseeing Indevus’ acquisition of Valera Pharmaceuticals in 2007 and for managing the integration activities with Endo as part of this transaction.

Prior to joining Indevus, Noah was vice president responsible for health care at Technology Management and Funding (TMF).He previously served in a variety of business development and scientific capacities at Creative BioMolecules, Sandoz AG, and Repligen.  Mr. Beerman holds an M.B.A. from Northeastern University's High Technology Program graduating Beta Gamma Sigma, and a B.S. in molecular genetics from the University of Rochester graduating Phi Beta Kappa, Magna Cum Laude.

 

Anastasia Khvorova, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer

Dr. Khvorova has contributed significantly to the RNAi field. While at Dharmacon (ThermoFisher Scientific) she made major technology advances in RNAi and microRNA.  Dr. Khvorova was also responsible for establishing and managing several drug discovery/development collaborations with major pharmaceutical companies, including Abbott and Alcon.  Her groundbreaking work has allowed her to author more than 150 abstracts, 30 patents and patent applications, several book chapters and over 40 peer reviewed publications.  Dr. Khvorova received her Ph.D. Biochemistry from Russian Academia of Sciences in Moscow in 1994 and after 10 years of working in academia and industry she joined world recognized RNAi leader Dharmacon in 2002 where she lead R&D for 6 years. 

 

Pamela Pavco, Ph.D., Vice President of Pharmaceutical Development

Dr. Pavco is a leader in bringing RNAi drug candidates from the bench into clinical trials.  During her 14-year tenure at Sirna Therapeutics, which was recently acquired by Merck for approximately $1.1 billion, she was responsible for moving its first RNAi drug candidate into the clinic in less than one year. She also directed research and preclinical development of three other RNA drug candidates that continued into clinical trials. In addition to leading the effort to develop Sirna's first RNAi therapeutic, she managed corporate partnerships and collaborations that included Allergan, Inc. for ocular disease, Targeted Genetics, Inc. in Huntington's Disease, Eli Lilly for Hepatitis C, and Elan Pharmaceuticals and Chiron Corporation in oncology. Dr. Pavco earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Virginia Commonwealth University and conducted post-doctoral research at Duke University. Dr. Pavco has authored numerous scientific articles, contributed to approximately 48 patents and patent applications in the RNA therapeutics field and is a member of the American Association of Cancer Research and the Association for Research and Vision in Opthalmology.

 

Ramani Varanasi, MS, MBA, Vice President, Business Development

Ms. Varanasi has over 15 years of experience and a distinguished track record in structuring, negotiating and executing successful strategic alliances, R&D collaborations & partnerships, licensing agreements and M&A transactions as well as providing business development, management and strategic leadership in the pharmaceutical industry. She spent 9 years at Millennium Pharmaceuticals as Director, Business Development, where she held positions of increasing responsibility in the areas of technology and product business development and executed several broad technology and product focused partnerships. She then served as Director of Corporate Development at Momenta Pharmaceuticals, where she successfully led various business and corporate development activities.  She was most recently the Head of Business Development at Archemix Corporation, a biotechnology company focused on the development and commercialization of aptamer therapeutics, where she led the business strategy and execution of several strategic technology, research collaboration and product alliances, including the partnership between with Merck Serono, a multi-year alliance with a deal value greater than $600M. Her broad experience in the branded and generic pharmaceutical product space has enabled her to execute several deals with total value in excess of $1B in the past two years, alone.  Ms. Varanasi holds a B.Sc. and a M.Sc. from McGill University in Microbiology & Immunology and Biochemistry, respectfully, and an MBA in General Strategy from Northeastern University.

 

Konstantinos Andrikopoulos, Ph.D., J.D., Vice President, Legal Counsel and Chief IP Counsel
Dr. Andrikopoulos has extensive experience in developing and implementing IP strategies that support business objectives. Dr. Andrikopoulos spent six years at Shire Human Genetic Therapies, Inc. (Shire HGT, formerly known as Transkaryotic Therapies, Inc.), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Shire Pharmaceuticals, where he most recently served as Senior Patent Counsel. While there, Dr. Andrikopoulos had broad responsibilities, including Shire HGT’s extensive patent portfolio encompassing two marketed drug products and a rich pipeline. Previously, Dr. Andrikopoulos spent five years with Wolf, Greenfield & Sacks, P.C., a Boston firm specializing in intellectual property law, as a technology specialist, patent agent and patent attorney, creating and managing patent estates for a number of biotechnology clients. Dr. Andrikopoulos received his law degree from Suffolk University Law School in Boston and his Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from the City University of New York (through Mount Sinai School of Medicine’s Graduate School of Biological Sciences Program).  Dr. Andrikopoulos was an Irvington Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at MGH, Harvard Medical School, in Boston working on the molecular mechanisms of B cell development.  He is the author or co-author of numerous scientific publications and is a member of the Massachusetts Bar and a registered patent attorney with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

 

Dmitry Samarsky, Ph.D., Vice President of Technology Development.

Dr. Samarsky has extensive experience in the development and licensing of RNAi technologies. Most recently, Dr. Samarsky served as Director of Technology Development at Dharmacon, Inc. (now part of ThermoFisher Scientific), one of the world's leading RNAi technology providers, where his team was responsible for promoting Dharmacon's RNAi program worldwide. In addition, he established and led an RNAi applications laboratory. From 2003 to 2005, Dr. Samarsky served as Business Development Manager at Invitrogen Corporation, a world-leading biomedical research manufacturing company, where he focused on promoting RNAi and other genomics technologies. From 2001 to 2003, Dr. Samarsky worked in business development at Sequitur, Inc., playing a critical role in that firm's acquisition by Invitrogen. Dr. Samarsky earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in 1998. From 1998 to 2001 he was the H. Arthur Smith Fellow for Cancer Research at the laboratory of Dr. Michael Green, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Dr. Samarsky has authored one dozen review articles and book chapters in the field of RNAi, is routinely quoted in major publications including Nature, Science and Fortune magazines, and has frequently advised, chaired and presented at various industrial and academic conferences and symposia.