Board of Directors

Bruce Booth is a partner at Atlas Venture and focuses on novel biopharmaceutical products and therapeutic platforms with the potential for breakthrough medical impact. Bruce has been instrumental in the creation, founding and launch of a number of new biotech startups, with an emphasis on innovative capital efficient approaches for drug discovery. He is currently chairman of Quartet, miRagen, Rodin, and Padlock, and also serves on the boards of Nimbus, Zafgen, Bicycle, LTI, and Unum. For several of these companies, he led their incubation at Atlas as acting CEO during their formative stages. He previously served on the boards of past Atlas companies Avila (acquired by Celgene), Stromedix (acquired by Biogen), Prestwick (acquired by Biovail), Proprius (acquired by Cypress Biosciences), and a number of other ventures.

Bruce serves on UCB Pharma’s Scientific Advisory Board, Shire’s Scientific Advisory Board, and Pfizer’s Healthcare “R&D 2020? Innovation Think Tank, as well as several other advisory boards for academic medical centers. He also joined Science Exchange’s Reproducibility Initiative Advisory Board, focused on improving the reliability of translational research. Prior to joining Atlas in 2005, Bruce was an investor with Caxton Health Holdings and before that, a consultant at McKinsey & Company, where he helped to build the Pharma R&D practice. As a British Marshall Scholar, Bruce received a D.Phil. (PhD) in molecular immunology from Oxford University. His work focused on the study of HIV and tumor immune responses. He received a BS in biochemistry, summa cum laude, from The Pennsylvania State University.

Dr. Corrigan is Chairman of the Board of Epirus Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. a public biopharmaceutical company, and from 2010 to 2014, he previously served as a Director, President and Chief Executive Officer of Zalicus Inc. prior to their merger with Epirus Biopharmaceuticals in July 2014.

Prior to Zalicus, Dr. Corrigan joined the specialty pharmaceutical company Sepracor Inc. in 2003 (now known as Sunovion Pharmaceuticals, Inc.) and served as their executive vice president of research and development until December 2009. Prior to joining Sepracor, Dr. Corrigan spent 10 years with Pharmacia & Upjohn, where he served most recently as Group Vice President of Global Clinical Research and Experimental Medicine.

Before Dr. Corrigan entered the pharmaceutical industry, he spent five years in academic research at the University of North Carolina, School of Medicine, focusing on psychoneuroendocrinology and maintains a faculty appointment as Adj. Prof. in the Psychiatry Dept.  He is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association.

Dr. Corrigan serves on the Board of Cardiome Pharma Corporation, Quartet Medicine, Synereca Pharmaceuticals and Pamlico Biopharma (both Acele Biopharma companies). He had served on the board of directors of Cubist Pharmaceuticals where he chaired the Scientific Committee and of Avanir Pharmaceuticals, Inc. where he also served as their chair of the SAC.  Dr. Corrigan holds a B.A. and an M.D. from the University of Virginia and received specialty training in psychiatry at Maine Medical Center and Cornell University.

Henry Skinner is a Managing Director at Novartis Venture Fund in Cambridge, MA, USA. Prior to joining Novartis Venture Fund he worked as Executive Director & Global Head Strategic Alliances, Therapeutics and Technologies at the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research where he led a team responsible for identification, negotiation and management of collaborations and licenses for Novartis’ therapeutic areas as well as technology areas. Prior to joining Novartis he was CEO of SelectX Pharmaceuticals and President and CEO of NeoGenesis Pharmaceuticals, which was acquired by Schering-Plough. He was also Director of Technology Acquisitions for Pharmacia & Upjohn and managed business development and licensing for Pharmacia’s research platforms and therapeutic areas worldwide. Prior to Pharmacia he was Director of Business Development at Lexicon Genetics. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Baylor College of Medicine in the department of Human and Molecular Genetics and earned his PhD in Microbiology and MS in Biochemistry from the University of Illinois. Henry serves on the boards of Adenosine Therapeutics, Aeglea, AMP Therapeutics, Galera Therapeutics, Proteostasis and Quartet Medicine.

Dr. Pojasek is President and acting Chief Executive Officer of Quartet Medicine, a Series A-backed start-up discovering and developing novel treatments for chronic pain and inflammation. Dr. Pojasek co-founded Quartet in late 2013 as an entrepreneur-in-residence at Atlas Venture. Dr. Pojasek is also the Chief Operating Officer of Annovation Biopharma, a clinical-stage company developing novel anesthetics in collaboration with the Medicines Company. Prior to joining Atlas in January 2013, Dr. Pojasek was Vice President of Corporate Development at Kala Pharmaceuticals, a developer of novel ophthalmology therapies, where he was responsible for the company’s corporate strategy, financing, board management, day-to-day operations, and business development activities. Dr. Pojasek joined Kala from Satori Pharmaceuticals where he oversaw the company’s development activities for the lead Alzheimer’s disease program. Prior to Satori, Dr. Pojasek co-founded and was the Executive Director of Development at Solace Pharmaceuticals where he oversaw the clinical development of the company’s lead compound, including the execution of a global Phase II neuropathic pain study. Dr. Pojasek also spent time at PureTech Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm, where he led the formation and management of several life science companies. Dr. Pojasek received his PhD from the Biological Engineering Department at MIT and his BA from the Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology Department at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Dr. Brennan joined the Novartis Venture Fund in November 2013. Prior to joining Novartis Venture Fund, Dr. Brennan spent 3 years at Vitae Pharmaceuticals as Chief Business Officer responsible for strategy & business development. Prior to Vitae, she spent 5 years at Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research in Strategic Alliances, most recently as Executive Director and Head of Strategy & Operations. Prior to Novartis, she held positions in business development and marketing at the biopharmaceutical companies, EnVivo Pharmaceuticals (now FORUM Pharmaceuticals), Biovail (now Valeant Pharmaceuticals) and Cogent Neuroscience. In addition, she was Director at Fidelity Biosciences Group, a venture capital company. She received her Ph.D. in neuroscience from Dartmouth Medical School in 1995 and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Health in 1999.

David is a partner at Atlas where he focuses on investments in novel therapeutics, often those that are near to first in human clinical testing. Since joining Atlas, David was co-founder and CEO of Arteaus Therapeutics, LLC, which was acquired by Eli Lilly in 2014, as well as co-founder and CEO of Annovation Biopharma Inc. which was acquired by The Medicines Company earlier this year. In addition, he is a co-founder of Ataxion, Quartet Medicine, and Surface Oncology where he is currently acting CEO and chairman. David joined Atlas Venture in 2010 as Managing Director of Atlas Venture Development Corp. (AVDC), an innovative, asset-centric investment vehicle that partners with Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology companies to develop preclinical and clinical stage programs through to key value inflection points.

Previously, David was a member of the Executive Team at Infinity Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: INFI) and was responsible for all clinical research activities as the head of clinical development and medical affairs, as well as co-chairing the company’s Scientific Leadership Team. In addition, as a member of the Executive Team, he shared responsibility for the creation and implementation of the overall corporate and business strategy that included going public in 2006, and establishing major corporate alliances with J&J, Amgen, Novartis, Medimmune/AZ and Purdue Pharma.

David obtained his MD from Harvard Medical School and completed his internship and residency training in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. Prior to his medical training, he was a curriculum director at Stanford University Medical Center, where he created Stanford’s first case-based medical ethics curriculum. He received a BA with honors from Stanford University. David serves on the board of Acera: The Massachusetts School for Science, Creativity, and Leadership, a STEM focused K-8 school, which he and his wife Courtney started in 2009.

Elaine V. Jones, Ph.D. joined Pfizer Venture Investments as Executive Director, Venture Capital in 2008. She is responsible for making and managing venture investments for Pfizer and currently oversees the PVI investments in Aquinox Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: AQXP; Vancouver, B.C.), Autifony Therapeutics Ltd. (London, UK), Mersana Therapeutics (Cambridge, MA), Merus B.V. (Utrecht, The Netherlands), MIRNA Therapeutics (Austin, TX), Mission Therapeutics (Cambridge, UK), Neuronetics Inc. (Malvern, PA), and Quartet Medicine (Cambridge, MA). Elaine brings 15 years of venture capital experience and a strong background in research and product assessment, built on her significant experience in pharmaceutical drug discovery and business development to the PVI team.

Most recently, Elaine was a General Partner with the venture fund, EuclidSR Partners. There, she was responsible for the fund’s investments in Acurian, Fluidigm, InnaPhase and Targacept.

Prior to joining ESR, Dr. Jones began her private equity career in 1999 at S.R. One, GlaxoSmithKline’s venture fund, where she managed investments including Adolor, Avantium, Nucleonics, Scynexis and Vicuron. Previously, she served as Director of Scientific Licensing for SmithKline Beecham and was a research scientist in SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceutical R&D.

Dr. Jones is a graduate of Juniata College and received her Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Pittsburgh.

Jay Knowles is a partner at the Partners Innovation Fund. Jay is an experienced business development professional with more than 20 years in the industry and has guided multiple early stage companies through drug discovery and development. He has been President or CEO of venture and angel-backed companies, most recently as CEO, X-BODY Biosciences, an emerging biotech focused on generating antibodies against GPCRs and ion channels. Prior to this, he was Head, Platforms, Strategic Alliances for Novartis, where he led a team responsible for creating technology-based and drug discovery collaborations, forging a number of major strategic alliances with biotech companies. Previously, Jay was a co-founder and President of Novalar Pharmaceuticals, a specialty pharmaceutical company that brought a drug from idea stage through the clinic and on to the market. He was also Vice President, Business Development, at Novacea and at Structural Genomix, and Director, Research and Development Planning at Vertex Pharmaceuticals. He has an MBA in Finance from Wharton Business School, an M.Sc. in Chemistry from UC Berkeley, and a BA with Distinction in Chemistry from Carleton College. He is a Member of the Board of Directors at Aurigene and at X-BODY, and represents the fund as a board observer at RaNA Therapeutics.