OUR PEOPLE

Leslie J. Browne has more than 30 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry at Novartis, Berlex, Pharmacopeia, and other biotechs in New Jersey and California. Currently, he is president and CEO of Senesco, a cancer therapeutics company focused on multiple myeloma. Browne began his industrial career at Ciba-Geigy, now Novartis, where he invented fadrozole, for the treatment of breast cancer and was closely involved in the discoveries of Femara and Diovan, which became major products for Novartis. After Ciba-Geigy, he held several responsibilities at Berlex/Schering AG, including corporate vice president Berlex Laboratories, Inc. and president of Schering Berlin Venture Corporation.

Degrees: B.Sc., Strathclyde University, Glasgow, Scotland; Ph.D., University of Michigan; NIH postdoctoral fellow, Harvard University.

Since 2001, Thomas Collet has raised more than $24 million in seed and early stage capital for several life science companies, one of which, Neural Intervention Technologies, (NIT) was supported by the State of Michigan Technology Tri-Corridor and was recently sold to W.L. Gore, generating the largest cash return for this program since its inception. Other life science start-ups that Collet has established and operated are Rubicon Genomics, ProNAi Therapeutics, and Meditrina Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Earlier, Collet was a general partner at Tullis-Dickerson, helping manage a $40 million seed and early stage fund. He also was a vice president at Monsanto, where he helped start Integrated Protein Technologies, the company's internal venture for the production of pharmaceutical proteins in green plants. He began his career at McKinsey, working with clients in technology-focused units of Fortune 500 companies.

Degrees: Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology; postdoctoral fellow, Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA.

In addition to Phrixus responsibilities, Bruce Markham serves as mentor-in-residence in the Office of Technology Transfer at the University of Michigan and on the advisory board of Cytometix. Prior to Phrixus, he was a research fellow at Pfizer in the cardiovascular area, where brought six compounds to the clinical candidate stage and was a member of the licensing team. He began his career as an associate professor of physiology at the Medical College of Wisconsin, as well as an established investigator at the American Heart Association, and trained in molecular genetics at the University of Arizona.

Degrees: B.A., Western Michigan University; Ph.D., Michigan State University.