Kevin Pojasek, PhD - Cofounder, President and acting Chief Executive Officer Dr. Pojasek is President and acting Chief Executive Officer of Quartet Medicine, a Cambridge, MA-based 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 was also the Chief Operating Officer of Annovation Biopharma, a clinical-stage company developing novel intravenous anesthetics, which was sold to the Medicines Company in January 2105. 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 2 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.
Annika Malmberg, PhD - Vice President, Head of Biology Annika Malmberg is a pain biology and pharmacology expert with 15 years research and development experience in small and large biotech and pharmaceutical companies including Amgen, Roche Biosciences, Élan pharmaceuticals, NeurogesX and Hydra Biosciences. Currently, Dr Malmberg serves as Head of Biology for Quartet Medicine, Cambridge, MA. Dr. Malmberg received her PhD in Pharmacology and Physiology from University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and a M.Sc. in Pharmacy from University of Uppsala, Sweden. She also performed pre and postdoctoral studies with Dr. Tony Yaksh and Dr. Allan Basbaum at UCSD and UCSF, respectively. She has over 50 scientific publications mainly related to pain research and multiple reviews and book chapters.
Mark J. Tebbe, PhD - Vice President, Head of Chemistry Dr. Tebbe is a drug hunter bringing over 20 years of experience in drug discovery and development to Quartet Medicine as the head of chemistry. Mark has expertise in the areas of infectious diseases, endocrine, metabolism, and cancer, and has delivered multiple clinical candidates within these areas. He has extensive experience with structure-guided drug design and is a co-inventor of Incivek (Telaprivir), an HCV protease inhibitor discovered and developed during a collaboration between Lilly and Vertex. He has platform based experience with Cell Surface Receptors/GPCR’s (including ion channels), proteases, and other enzyme targets and has extensive experience in lead generation and target validation. Mark has consulted in the biotech area for cancer and cardiovascular based companies and spent 3 years as Vice President of Medicinal and Computational Chemistry at Forma therapeutics where he focused on small molecule cancer therapeutics. Prior to that, Dr. Tebbe held positions of increasing responsibility during his 16 year career at Eli Lilly. He was the Head of Discovery Chemistry at the Lilly site in Hamburg, Germany, Head of Chemistry at the Lilly site in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, and managed the global operations group for discovery chemistry research and technologies in Indianapolis. He obtained his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Stanford University and his undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame.
Stephen Zicha, PhD – Executive Director, Head of Translational Sciences Dr. Zicha is an electrophysiologist and brings over 10 years of experience in pre-clinical and clinical development in neuroscience to Quartet Medicine. Most recently, Dr. Zicha held a director position at the AstraZeneca Neuroscience group in Cambridge, MA, and led multiple projects that aimed to develop new therapies for chronic pain, as well as neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative diseases. Since joining AstraZeneca in 2005, Dr. Zicha held roles of increasing responsibility and contributed to multiple projects targeting ion channels, GPCRs and enzymes. Currently, Dr. Zicha serves as Head of Translational Science at Quartet Medicine, and is contributing to the development of biomarkers that will enable the study of target engagement and patient stratification in early clinical development. Dr. Zicha received his PhD in Pharmacology and Therapeutics from McGill University, in Montreal, Canada.