Board of directors
Michael Berendt. Ph.D. - director
Dr. Berendt is the President and CEO of Aegera Therapeutics. Prior to joining Aegera, Michael served as managing director of Research Corporation Technologies (RCT), a US-based technology investment and management company. Before joining RCT, Dr. Berendt was a managing director of AEA Investors Inc., where he led an investment team focused on growth equity investments in life sciences companies. Prior to joining AEA Investors, Dr. Berendt was senior vice president for research for the Pharmaceutical Division of Bayer Corporation. His responsibilities included the Bayer Research Center in West Haven, CT., a facility housing more than 400 researchers and support staff engaged in the discovery and development of new medicines for treating cancer, diabetes, obesity and osteoporosis. Dr. Berendt is currently a director of Waters Corporation and Trillium Therapeutics Inc., and has served on the board of directors of a number of companies including Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Myriad Genetics, and Catalyst Biosciences Inc. Dr. Berendt is a graduate of Ohio Dominican College and has a master's degree in microbiology from Miami University. He received a doctoral degree in medical microbiology and immunology from Hahnemann University and was awarded research fellowships from the National Cancer Institute and American Cancer Society.
Ela Borenstein, MBA - director
Ms. Borenstein has over 20 years of consulting, management and entrepreneurial experience in the Biopharmaceutical and related industries. Prior to joining BDC, she was Vice President of Regulatory Affairs and Product Strategy for Celmed BioSciences, Vice President of Clinical and Regulatory Affairs at Theratechnologies and Senior Vice President of Scientific Affairs at Technilab. Ela's diversified background includes product development and post market activities for both drugs and medical devices as well as key involvement in product acquisition and M&A deals. Ela holds a B.Sc., Chemistry Honors from University of Western Ontario; an M.Sc., in Pharmacology from University of Toronto and an M.B.A in Bio-Industries from UQAM.
William Boyle, Ph.D. - director
Dr. Boyle is a co-founder of Aeolian Therapeutics and owner of Peninsula Biopharma, L.L.C. Recently he founded AnaptysBio and served as President and Chief Science Officer. Before AnaptysBio, he was the Chief Scientific Officer for Auxeris Therapeutics, a biotechnology company focused on development of mechanism-based treatments for bone diseases. Before that, he was Vice President of Biology at Protein Pathways, a computational biology company that utilized genomic information to help elucidate disease pathways for target identification and validation. Prior to that role, William was at Amgen, Inc. for over eleven years, and was involved in the discovery and development of novel protein and small molecule candidate therapeutics. He was formerly Director of Discovery Research and the Biosystems technology platforms at Amgen, and he led a basic research effort as part of the preclinical and clinical development of OPG and derivative RANKL antagonists. His research in this area helped to define the RANK-RANKL signaling pathway, and led the isolation and characterization of AMG 162 (Denosumab®), a monoclonal antibody therapeutic approved in the U.S. and E.U for osteoporosis, and in late development for rheumatoid arthritis and bone metastasis. Dr. Boyle was instrumental in organizing and leading the research effort behind their rheumatology franchise, and in developing a corporate partnership with Abgenix, which resulted in the isolation of AMG 162 and Amgen’s first antibody IND filing. William holds a Doctoral degree in Experimental Pathology from the UCLA School of Medicine, and was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Postdoctoral Fellow of the Life Sciences Research Foundation, at the Salk Institute in La Jolla.
Yves Cornellier, President and Chief Executive Officer - director
Yves is a veteran marketing and sales professional with more than 25 years in the healthcare industry and extensive experience negotiating licensing and collaboration agreements with large pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology companies and institutions. Prior to joining Alethia, Yves was Senior Vice President, Business Development for LAB International Inc. since October 2003, subsequent to the acquisition of Seyvika Pharmaceuticals for which he was the founder. Prior, he held the position of Vice-President, Business Development and Commercialization at Theratechnologies, and also held the position of Director of Business Development and Senior Marketing Manager, Pharmaceuticals Product Division, for Abbott Laboratories Ltd. He also had the opportunity to work for Glaxo Canada and Miles Laboratories Canada in management positions of increasing responsibility including sales management, marketing, business unit management and strategic development. Yves has been and still is a member of the Board of Directors of several organizations.
Élizabeth Douville, Ph.D. - director
Dr. Elizabeth Douville is Vice President of GeneChem Management Inc., a leading North American life sciences venture capital fund manager. Dr. Douville joined GeneChem in 1997 as a Manager and was promoted to Vice President in 2001. Since 2006, Elizabeth is also General Partner of AgeChem Financial, the fund manager of their third venture fund dedicated to diseases related to ageing. She was an active member of the boards of directors of Cytochroma Inc., Ambit Biosciences Inc., LymphoSign Inc. and Chronogen Inc. and was also a board member of Idun Pharmaceuticals Inc. before its sale to Pfizer in 2005. Elizabeth obtained her Ph.D. in biochemistry at the University of Ottawa, studying the role of protein kinases in oncogenesis. She then received postdoctoral training at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London (U.K.) where she studied oncogenes and their signal transduction pathways. In 2008, Elizabeth obtained a certificate degree as part of the “Programme de perfectionnement des cadres supérieurs” (an Executive management and training program) offered by CIREM in collaboration with HEC/University of Montreal.
Christopher J. Morl, - director
Christopher J. Morl is Chief Operating Officer at Ambit Biosciences Corporation an oncology-focused biotechnology company engaged in discovering and developing targeted small molecule kinase inhibitors. He joined Ambit in 2009 as Chief Business Officer and has more than 25 year of pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry experience. Christopher previously served as Vice President of Business Development at Agensys Inc., a formerly privately owned biotechnology company that became a wholly owned subsidiary of Astellas U.S. in December 2007. At Agensys, he was responsible for a corporate development strategy that secured a series of partnership and licensing arrangements, and led to the acquisition by Astellas. Prior to joining Agensys, he undertook an interim role as Director of Integration GlaxoSmithKline for China/Hong Kong after serving as the General Manager at SmithKline Beecham (Tianjiin). Prior to that, Christopher served 20 years in positions of increasing responsibility in research, sales, marketing, and business development with SmithKline Beecham. Christopher holds a BSc (Hons) in Applied Biology and Pharmacology from the University of London (UK) and an MBA from Cranfield School of Management (UK).
