Management

Ali Fattaey has been engaged in cancer research, drug discovery and development for the past seventeen years. Most recently, Ali served as Chief Scientific Officer of Sagres Discovery from 2002 through 2005 where he led the discovery and development of anti-cancer therapeutics using Sagres’ proprietary Oncogenome™ technology. Dr. Fattaey later joined Chiron Corporation upon its acquisition of Sagres Discovery in late 2004. Prior to Sagres, Dr. Fattaey joined Onyx Pharmaceuticals in 1994 where he served as the Vice President of Discovery Research from 1998 to 2001. At Onyx, Dr. Fattaey was responsible for multiple programs in collaboration with Pfizer and Bayer pharmaceutical companies focused on the discovery of small molecule drugs directed at intracellular signaling enzymes in the Ras and cell cycle regulation pathways as cancer therapeutics. Products of these programs include Nexavar, an anti-cancer small molecule drug approved by the FDA for treatment of kidney and liver cancer patients and PD-0332991, a small molecule inhibitor of cyclin-dependent kinase 4, which has recently completed Phase 2 clinical testing in cancer patients. Dr. Fattaey also directed the discovery of a highly novel strategy for treatment of cancer using selectively replicating human adenoviruses. One of these viruses, H101 (ONYX-015) is now approved in China for the treatment of patients with head-and-neck cancer. Dr. Fattaey received his Ph.D. in microbiology from Kansas State University in 1989 and was a Research Fellow in Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center.

Lori Kunkel, MD, is both a board-certified oncologist and an experienced biotech executive. Most recently, Lori was the Chief Medical Officer and Vice President of Clinical Development at Proteolix, Inc. In this role, Dr. Kunkel was responsible for leading the medical and regulatory strategies for the Proteolix portfolio, as well as overseeing clinical development, clinical operations, and medical affairs. Prior to her position at Proteolix, Dr. Kunkel has held several executive positions at biotechnology companies in clinical development and has led programs of oncology and autoimmune disease drug candidates at Xencor, Genitope, Genentech and Chiron (Novartis). She has participated as a clinical advisor and consultant to several corporations including Aton (acquired by Merck), DNAX (acquired by Schering Plough), Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Salmedix (acquired by Cephalon), Syndax, Xoma, and Zymogenetics. Dr. Kunkel spent ten years in academic/clinical medicine and is board certified in Hematology, Oncology and Internal Medicine. She was a faculty member in the Division of Hematology/Oncology Bone Marrow Transplant Division at the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Kunkel holds a Bachelor of Arts in Biology from University of California, San Diego and a medical degree from the University of Southern California.

Robert is an executive with ten years of experience in the pharmaceutical and investment industries with particular expertise in business development, marketing, project management and finance. Prior to joining ACT in early 2009, Robert was Managing Director at the private equity firm Paramount BioSciences, where he was responsible for identifying exits, partnerships and non-dilutive sources of capital for the firm’s portfolio of sixteen private biotechnology companies. Previously, Robert worked at Pfizer, where he held leadership positions in Corporate Finance, Global Marketing and Business Development. As a member of the Business Development division, Robert led the Licensing Leadership Teams for Oncology, Infectious Diseases and Ophthalmology and was involved with multiple transactions including Pfizer’s acquisitions of PowderMed and Serenex and the in-license of the EGFRvIII anti-cancer vaccine CDX-110 from AVANT. As a member of the Global Marketing division, Robert developed portfolio strategies for the Infectious Diseases and Oncology pipeline, and crafted product positioning and development plans for dozens of programs from discovery through phase IIb. Robert was responsible for forecasting, valuation and deal modeling for business development projects such as the acquisition of the chemotherapeutic Campto® from Sanofi-Aventis and the in-license of the anti-cancer TLR9 agonist cpg7909 from Coley. Robert earned his Bachelors in Civil Engineering from Duke University, his Masters in Civil Engineering from Stanford University, and his Masters in Business Administration from Columbia Business School.