Board of Directors
Observers
Director
Dr. Kakkis is
best known for his work over the last 18 years
to develop novel treatments for rare disorders.
He began his work developing an enzyme
replacement therapy (Aldurazyme®) for the rare
disorder MPS I, with minimal funding and
support. The struggle to get the therapy
translated from a successful canine model to
patients succeeded due to the critical
financial support of the Ryan Foundation, a
patient organization formed by Mark and Jeanne
Dant for their son Ryan. See
Full Bio
Eran Nadav, Ph.D. – Managing Director,
TPG Biotech
Chairman of the
Board
Dr. Nadav is a Managing
Director at TPG Biotech®, the life science
venture investment arm of TPG (formerly known
as Texas Pacific Group), a global private
investment firm. Dr. Nadav joined TPG Biotech
in 2007 with the focus on global
pharmaceuticals and biotechnology investments.
Prior to this, Dr. Nadav served as Business
Development Director at Eisai Pharmaceuticals
in New Jersey for four years, where he
evaluated and negotiated notable licensing and
acquisition deals. Prior to this, Dr. Nadav
worked for the Israeli office of JJDC, the
venture capital subsidiary of Johnson &
Johnson, where he analyzed and executed
investments in innovative technologies, medical
devices and biopharmaceuticals. Previously, he
was with Neurim Pharmaceuticals, supporting the
clinical development of Circadin®. Before his
professional career and academic
studies, Dr. Nadav served in the Israel
Defense Forces for three years. Dr.
Nadav holds a B.S. magna cum laude, M.S. magna
cum laude and Ph.D. in biochemistry, as well as
an MBA from Tel Aviv University.
Ben Auspitz
– Partner, Fidelity Biosciences
Director
Ben Auspitz has
worked in pharmaceuticals and life-science for
over fifteen years, both in industry and as a
consultant. Most recently before joining
Fidelity, he served as Therapeutic Area Head
for Immuno-Inflammatory products at CombinatoRx
Inc. during its growth from an angel-backed
start-up to a publicly-listed company (NASDAQ:
CRXX). In this role, he oversaw the advancement
of seven programs from assay stage into phase
II human clinical studies, and was co-inventor
on 15 product patents. He also served as
Director for Corporate Strategy at CombinatoRx,
where he was responsible for product
in-licensing, new business development, and the
build-out and $20M financing of an infectious
disease subsidiary. His consulting experience
has included work in clinical development,
product launch, M&A, and medical marketing.
Sample projects include sales force
optimization and managed markets strategy for
Celebrex, the first-in-class COX-2 inhibitor,
and clinical development strategy for
gene-therapy, protein, and small molecule
products.
He holds a B.A. from Harvard
University.
Mr. Auspitz serves on the
Board of Directors of Ligocyte Pharmaceuticals,
BIKAM Pharmaceuticals, and Ultragenyx
Pharmaceutical.
Marten Steen, M.D.,
Ph.D. – Partner, HealthCap
Director
Dr. Steen
worked previously with global business
development at Merck Serono, focusing on both
product and technology licensing. Prior to
Merck Serono, he was a medical associate with
HealthCap. Dr. Steen is a Medical Doctor
trained at Lund University. He has pursued
research in the field of protein chemistry and
coagulation at Lund University and Novo
Nordisk, rendering him a PhD in Clinical
Chemistry in 2003. He is the author of 16
scientific papers and published in
peer-reviewed journals. He has also a B.Sc.
degree in Business Administration from the Lund
University School of Economics and
Management.
William Aliski – Biotechnology
Executive
Director
Mr. Aliski
joined Ultragenyx as a Board member in January
of 2011. He is an experienced orphan
disease and biotech executive, having worked on
the commercialization of a number of orphan
products in the US as well as international
markets. His commercial experience
includes Chief Commercial Officer for Foldrx,
an early stage company purchased by
Pfizer, General Manager for Biomarin
Europe and executive level positions at TKT
5S/Shire and Genzyme Corp. In addition he
has developed pricing and reimbursement models
and patient support programs for a number of
enzyme replacement therapies including
Ceredase/Cerezyme for Gaucher Disease and
Replagal for Fabry Disease. Mr
Aliski is currently a commercial consultant for
early stage orphan disease companies and also
serves on the board of Edimer
Pharmaceuticals.
He earned an
undergraduate degree in economics from Boston
College and a MPA from the Kennedy School of
Government at Harvard
University.
Eric
Linsley, MBA – Managing Partner, Pappas
Ventures
Observer
Mr. Linsley
joined Ultragenyx as a Board observer in
March 2012. He is an experienced
operating executive and venture capital
investor who prior to joining Pappas Ventures
in 2000 served as Chief Financial Officer of
TriPath Imaging, Inc., a medical device company
that was acquired in 2006 by Becton
Dickinson. Mr. Linsley played a key role
in the three-way merger between AutoCyte,
NeoPath and Neuromedical Systems that created
TriPath. Prior to the formation of
TriPath, he served as Chief Financial Officer
and Vice President of Operations at AutoCyte
where he led the company in a successful
public equity offering in 1997. From 1991
to 1997, Mr. Linsley worked as an investment
professional with Ampersand Ventures,
a leading venture capital firm based in
Boston. He previously served as a
management consultant with Bain & Co. and
McKinsey & Co., and was a certified public
accountant with Arthur Andersen LLP.
Mr. Linsley also currently serves as a
director of BaroSense and Milestone
Pharmaceuticals, and an observer at
LipoScience, Balance Therapeutics and Liquidia
Technologies. He received a B.A. in
Economics from Trinity College, a M.S. in
Accounting from New York University, and a
M.B.A. from the Wharton School at the
University of Pennsylvania.
Geoff Duyk,
M.D., Ph.D. – Partner and Managing
Director, TPG Biotech
Observer
Prior to joining
TPG in 2004, Dr. Duyk served on the Board of
Directors and was President of Research &
Development at Exelixis, where he led a 550+
person group focused on the discovery and
development of small molecule therapeutics.
Prior to Exelixis, he was one of the founding
scientific staff at Millennium Pharmaceuticals.
As Vice President of Genomics at Millennium,
Geoff was responsible for building and leading
the informatics, automation, DNA sequencing and
genotyping groups as well as the mouse and
human genetics group.
Prior to his
tenure at Millennium, Dr. Duyk was an Assistant
Professor at Harvard Medical School (HMS) in
the Department of Genetics and Assistant
Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical
Institute (HHMI). While at HMS, Dr. Duyk was a
Co-Principal Investigator in the National
Institutes of Health (NIH) funded Cooperative
Human Linkage Center. Dr. Duyk has been and
continues to be a member of numerous NIH panels
and oversight committees focused on the
planning and execution of the Human Genome
Project.
Dr. Duyk graduated from
Wesleyan University (1980) with a BA in Biology
and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He holds a
Ph.D. and M.D. from Case Western Reserve
University and completed his medical and
fellowship training at University of
California, San Francisco. While at UCSF, Dr.
Duyk was a fellow of the Lucille P. Markey
Foundation and was also awarded a post-doctoral
fellowship from the Howard Hughes Medical
Institute.
John Klock, M.D. –
Biotechnology Entrepreneur
Observer
Dr. Klock
received his medical degree at Tulane
University, his medical training at the
University of California San Francisco and
Massachusetts General Hospital. He is a
board-certified Internist and
Hematologist-Oncologist and practiced medicine
and did research at the University of
California San Francisco from 1970-1982.
Since 1982 he has been involved in the start-up
of five medical companies. In these
companies he has worked alongside of many
talented people to develop and bring to
market: 1) a novel cancer treatment, 2)
the first rapid AIDS test, 3) a comprehensive
test for detecting metabolic diseases of
children and 4) several drugs for treating
genetic diseases of children as a founder for
BioMarin. He continues to be involved in
introducing novel concepts into medical
practice and is on the board of several medical
companies. Dr Klock has over
70 peer-reviewed medical and scientific
publications and 8 granted US Patents.
Presently, in collaboration with several
private preventive medical clinics, he is
applying modern medical technologies for
disease prediction and health screening.