Our Team
Advancing today’s innovation into tomorrow’s transformative therapeutics.
Evrys Bio
ACTUALIZING INNOVATION. A TEAM WITH A PROVEN TRACK RECORD FOR SUCCESSFUL INNOVATION AND COMMERCIALIZATION.
Team
Ensuring successful translation of our drug discovery programs to ultimately address patient needs in the clinic, Evrys Bio has a world-class team with proven track record for innovation and commercialization success. We will pursue a focused business plan while maximizing non-dilutive funding. In addition, multiple pharma partnering opportunities will be pursued in parallel with internal value creation.
Clinical Advisory Board
Richard J. Whitley, MD
Rich serves on the Evrys Bio Board of Directors. At the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Rich is Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics, Professor of Microbiology, Medicine and Neurosurgery; Loeb Eminent Scholar Chair in Pediatrics; Co-Director, Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases; Vice-Chair, Department of Pediatrics; Senior Scientist, Department of Gene Therapy; Scientist, Cancer Research and Training Center; Faculty, Gene Therapy Center; Associate Director for Drug Discovery and Development and Senior Leader, Pediatric Oncology Program, Comprehensive Cancer Center; Co-Founder and Co-Director, Alabama Drug Discovery Alliance. He manages a large clinical trials program funded by the NIH and serves as an Advisor to both the NIH and FDA. He has been an Independent Director of Gilead Sciences since July 2008. Dr. Whitley graduated from George Washington University School of Medicine with an MD and from Duke University with a BS in Chemistry.
Paul Griffiths, MD
Dr Griffiths is a currently a professor at the University of London’s Institute of Immunity and Transplantation. His research concerns are the quantitative aspects of the natural history and pathogenesis of herpesvirus infections, especially cytomegalovirus in immunocompromised renal, or liver transplant patients, in addition to the potential interactions between herpesviruses and HIV. Paul’s interests are in the design of, and results from controlled clinical trials of compounds or vaccines active against herpesviruses, which when used as probes of pathogenesis may reveal the full spectrum of diseases caused or triggered by these common infectious agents.
David Thomas, MD
Dr. Thomas serves as the director of the Division of Infectious Diseases and is the Stanhope Bayne-Jones Professor of Medicine. He is also co-director of the Center for AIDS Research Clinical Core. He then completed his medical training and residency at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, before coming to Johns Hopkins as a research fellow in infectious diseases. He went on to earn his Master of Public Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. For his commitment to translating medical research into advances in the care of people living with both hepatitis C and HIV, the American Society of Clinical Investigation named Dr. Thomas to its honor list of physician-scientists in 2001.
Camille Kotton, MD FIDSA FAST
Dr Kotton is the Clinical Director of Transplant and Immunocompromised Host Infectious Diseases in the Infectious Diseases Division at the Massachusetts General Hospital. She spends the majority of her time seeing inpatients and outpatients, before and after solid organ and bone marrow transplant, as well as other immunocompromised hosts. Her interests include vaccination, travel medicine for transplant recipients, and reducing the infectious risks of immuncompromising medications. She has written numerous articles and chapters, and also speaks nationally and internationally on a regular basis. She is the past chair of the Infectious Disease Community of Practice, American Society of Transplantation, and is on the planning committee for the American Transplant Congress.
Michael Boeckh, MD
Dr. Boeckh in an expert in infections that affect patients whose immune systems are weakened by illness, chemotherapy or blood stem cell transplantation. His research focuses on herpes viruses, respiratory viruses and the genetic factors that make individuals susceptible to them. His group conducts clinical trials testing ways to prevent and treat infection by common viruses such as cytomegalovirus, respiratory syncytial virus, parainfluenza virus and rhinovirus. In patients with weakened immunity, these can cause serious lung disease and death. The team also studies certain herpes viruses that can reactivate in cancer patients long after they were first infected.
Scientific Advisory Board
Ileana Cristea, PhD
Ileana is a founder of Evrys Bio and a Professor in Molecular Biology at Princeton University. Her group has been at the forefront of bridging proteomics with virology, with a focus on defining molecular mechanisms of cellular defense against human viruses. She has developed methods for studying spatial and temporal virus-host protein interactions, has significantly contributed to the emergence of the research field of nuclear DNA sensing in immune response, has discovered the mitochondrial sirtuin 4 as a mammalian cellular lipoamidase, and together with Dr. Shenk has discovered sirtuins as broad-spectrum antiviral factors. Among the awards that she has received are the NIH Avant-Garde Award, ASMS Research Award, Mallinckrodt Scholar, and HUPO Discovery Award in Proteomic Sciences. Dr. Cristea is Past-President of the American Human Proteome Organization (US HUPO) and current Chair of the Biology/Disease-driven Human Proteome Project (B/D-HPP) of HUPO.
John Denu, PhD
John is the University of Wisconsin, Epigenetics Theme Director of the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, and Professor of Biomolecular Chemistry. His laboratory focuses on the roles of reversible protein modifications, in particular histone modifications, that are involved in modulating signal transduction, chromatin dynamics and gene expression. John is a key opinion leader in the field of small molecule sirtuin modulators; his lab has both discovered small molecule ligands and significantly advanced the field from early controversies to molecular elucidation of mechanisms of action for synthetic, natural product, and in vivo agonists of multiple family members of sirtuins. John is a Fellow of the AAAS and has received numerous honors including the American Cancer Association Young Investigator and Research Scholar Awards, and the NIH Merit Award.
Anthony W. Ford-Hutchinson, PhD
Tony has over 30 years of experience in pharmaceuticals, including an extensive tenure at Merck & Co. At Merck Frosst, Canada, Tony led teams that developed Singulair®, Cox-2 inhibitors (Vioxx® and Arcoxia®), prostaglandin DP receptor antagonist (a component of Tredaptive®) and Cat K inhibitors (odanacatib) making the Merck Frosst Laboratories the most productive discovery unit of Merck. Subsequent career highlights at Merck relating to infectious disease include the development of HIV integrase inhibitor Isentress® and development & licensing of therapies to tackle drug-resistant bacterial infections. Tony’s most recent responsibility at Merck as head of Vaccine R&D led to commercialization of 4 vaccines; Gardasil®, Zostavax®, Proquad® and Rotateq®. Tony is Chairman of the Board of Directors, MSD Wellcome Trust Hilleman Labs, Board of Trustees, and President, Merck Genome Research Institute.
Peter S. DiStefano, PhD
Pete is Chief Scientific Officer at Zebra Biologics, Inc. He has over 25 years of experience in pharma and biotech including discovering and developing sirtuin modulators as CSO & Sr. Vice President of R&D at Elixir Pharmaceuticals. Elixir’s selisistat (licensed to Siena Biotech) is the only 1st generation synthetic sirtuin modulator still actively pursued in the clinic for the treatment of Huntington’s. Pete founded and currently serves on the Board of Directors of Acylin Therapeutics, a biotech start-up focused on histone acetyltransferases. He received his Ph.D. in Pharmacology from Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse and performed his post-doctoral training at Washington University in St. Louis. He has co-authored over 100 manuscripts, reviews and book chapters and is a co-inventor on 12 issued patents.
Alan Goldberg, PhD
Alan has over 40 years experience in the pharmaceutical industry (e.g. Pharmacia, USV Pharmaceuticals, DuPont Pharma and Endo Pharmaceuticals). He also worked for IAVI, a non-profit focused on development of vaccines for HIV. Most recently, Alan worked as a consultant for the U.S. government Department of Human and Health Services in the Biological Advanced R&D Administration (BARDA) focusing on Strategic Science and Technology. At BARDA, Alan contributed to several project teams focused on development of new therapeutics and vaccines for treatment and prevention of serious illness due to infection and exposure to chemical, biological and nuclear threats. He currently provides part-time assistance to CARB-X (at BARDA), a public/private initiative aimed at supporting R&D of products for amelioration of the problems associated with bacterial infections which are resistant to available antibiotics. Alan has advanced degrees in both Chemistry and Business.
Bruce Maryanoff, Ph.D
Dr. Bruce E. Maryanoff retired from Johnson & Johnson company in 2010. While at J&J he rose to the highest scientific position, Distinguished Research Fellow. He retired in 2010, after 36 years of service, and is now affiliated with The Scripps Research Institute (La Jolla, CA), the Baruch S. Blumberg Institute (Doylestown, PA), and the Pennsylvania Drug Discovery Institute (Doylestown). Dr. Maryanoff has made numerous contributions in medicinal and organic chemistry. He is an internationally renowned expert in drug design and drug discovery. From 1976−1992, he worked on central nervous system therapeutics, with a focus on anticonvulsants and antidepressants. Dr. Maryanoff discovered and championed TOPAMAX® topiramate, a unique sugar sulfamate compound, which was marketed for treating epilepsy and migraine headache, and achieved peak sales of nearly $3 billion/year.
Eric Hanson, MD, MPH
Eric is a former U.S. Air Force (USAF) Senior Flight Surgeon. He served as the Division Chief for Science & Technology and the Chief of Operational Biotechnology and Genomics at the USAF Surgeon General’s office where he performed technology assessments, research oversight and funding prioritization. In this position, he also served as the USAF programmatics lead for the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP). Dr. Hanson has been awarded over $68 million in research grants as a principal investigator. He has four books, two dozen peer-reviewed articles and eight patents. His extensive operational experiences and business experience has trained Dr. Hanson to identify and systematically assess and advocate for dual-use biomedical/human weapon system technologies that will benefit our warfighters, Veterans and their families.
Tage Honoré, PhD, DSc
Tage is President and CEO of Aestus Therapeutics. He has a distinguished career in pharmaceutical research, as Vice President of CNS Research at Novartis, Novo Nordisk, and Purdue Pharma, contributing to more than 35 new molecular entities entering clinical development with 4 currently marketed. Tage was a pioneer in the Excitatory Amino Acid Receptor field and has an extensive record in the progression and understanding of this central neuronal pathway. He brings a passion for and skill in interacting with people of different cultures, implementing new organizational models demonstrating record pipeline productivity across every organization he has led. Tage has both a Doctor of Philosophy in Medicinal Chemistry and a Doctor of Science in Neurobiology from the Royal Danish School of Pharmacy in Denmark.
Micah A. Luftig, PhD
Associate Professor and Vice Chair, Molecular Genetics and Microbiology
Associate Professor of Medicine
Duke University School of Medicine
The Luftig laboratory uses cutting-edge approaches to characterize Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection, aiming to discover fundamental molecular circuits underlying transcriptional control, viral manipulation of host signaling pathways, and metabolic regulation that collectively influence infected cell fate decisions. This virus is acquired early in life and latently infects virtually all adults worldwide. In the immune suppressed, EBV promotes lymphomas in the B cells that it naturally infects. It can also infect epithelial cells and other lymphocytes contributing to human cancers as wide-ranging as nasopharyngeal and gastric carcinoma to aggressive NK/T-cell, Burkitt, and Hodgkin lymphomas.
Eain A. Murphy, PhD
Eain previously served as Associate Professor in the Department of Molecular Medicine, Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University and an Associate Professor of Immunology, Division of Infectious Disease at the Cleveland Clinic. He joined Evrys Bio full-time from July 2015 to June 2019. Currently, Dr. Murphy has returned to academia as Associate Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, NY. He continues to serve on our Scientific Advisory Board, maintaining close contact with the team he built at the company. Dr. Murphy is an expert virologist and principal investigator with special emphasis on viral latency and translational science. He is an associate editor at PLoS Pathogens, and on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Virology.
Liudi Tang, PhD
Dr. Liudi Tang is a virologist and recently appointed as Assistant Professor of Experimental Therapeutics at the Baruch S. Blumberg Institute. Dr. Tang’s laboratory focuses on investigating virus-host interactions that facilitate the release of hepatitis B virus (HBV) relaxed circular (rc) DNA from viral nucleocapsid, to convert into the covalent closed circular (ccc) DNA in the nucleus, as well as developing novel gene editing technologies to cure chronic Hepatitis B, a disease that affects more than 250 million people and claims appropriately 1 million lives per year. Dr. Tang received his PhD at Drexel University in 2019, and joined Evrys Bio as a postdoctoral fellow from 2019 to 2022.
Business Advisory Board
Yuwen Liu
Yuwen has observer status on the Evrys Bio Board of Directors. She is the Founding Partner of BOHE Angel Fund, a 200 Million RMB (28 Million USD) fund jointly invested by Wuxi Apptec, Hengrui, Simcere, TigerMed and BGI,etc. This was the first angel fund focusing on healthcare technology-driven start-ups in China. Xiaodong Wang and Yigong Shi sit on the scientific advisory board. BOHE has also invested into companies covering drug discovery, diagnostic and innovative service solutions. Prior to BOHE Yuwen was Chairwoman & CEO then executive director of Suzhou Industrial Park Biotech Development Co. Ltd. (BioBAY) for 9 years. During this time she was also Investment Committee Member for BioVENTURE Fund, and Board Director of Innovent, Admera Health, Chiral Quest, GenePharma, Reproposing and BrightGene, and Chairwoman of Qiagen (Suzhou) Translational Medicine and Suzhou BioTOP Biotech.
Debra Yu MD
Debra Yu is a Partner and Chief Operating Officer of Panacea Venture. Debra has over 30 years of experience in the healthcare industry and has worked in US, Europe and China. She has held leadership roles in venture capital, investment banking, business development, alliance management and strategy. Previously, she was President and Chief Strategy Officer of LianBio and Managing Director Cross-border Investment Banking at China Renaissance where she built key activities and was instrumental in creating first-of-its-kind strategic transactions. She founded Labrador Advisors, a business development advisory firm where she worked with small biotech and MedTech companies, as well as multinational pharma companies. Earlier in her career, she helped to architect and co-lead Pfizer’s corporate venture group and was a General Partner at Bay City Capital and Delphi Ventures, two leading Bay area life science venture capital firms. Debra began her career at McKinsey and Morgan Stanley.
Debra holds an M.D. from Harvard Medical School and a B.A. degree in molecular biology from Princeton University.
Steven Holtzman, B.Phil
Steven Holtzman is a non-voting member of the Evrys Bio Board of Directors. Most recently he has was the president and CEO of Decibel Therapeutics. Prior to Decibel, he served as executive VP, corporate development at Biogen, Inc., where he led eight new drug approvals. Previously, Steve was the founder, chief executive officer and board chair of Infinity Pharmaceuticals, Inc. He was also an early leader and the chief business Officer of Millennium Pharmaceuticals (now Takeda Oncology), and was a founder, board member and executive VP of DNX Corporation. He was appointed by President Clinton to the National Bioethics Advisory Commission and also served as a member and vice chair of the board of the Hastings Center for the Life Sciences.
Brian Pusch, Esq.
Brian is Evrys Bio’s external corporate counsel. He is Secretary and non-voting member of the Evrys Bio Board of Directors. Brian has advised biotechnology and other life science companies and their investors on corporate, financing and strategic matters for more than 25 years. This work has included venture capital, life science investment and hedge funds, and Medicis Pharmaceutical Corporation (Dynacin®, Restylane®), ImClone Systems, Inc. (Erbitux®), Cadus Pharmaceutical Corporation, Merlin Pharmaceutical Corporation, Cephalon, Inc. (Provigil®), SUGEN, Inc. (Sutent®, Crizotinib®), Plexxikon, Inc. (ZELBORAF®) and Kolltan Pharmaceuticals, Inc., where he served on the Board of Directors. He is a partner at Pusch & Gal, a boutique New York City law firm.
Bob Drakas, PhD
Dr. Drakas has observer status on the Evrys Bio Board of Directors. He is Vice President of ShangPharma Innovation. He previously served as the senior director of Business Development at ChemPartner Inc., a leading research organization providing services for the biopharmaceutical industry. Earlier in his career, Dr. Drakas served as senior analyst and senior research biochemist at Merck. He received a B.S. degree in biology from the University of Scranton, an M.S. in biochemistry from Drexel University and a Ph.D. in molecular pharmacology from Thomas Jefferson University.
Raman Kapur, MBA
Raman is an investor advisor of Evrys Bio. He served as the President of Warrick Pharmaceuticals, U.S.A., a division of Schering Plough Corporation. He has also served as President of Schering Plough’s Worldwide Generics business and before that as President of its worldwide Animal Health operations. He joined Schering-Plough as a Financial Analyst in 1975 serving in progressively more responsible finance, marketing and general management positions in the U.S. and internationally through 2005.
Sam Wu, MD PhD
Sam Wu is a founding Managing Director of Acuris Partners, a biotechnology-focused venture capital firm. He has over 17 years of experience in life science venture capital, and has invested in and/or served on the boards of over 25 startup and later stage biotechnology and medical device companies including Applied Genomic Technologies Corp (NASDAQ:AGTC), Ocular Therapeutix (NASDAQ:OCUL), Sapphire Therapeutics (acquired by Helsinn), Confluent Surgical (acquired by Tyco), and CHF Solutions (acquired by Gambro). Prior to Acuris, he was a Managing Director with MedImmune Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of AstraZeneca, and before that, a Principal with SV Health Investors, a healthcare-focused venture capital firm with over $1 billion under management.
