Dr. Latour holds an MD from the University of Amsterdam, an MBA from Stanford University and has been employed in the biopharmaceutical industry in a variety of positions in marketing, sales, business development and strategic planning for several biotech and major pharmaceutical companies. From 1994-1998, he served as Vice President and Director, Business & Strategy Development at SmithKline Beecham Biologicals, with world wide responsibility for all acquisitions and licensing of the $1.2 Billion vaccine division. From 1998-2002, he served in various roles in sales, marketing and corporate development with Novartis Pharma and was actively involved with the launch of two CNS products in the Netherlands. Since May 2002, Dr. Latour was active as independent consultant to the vaccine industry, advising on strategy and transactions.
Randall J. Mrsny, Ph.D., Founder and Director
Randy headed the Drug Delivery/Biology Group at Genentech, Inc. for 11 years. Previously, he spent 3 years at ALZA Corporation as the head of Peptide Biology. His research has focused on the delivery of proteins and peptides for therapeutics. He is a co-inventor of Trinity’s core technologies. He also holds a part-time Professorship in the Welsh School of Pharmacy at Cardiff University. He spent four years as an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow in Membrane Biophysics at the Institute of Molecular Biology at the University of Oregon. Randy obtained his B.S. degree in Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California at Davis and a Ph.D. in Anatomy and Cell Biology at the U.C. Davis School of Medicine.
Peter McWilliams, Ph.D., Chairman of the Board
Peter is a Principal at Sanderling Ventures , where he has worked since 2000. At Sanderling he assists portfolio companies with set-up, strategy, project management and fund-raising and has served as Senior Director of Corporate Development for several start-up portfolio companies. He previously worked at Genentech where, as a Product Manager in Oncology Commercial Development, was responsible for managing a pipeline of oncology products in clinical as well as pre-clinical development. He also previously worked at Booz.Allen & Hamilton, consulting to multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in the U.S. and Europe. Before that he worked at Oxford Molecular, where he set-up and established the US operations of the company prior to their highly successful IPO on the London Stock Exchange. He holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Princeton, an M.B.A. from Columbia and a B.A. from Cambridge University.
Philip L. Smith, Ph.D., Director
Phil joined SR One in 2002 and has been a general partner since 2003. Phil is focused on biotechnology with an emphasis on drug delivery. He is on the Board of Directors of Cydex, Inc, Linguagen, Inc, Onyvax. Ltd., OctoPlus, Avantium Trinity Biosystems and is an observer with Scynexis. Phil is also member of the Corporate Venture Group Advisory Board of the NVCA and is on the board of the Mid-Atlantic Capital Alliance (formerly the Greater Philadelphia Venture Group). Prior to SR One, Phil held positions of increasing responsibility within the Development group at SmithKline Beecham/GlaxoSmithKline (1985-2002) ultimately heading up a transnational group responsible for identification and recommendation of or internal development of drug delivery technologies for product development. From 1981- 1985, Phil was an Assistant Professor at the University of Kansas Medical Center. Phil received a PhD and MS in Medicinal Chemistry/Pharmacology from Northeastern University and a BS in Chemistry from the University of Maine.
S. Edward Torres, Director
Mr. Torres brings over 18 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and venture capital businesses to Lilly Ventures. Since co-founding Lilly BioVentures, he has led the investments in Conforma Therapeutics (acquired by Biogen Idec), Cabrellis Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Pharmion Corporation), Cylene Pharmaceuticals, Fluidigm, Serenex and Trinity Biosystems. Mr. Torres currently serves as a Director on the boards of Serenex, Cylene Pharmaceuticals, Fluidigm and Trinity Biosystems.
Prior to his role in Lilly Ventures, Mr. Torres had a diverse set of experiences throughout the domestic and international pharmaceutical businesses including operational finance, planning, M&A, business development and global marketing roles. As the founding CFO of Lilly Argentina, Mr. Torres was part of the management team that built a successful and profitable business there. He received a bachelors of arts from Creighton University and a master of business administration from the University of Michigan Business School, where he was a Consortium Fellow.
René Kuijten, MD, Ph.D., MBA, Director
Dr René Kuijten, MD PhD MBA, joined LSP in early 2001 as a general partner. He serves or has served on the supervisory boards of KuDOS (UK, acquired by AstraZeneca in 2005), DNage (NL, acquired by Pharming in 2006), OctoPlus (NL, IPO Euronext 2006), Kreatech (NL), Hybrigenics (F), BMEYE (NL) and Trinity (US) and has led LSP’s investments in Morphochem (G, acquired by Biovertis in 2005) and Zealand Pharma (DK).
From 1992-2000, René was a senior manager at McKinsey & Company in Amsterdam, Brussels and Zurich, and co-leader of the European Pharmaceuticals and Health Care Practice. In this capacity, he advised the management boards of several multinational companies on strategy, M&A, performance improvement and restructuring.
René was trained as a Medical Doctor at the University of Utrecht, Harvard Medical School and the Mayo Clinics. He completed his PhD studies at the University of Pennsylvania Cancer Center and published in medical journals as the New England Journal of Medicine and Cancer Research. He has received research awards from the World Health Organization and the International Union Against Cancer, and the Talma Eijkman Prize and the U-Gene Research Award for his scientific endeavors. He obtained his MBA degree from INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France.
