Management
- Richard C.E. Morgan, Chairman
- Zaki Hosny, Chief Executive Officer and Deputy Chairman
- Frank LaSaracina, Chief Financial Officer, Vice President Business Development
- Matthew J. Wyvratt, Ph.D., Senior Vice President, Drug Discovery
- Jerauld S. Skotnicki, Ph.D., Executive Director, Medicinal Chemistry
- Mark L. Greenlee, Ph.D., Executive Director, Medicinal Chemistry
- Simon K. Kearsley, Ph.D., Executive Director, Computational Chemistry
- Kevin Arnold, Ph.D., Executive Director, Genomics
- Faisal H.S. Al-Refaei, MD, MSc, Regional Director, Middle East
- Joelle van der Walt, Ph.D., Project Coordinator, Molecular Genetics
- Manish Pungliya, Consultant, Bioinformatics
Richard C.E. Morgan, Chairman
Richard C.E. Morgan is Chief Executive Officer of Amphion Innovations plc. Over the course of his career, Mr. Morgan has been directly involved in the start-up and development of more than 35 companies in the information technology, healthcare, and biotechnology industries. Mr. Morgan was a founder and Chief Executive Officer of Amphion Capital Partners LLC (the predecessor company). He was also the Managing General Partner of Amphion Partners LLC (formerly known as Wolfensohn Partners, LP) a position which he retains, although the partnership is no longer active. Before joining Wolfensohn, Mr. Morgan spent 15 years with Schroders plc, a British merchant bank, where he was a member of the Board of the merchant bank and head of the Schroder Strategy Group, which he founded. Mr. Morgan, a British citizen, was raised in Kenya and educated in England. He graduated with a B. Engineering First Class Honors from the University of Auckland, New Zealand. In 1982 he completed the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Business School. He is currently also Chairman of Axcess International, Inc., FireStar Software Inc., Kromek, PrivateMarkets, Inc., and WellGen, Inc. and sits on the Board of Myconostica, Ltd.
Zaki Hosny, Chief Executive Officer and Deputy Chairman
Zaki Hosny is responsible for all aspects of the management and operations of the Company. Prior to joining Motif in July 2006, Mr. Hosny spent over 35 years in the global pharmaceutical industry working for Merck & Co., Inc. He held senior management positions in the United States and several European countries in general management, marketing and government relations. In addition he has extensive experience of the clinical research and new products planning functions within the pharmaceutical industry, and of negotiating and partnering with private and governmental bodies. Mr. Hosny has an M.A. (Honours) degree from Cambridge University.
Frank LaSaracina, Chief Financial Officer, Vice President Business Development
Frank LaSaracina’s experience spans nearly 30 years and includes both big-pharma and biotech start-up companies, having spent twenty years with Novartis and eight years with Speedel Pharmaceuticals.
Mr. LaSaracina was a member of the founding management team of Speedel Pharmaceuticals AG, a Basel, Switzerland based biotech that developed Tekturna / aliskiren, the first and only direct renin inhibitor indicated for hypertension. Tekturna / aliskiren, Speedel’s lead program, was developed through phase IIb before being licensed to Novartis and is now available in most major markets in the world. Before becoming a public company Speedel raised over 200 million Swiss Francs (approximately US $200 million). In 2005 Speedel became a publically listed company and in October of 2008 Novartis acquired the company for approximately 1.0 billion Swiss Francs.
During his twenty years with Novartis Mr. LaSaracina held numerous management positions, first as director of finance in the US and then in various business development positions, during which time he gained extensive experience in licensing, strategic planning, and corporate development in the pharmaceutical industry. In addition, he has led complex global project teams in areas of strategic planning, business restructuring and mergers and acquisitions. Mr. LaSaracina, a CPA, started his career within the Advisory Services Group at Deloitte, providing services to clients in the retail, manufacturing and services sectors.
Mr. LaSaracina is past trustee of the Oradell Board of Education as well as Newark Beth Israel Hospital, and from 2004 through 2008 served as Treasurer of the Biotechnology Council of New Jersey.
Matthew J. Wyvratt, Ph.D., Senior Vice President, Drug Discovery
Matthew Wyvratt concluded a distinguished career of over 30 years at Merck Research Laboratories in late 2008. His achievements include playing a significant role on the teams which developed two major drug classes: angiotensin-converting inhibitors (Vasotec™ and Prinivil™), and DPP-IV inhibitors (Januvia™) Dr. Wyvratt also made important contributions to several other research projects including coccidiostats, growth promoters, immunoregulants, growth hormone secretagogues, antiobesity agents, and gonadotropin releasing hormone antagonists. Over his career, Dr. Wyvratt was associated with over 20 pre-clinical candidates and is the inventor of 83 issued U.S. patents. Dr. Wyvratt is the author or co-author of 125 publications. In 2008, he received the Duquesne University Distinguished Alumni Award. Dr. Wyvratt received a Ph.D in Organic Chemistry from Ohio State University.
Jerauld S. Skotnicki, Ph.D., Executive Director, Medicinal Chemistry
Jerauld Skotnicki spent more than 30 years at Wyeth Research (now Pfizer), with individual contributions impacting programs in several therapeutic areas including Infectious Diseases and Immuno-inflammatory diseases. Dr. Skotnicki’s achievements include the design and synthesis of novel rapamycin analogs culminating in the discovery of Torisel™ (temsirolimus, CCI-779). As Director, Medicinal Chemistry, his department led programs in Infectious Diseases, Oncology, and most notably in the Inflammation and Musculoskeletal Diseases area, resulting in the discovery of several Preclinical Candidates. As Senior Director, Chemical Sciences Interface, Dr. Skotnicki provided scientific leadership to the Discovery Synthetic Chemistry and the Physical Chemical Characterization groups, with primary responsibility for research activities at the juncture of Discovery and Development. In his most recent position as Senior Director and Head of External Chemistry, he was responsible for the Wyeth-GVKBio partnership involving 150 FTEs. Dr. Skotnicki received the Thomas Edison Patent Award (2004) and the American Chemical Society’s Heroes of Chemistry Award (2008) for his contributions to the development of Torisel™. He is the author or co-author of 65 publications and co-inventor of 43 issued U.S. patents. Dr. Skotnicki received a Ph.D degree in Chemistry from Princeton University.
Mark L. Greenlee, Ph.D., Executive Director, Medicinal Chemistry
Mark Greenlee is a highly experienced medicinal chemist who has led drug discovery teams in a variety of therapeutic areas including infectious diseases, women’s health and inflammation. Over a 25 year career at Merck Research Laboratories, Dr. Greenlee’s experience in drug discovery spanned a broad spectrum from early stage lead identification and lead optimization through the advancement of candidates into clinical development. A significant focus of Dr. Greenlee’s research was in the area of novel antifungal and antibacterial agents including enfumafungin-based antifungal agents, metallo-beta-lactamase inhibitors and anti-MRSA carbapenems. He also made important contributions to projects directed at glucocorticoid receptor modulators for inflammation and estrogen receptor-beta agonists for menopausal symptoms Over his career, Dr. Greenlee made enabling contributions to eight preclinical development compounds, five of which advanced into clinical trials. He is the author of 16 publications and co-inventor of 32 issued U.S. patents. He received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Harvard University and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Columbia University.
Simon K. Kearsley, Ph.D., Executive Director, Computational Chemistry
Simon Kearsley has over 25 years of experience in computational chemistry, molecular modeling and new modeling methods at Merck Research Laboratories. His expertise includes chemical database mining, modeling and software algorithm development, high performance computing, systems infrastructure, and the application of modeling tools to drug discovery projects. Dr. Kearsley received a Ph.D. in physical-organic chemistry from Cambridge University and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Yale University.
Kevin Arnold, Ph.D., Executive Director, Genomics
Kevin Arnold has been Executive Director - Genomics of the Company since January 2006. Previously, Dr. Arnold was Executive Director- Worldwide Operations at Genaissance Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: GNSC) in New Haven, CT. Prior to that, Dr. Arnold was Senior Director- Molecular Biology at Beckman Coulter, Inc. in Woburn, MA. Dr. Arnold brings to Motif hands-on experience in start-up management and operations, as well as in project management and the development and build-out of high-throughput genetics facilities in the Arabian Gulf. Dr. Arnold was educated at the University College of North Wales, Tufts University and the University of Aberdeen.
Faisal H. S. Al-Refaei, Ph.D., MSc., Regional Director, Middle East
Dr. Faisal H. S. Al-Refaei is Regional Director of Motif BioSciences and Amphion Innovations plc for the Middle East. Having strong relationships with prominent figures and families in the Middle East, Dr. Al-Refaei has worked on establishing and expanding Motif's business and academic ties to the Middle East as well as managing its day-to-day activities in this region. Dr. Al-Refaei has also been focusing on collaborating with Arabian Gulf-based institutions for genetic research projects.
While he is a medical practitioner by profession, with several years training in both the clinical field (in the UK and Kuwait) and in clinical governance in the healthcare field, Dr. Al-Refaei also has an MSc (Distinction) in healthcare management with a focus in quality management and improvement. Dr. Al-Refaei has also been involved with several family start-ups in Kuwait.
Dr. Al-Refaei was educated at Aberdeen University in Scotland where he received his MBChB and at the University of Wales, Swansea where he received his MSc.
Joelle van der Walt, Ph.D., Project Coordinator, Molecular Genetics
Dr. van der Walt joined Motif BioSciences in 2006 as Project Coordinator for all genetic projects. Previously, Dr. van der Walt worked as a post-doctoral research fellow and junior faculty member at the Center for Human Genetics at Duke University, Durham NC on neurodegenerative diseases. Dr. van der Walt received a Ph.D. in Molecular Evolution from the Department of Microbiology from the University of Pretoria, South Africa. Dr. van der Walt also holds an MS in Biomedical Sciences from Hood College, Maryland. Dr. van der Walt contributes her extensive experience in large-scale genetic project design and management to Motif projects.
Manish Pungliya
Mr. Pungliya is a consultant for Motif BioSciences speclializing in Bioinformatics. He has over nine years of experience in Pharmacogenetics and Population Genetics. Mr. Pungliya’s experience is in genetic data management and analyses. Prior to joining Motif, he was Bioinformatics Scientist at Genaissance Pharmaceuticals (presently Clinical Data, Inc.) working on SNP and haplotype analyses. Mr. Pungliya has published in the area of population genetics involving the study of patterns of genetic variations across different ethnic groups. He holds a Master of Science in Biology from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Massachusetts and a Bachelor of Pharmaceutical Sciences from Poona College of Pharmacy, Pune, India.