Board of Directors

Nick Leschly

Third Rock Ventures

Nick Leschly joined Third Rock Ventures in 2007 and plays an integral role in the overall formation, development and business strategy of its therapeutic portfolio companies as well as identifying and evaluating new investments.  He also assumes active leadership roles in Third Rock's portfolio companies, functioning as interim COO/CBO through the first 12-18 months post launch. Nick has extensive business experience with proven leadership and operational skills having led successful development and operations across a variety of emerging and established biotech companies. Prior to joining Third Rock, Nick served as the product and alliance leader for Millennium Pharmaceuticals VELCADE™, managing a $100M+ global development plan. Nick also founded and served as CEO of MedXtend Corporation. Nick holds a BS in Molecular Biology from Princeton University and an MBA from Wharton Business School. Nick is the Founder and Chairman of The CAVU Foundation. He serves on the Board of Edimer Pharmaceuticals and was former interim Chief Business Officer of Agios Pharmaceuticals.

Geert-Jan Mulder, M.D.

Forbion Capital Partners

Geert-Jan Mulder, General Partner at Forbion Capital Partners, is an MD and accredited Pharmaceutical Physician. Before joining the pharmaceutical industry, he gained his clinical experience at the University Medical Center of Utrecht (UMC) in the field of Obstetrics and Gynecology. He then joined Searle (now Pfizer) as Medical Adviser in the field of arthritis and pain (COX-2 technology) and worked on the local and European positioning of celecoxib. After working at Searle, he joined Byk Gulden (now Nycomed) where his department was responsible for clinical development in The Netherlands dealing with the design and execution of numerous corporate clinical trials in the fields of Gastroenterology, Respiratory (asthma and COPD), Intensive Care Medicine and Imaging. On corporate level, he served as a member of the Global Medical Marketing group of the Respiratory franchise. Besides taking an active role in the Forbion Capital Partners investment process, he serves on a number of boards and assists portfolio companies in their clinical development programs and overall strategy.

Axel Polack, Ph.D.

TVM Capital

Dr. Axel Polack joined TVM Capital in 2000, and is a General Partner for life sciences in the firm’s Munich office. He currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Noxxon Pharma AG (Berlin, Germany) and is a member of the Board of Genetix Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Dr. Polack’s main scientific fields of expertise are molecular and viral oncology, oncogene activation, gene regulation and molecular immunology. He works intensively on the assessment of new investment opportunities in those areas, while also providing support to existing portfolio companies. Before joining TVM Capital, Dr. Polack was General Manager of Innovative Technologies Neuherberg GmbH (ITN - now known as Ascenion). Ascenion acts as a marketing partner to research institutions of the Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft, for example, GSF - National Research Center for Environment and Health GmbH, which licenses patents and fosters start-up companies. In the eight years prior to Ascenion, Dr. Polack was the deputy head of the GSF – Institute of Clinical Molecular Biology. He holds a doctorate summa cum laude in medicine from the University of Freiburg and a Second Thesis (postdoctoral lecture qualification “Habilitation”) in the field of virology. Dr. Polack is also a member of the board of the German Vaccine Research Foundation (Hanover). Dr. Polack’s doctoral thesis was honored with the Goedecke Research prize for outstanding fundamental research in medicine. In 1995 he was appointed assistant professor/private lecturer (“PD”) by the Ludwig-Maximilian-University in Munich. Since 1984 he has co-authored more than 50 publications in peer review journals.

James Geraghty

Genzyme Corporation

James Geraghty joined Genzyme in 1992. He is responsible for managing the cardiovascular business unit, including current programs as well as product acquisition and partnering transactions. He led Genzyme’s acquisition of SangStat Medical Corporation in 2003 and has also served as president of Genzyme Europe. Prior to joining Genzyme, Mr. Geraghty was vice president of marketing and strategic planning for Baxter/Caremark International. He has also worked as a consultant on international health care strategy at Bain and Company. Mr. Geraghty has a J.D. from Yale Law School, an M.S. from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.A. from Georgetown University.