Management

Nick Lydon, Ph.D. is co-founder of Staurus and is an expert in the field of kinase drug discovery and development for cancer. In 2009, Dr Lydon was awarded the Lasker-DeBakey Award for Clinical Medical Research for his role in the discovery and development of Gleevec® (imatinib), a targeted kinase inhibitor that transformed chronic myeloid leukemia from a fatal cancer into a manageable disease. Dr. Lydon is a co-founder and Director of AnaptysBio (Sab Diego) and  BluePrint Medicines Inc (Cambridge). Dr. Lydon previously served as Vice President, Small Molecule Drug Discovery at Amgen Inc.  Prior to Amgen, he was the CEO and founder of Kinetix Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biotechnology company focused on the discovery and development of selective protein kinase inhibitors. Amgen acquired Kinetix in 2000. Prior to Kinetix, Nick worked at CIBA-GEIGY, in Basel, Switzerland, where he was responsible for the protein kinase inhibitor program, including the discovery and preclinical development of Gleevec. He began his pharmaceutical career at Schering-Plough Corp., where his research involved studies on recombinant interferons. Nick has been awarded the Japan Prizes for his work on Gleevec. Other awards include the Warren Alpert Foundation Prize, the AACR-Bruce F. Cain Memorial Award and the Charles F. Kettering Prize from the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation. He earned a BS in biochemistry and zoology from the University of Leeds, England, and received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the Medical Sciences Institute, University of Dundee, Scotland.

 Stephen F. Keane is a life sciences executive with an extensive track record in corporate development, business development and financial transactions for emerging biopharmaceutical companies. He has been an Officer of four publicly traded companies, raised over $400 million in equity capital in the last two decades and has helped generate more than $400 million in non-dilutive partner revenues to fund drug discovery programs. Mr. Keane is Co-Founder of Staurus Pharma, served as President and CEO of Femta Pharmaceuticals and has held senior corporate development positions with Ambit Biosciences, Dendreon Corp., Corvas International, Epimmune Inc., Cosmo Pharmaceutical, SIBIA Neurosciences and Molecular Biosystems. He was responsible for negotiating significant alliances including licenses, distributions agreements, technology acquisitions and research agreements with large pharmaceutical companies and government agencies. He also served as the Principal Negotiator for Dendreon’s acquisition of Corvas International and Merck’s acquisition of SIBIA Neurosciences. He earned a BA in English Literature from San Diego State University.

Victor Nizet, M.D. is a Professor and Vice Chair for Basic Research and Chief of the Division of Host-Microbe Systems & Therapeutics at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), School of Medicine as well as Professor at UCSD Skaggs School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences. Dr. Nizet received his medical training at Stanford University School of Medicine, completed a Residency and Chief Residency in Pediatrics at Harvard University's Children's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, and a Fellowship in Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the University of  Washington's Children's Hospital in Seattle. Dr. Nizet leads a large basic and translational research laboratory focused on discovering virulence factors of Gram-positive bacterial pathogens, elucidating mechanisms of host innate immunity, and novel approaches to infectious disease therapy.  Dr. Nizet has authored over 340 peer-reviewed publications (> 100 since 2013), including several in the most prestigious general scientific journals.  He has collaborated with several biotechnology interests in developing new antibiotic and immune-based therapies against drug-resistant pathogens.  Dr. Nizet's work has been recognized by an American Heart Association Established Investigator Award, the American Lung Association Career Investigator Award, the American Asthma Foundation Senior Investigator Award,  and the E. Mead Johnson Award for Research in Pediatrics.  Dr. Nizet has been elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, and the American Academy of Microbiology.  Details of his research program can be found on the laboratory website:  http://nizetlab.ucsd.edu