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Paul Sekhri
Executive Board Chairman
Mr. Sekhri has over 35 years of experience in the Life Science Industry. His experience
encompasses senior management in large corporate pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, as well as private equity and venture capital.
Mr. Sekhri is President and Chief Executive Officer of vTv Therapeutics, Inc. Most
recently he served as President and CEO of eGenesis, Inc. from 2019-2022 where he
remains a Board Member and Senior Advisor to the Chairman. Prior to joining eGenesis, he was President and CEO of Lycera Corp. from 2015-2019. Prior to this, he served as Senior Vice President, Integrated Care for Sanofi from 2014-2015. Previously, he served as Chief Strategy Officer and Group Executive Vice President, Global Business Development for Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Ltd.
Prior to joining Teva, he spent five years as Operating Partner and Head of the Biotechnology Operating Group at TPG Biotech, the life sciences venture capital arm of TPG Capital. From 2004-2009, Mr. Sekhri was Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Cerimon Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Prior to founding Cerimon, Mr. Sekhri was President and Chief Business Officer of ARIAD Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Previously, Mr. Sekhri spent five years at Novartis as Senior Vice President, and Head of Global Search and Evaluation, Business Development and Licensing for Novartis Pharma AG.
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Mr. Sekhri has been a Director on more than 35 private, public company, and non-
profit Boards and is currently a member of the Board of Directors of eGenesis, Inc.,
Spring Discovery, and Veeva Systems Inc. Mr. Sekhri is also the Chairman of the
Board of Compugen Ltd., and Longboard Pharmaceuticals. He was, until recently, the
Chairman of the Board of Pharming N.V. and recently spent 5 years on the Board of
Ipsen, S.A. Additionally, he is on the Board of Directors of The Metropolitan Opera,
The English Concert in America, and was a member of the Board of Trustees of
Carnegie Hall. Most recently, he was nominated as Chairman of the Board of Trustees
of Young Concert Artists, Inc.
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Michèle Ollier
Michèle Ollier is a co-founder and Venture Partner at Medicxi who currently serves on the board of Kaerus Bioscience and numerous portfolio companies, including Aldena Therapeutics, Villaris Therapeutics, and Nira Biosciences. Having joined in 2016, Ollier served 10 years as a Partner at Index Ventures. Investments led by Ollier include OncoEthix (sold to Merck Pharmaceuticals), Minerva Neurosciences (NASDAQ: NERV), Pearl River Bio and Palladio Biosciences (both acquired by Centessa Pharmaceuticals,) and Aegerion (NASDAQ: AEGR).
Prior to joining Index, Ollier was the investment director at Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners in Paris for three years, where she served on the board of U3 Pharma. Preceding this, she spent more than 15 years in several development and marketing positions at Sanofi International, BMS, RPR/ Gencell/ Aventis International, and Serono International.
Ollier currently serves on the board of directors of Ipsen Pharmaceuticals (Euronext:IPN) and sits on the investment committee of the accelerator and technology transfer companies of Paris-Saclay and France-Nord. Ollier completed her medical studies in France at Paris Ouest University.
Francesco De Rubertis
Dr. Francesco De Rubertis is a co-founder and partner at Medicxi. He currently serves on the boards of a number of portfolio companies, including Kaerus, Centessa Pharmaceuticals, Rivus Pharmaceuticals, Levicept, and Granular Therapeutics. Prior to Medicxi, Francesco was a Partner at Index Ventures for 19 years. In 1997 he joined the firm to launch its life sciences practice. Under his leadership, the asset-centric approach to life sciences investing was conceived and adopted.
Francesco’s prior investments include: CellZome (acquired by GlaxoSmithKline), GenMab (Copenhagen: GEN.CO), GenSight Biologics (Euronext: SIGHT), Micromet (acquired by Amgen), Minerva Neurosciences (NASDAQ:NERV), Molecular Partners (Swiss:MOLN.SW), PanGenetics (acquired by Abbott), Parallele Biosciences (acquired by Affymetrix), Profibrix (acquired by The Medicines Company), and Versartis (NASDAQ:VSAR). De Rubertis received a BA in Genetics and Microbiology from the University of Pavia and a PhD Molecular Biology from the University of Geneva. Dr. De Rubertis conducted postdoctoral research at the Whitehead Institute at MIT and is a CFA Charterholder.
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Howard Mayer, MD
Dr. Howard Mayer most recently served as Executive Vice President, Head of Research and Development at Ipsen. Prior to Ipsen, Dr. Mayer was served as Chief Medical Officer of Shire, responsible for the hematology, immunology, oncology, genetic diseases, GI/metabolic, neuroscience and ophthalmology therapeutic areas. Previously, he served as Chief Medical Officer at EMD Serono, a division of Merck KGaA. Prior to that, he held a variety of global roles at Pfizer, including Head, Clinical Development and Medical Affairs for Virology/Infectious Diseases. Prior to joining Pfizer, he served as Director of Clinical Research at Bristol-Myers Squibb.
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Howard obtained his BA from the University of Pennsylvania and his MD from Albert Einstein College of Medicine, which was followed by an internship and residency at Mount Sinai Hospital and an Infectious Diseases fellowship at Harvard Medical School. He was honored by PharmaVoice as one of the 100 Most Inspiring People in the Life Sciences Industry in both 2011 and 2017.
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Robert H. Ring, PhD
Chief Executive Officer
Dr. Robert Ring is CEO of Kaerus Bioscience. A neuroscientist by training, Dr Ring is a globally-recognized expert in neurodevelopmental disorders with over 25 years of experience in CNS medicines research and development spanning a unique arc of leadership positions in industry, governmental agencies, and non-profit research foundations.
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Dr. Ring began his career at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, heading the company’s mood and anxiety disorders discovery research. At Wyeth, he was a pioneer in the development of therapeutics targeting vasopressin and oxytocin systems of the brain. From Wyeth, Ring joined Pfizer to head the Autism Research Unit, overseeing the first dedicated drug discovery unit in large pharma focused exclusively on the development of therapeutics for the autism spectrum and related neurodevelopmental disorders such as Fragile X syndrome. After Pfizer, he moved from industry to the patient space, serving as Chief Science Officer of Autism Speaks, a global science and advocacy foundation in the autism space. There he led the launch and served as the founding president of DELSIA, the foundation’s venture arm supporting commercialization of scientific innovations for individuals with autism. He also spearheaded the creation of MSSNG, in collaboration with Google and Toronto SickKids, an open-access database of whole genome sequence data from over ten thousand multiplex families with autism. In 2015, Ring was appointed to the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, where he served for 5 years as a strategic advisor in shaping research strategy and funding priorities at in autism across federal agencies.
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Dr. Ring earned a PhD in Molecular Neurobiology from Beckman Research Institute at the City of Hope (CA), and a BA in both Biology and Fine Art (double major) from Westmont College (CA). He holds adjunct faculty appointments in the Departments of Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and in Pharmacology and Physiology at Drexel University College of Medicine. Ring has served on the scientific advisory board of numerous non-profit organizations in the rare CNS space, including the Pitt Hopkins Research Foundation, the Phelan-McDermid Syndrome Research Foundation, and Global Genes.
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