OUR PEOPLE
Management
Thomas A. Collet, President, CEO, and Co-founder Phrixus Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
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.
Bruce Markham, Chief Scientific Officer, VP R&D, and Co-founder Phrixus Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
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.
James Symons, VP Clinical and Regulatory Affairs
As a member of the University of Michigan School of Public Health's Epidemiology Department, James Symons conducted and analyzed data collected in large, longitudinal programs. He began his clinical career at Parke-Davis, later Pfizer, where he had primary responsibility for a number of programs that resulted in New Drug Application (NDA) approvals and led efforts for the submission of additional NDAs in the areas of asthma and vaginal atrophy. Symons began his career at the Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, ME, where he conducted research in behavior genetics and he was part of the first program granted funds to develop mouse models of aging.
Degrees: M.S. physiological psychology, M.S. biostatistics and research design, Ph.D. epidemiologic science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
