About Us

Michael Quigley, PhD

Dr. Quigley is currently the President and Chief Executive Officer of Therini Bio, having joined the company in August 2021 as Senior Vice President, Strategy and Development.Dr. Quigley has spent his entire career focused on drug discovery in inflammation and oncology, both on the preclinical and translational fronts of the fields. He is currently a venture partner at SV Health Investorsand prior to joining TheriniBio served as Senior Vice President and Head of Biology at Gilead Sciences, overseeing the company’s biology teams and preclinical programs as well as protein biotherapeutics and computational biology and bioinformatics efforts across all therapeutic areas. Prior to that, Dr. Quigley was Vice President and Head, Tumor Microenvironment Modulation Thematic Research Center at Bristol–Myers Squibb and site head of the company’s Redwood City, California location where he was focused on developing new therapies at the intersection of tumor, stromal and immune biology within the tumor microenvironment. He previously worked in oncology discovery at MedImmune and Janssen. Dr. Quigley earned his Ph.D. degree in Immunology from Duke University and conducted post–doctoral research at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Department of Pediatric Oncology.

Frank D. Lee, MBA

With over 25 years of global experience in product development and commercial leadership both in small biotech and large pharma, Mr. Lee served as Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board of Directors of Forma Therapeutics (FMTX) from March 2019 until its acquisition by Novo Nordisk for $1.1Billion in October 2022.

During his tenure at Forma, Mr. Lee transformed Forma from an early-stage drug discovery company into one focused on the clinical development of lead assets in rare hematologic disorders and cancer.  Mr. Lee led three equity financings and built a patient centered organization.

Prior to Forma, Mr. Lee served as Senior Vice President, global product strategy and therapeutic area head for the immunology, ophthalmology and infectious diseases at Genentech, a member of the Roche Group.  He was responsible for driving global development and commercialization strategy for the late-stage portfolio and for global in-line product sales of $11 billion.  Mr. Lee’s 13-year career path at Genentech included leadership positions of increasing scope and responsibility for delivering transformative medicines to patients and for driving the growth of multiple products to blockbuster / multi-blockbuster status including Xolair, Lucentis, Herceptin, Perjeta, Kadcyla, Tarceva, Tamiflu, Actemra and Esbriet.

Prior to joining Genentech, Mr. Lee spent approximately 13 years across Novartis, Janssen and Eli Lilly.

Mr. Lee received a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Vanderbilt University and an MBA from the Wharton Graduate School of Business.

He currently serves as Chairman of Catamaran Bio (private ) Board of Directors and as a member of the Board of Directors of Bolt Biotherapeutics, Inc. (BOLT).  Previously, he served on the Board of Directors of the Genentech Foundation.

Jeffrey Stavenhagen, PhD

Dr. Stavenhagen is Chief Scientific Officer at Therini Bio.  Dr. Stavenhagen is an entrepreneur and biotech executive with over 20 years of industry experience in Europe and the US.  Previously he was Vice President of Biology at Therachon where he was responsible for preclinical research and CMC.  Therachon’s Achondroplasia program was acquired by Pfizer in 2019.  Prior to that, he was Senior Director and first Global Head of Biologics at Lundbeck, leading Lundbeck’s first internal antibody programs into development for neurodegenerative diseases. It was during his tenure at Lundbeck, where he first met Dr. Akassoglou, founder of Therini Bio, co-leading the collaboration on the anti-Fibrin antibody project. Dr. Stavenhagen started his biotech career as the first employee at MacroGenics (Rockville), where he built a novel Fc engineering platform that resulted in Margenza®, one of the first Fc optimized monoclonal antibodies on the market. He has over 40 scientific patents and publications. Dr. Stavenhagen received his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from Columbia University and performed post-doctoral studies at the Fred Hutchinson Research Center in Seattle.

Leslie Schulze, CPA, CGMA

Ms. Schulze is Chief Financial Officer of Therini Bio.  She has over 20 years of accounting and finance experience, primarily as a senior biotech executive in start-up pharmaceutical R&D companies.  She has played a key role in venture capital (VC) financings, non-dilutive funding (including a government contract for up to $90M and multiple grants), corporate collaborations, mergers and acquisitions, asset acquisitions/sales, and the development of corporate infrastructure.  In 2014, Ms. Schulze founded Cornerstone Business Solutions to provide CFO-level finance, accounting, and operations consulting services to start-up biotech companies. During this period, Ms. Schulze assisted Therini Bio in raising $20M and obtaining a $3M NIH grant award, helped sell substantially all of the assets of Patara Pharma to Respivant Sciences (wholly-owned subsidiary of Roivant Sciences) for up to $342M plus royalties and helped re-acquire a drug (Quinsair) from Allergan (now AbbVie) that was then sold to Raptor Pharmaceuticals (now Horizon Pharma) for up to $418M plus royalties (Quinsair approved by CA & EMA).  Prior to Cornerstone, Ms. Schulze was co-founder and Vice President Finance and Administration at Rempex Pharmaceuticals, Inc., which was acquired by The Medicines Company for $474M (Vabomere approved by FDA & EMA).  Prior to helping found Rempex, Ms. Schulze served as Controller and Director of Finance at Mpex Pharmaceuticals, which was acquired by Axcan Holdings, Inc. (now AbbVie) for $230M plus royalties.  Prior to Mpex, Ms. Schulze was an Audit Manager at CBIZ Mayer Hoffman McCann, where she specialized in auditing small to mid-sized companies.  Ms. Schulze received her bachelor’s degree in Accountancy from the University of San Diego and is a Certified Public Accountant and Chartered Global Management Accountant.

David M. Weiner, MD

Dr. Weiner has over 25 years of experience in the discovery and clinical development of novel therapeutics for neurological and rare diseases. He started his career at ACADIA Pharmaceuticals, where, over a ten–year period, he held a series of discovery research and clinical development roles working on multiple CNS therapeutics, most notably pimavanserin which is approved for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease psychosis. He subsequently joined EMD Serono in a late clinical development role, ultimately leading early clinical development activities in neurology globally. Dr. Weiner has extensive experience in rare disease drug development, serving as chief medical officerand Interim CEO for Proteostasis Therapeutics, and as CMOat aTyrPharma and Lumos Pharma. He most recently served as the Chief Executive Officer at Amathus Therapeutics. He received his M.D. from the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, SUNY at Buffalo, was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research Scholar at the NIH in Bethesda, trained in clinical neurology at New York Hospital, Memorial Sloan Kettering, Cornell Medical Center, and did a post–doctoral fellowship in neuropharmacology at the University of Vermont. Dr. Weiner has authored over 30 scientific publications and patents and serves on multiple company clinical and scientific advisory boards, including the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinsons Research.

Samuel Barone, M.D.

Dr. Samuel Barone is a board–certified ophthalmologist and vitreoretinal surgeon with clinical development and regulatory experience across a range of indications in ophthalmology, dermatology, rare diseases, and cell and gene therapy. He was most recently Chief Medical Officer at Gemini Therapeutics prior to its merger with Disc Medicine where he oversaw the development of novel therapeutics targeting the complement system to treat genetically defined age–related macular degeneration and systemic renal disease. Prior to that he was Chief Medical Officer for Veloce BioPharma, a topical therapeutics company focusing on unmet clinical needs in dermatology, ophthalmology, and supportive oncology. He was also Chief Medical Officer for Avalanche Biotechnologies and then Senior Vice President, Clinical Development for Adverum Biotechnologies.
Both roles included supervision and implementation of the clinical development of AAV–based gene therapy products targeting unmet medical needs in ophthalmology and rare diseases. Dr. Barone served as a Senior Medical Officer at the US Food and Drug Administration in the role of retina subspecialist and subject matter expert in the Office of Tissues and Advanced Therapeutics. He is a graduate of Boston College and obtained his medical degree from The Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Barone served as a flight surgeon with the United States Air Force before completing his ophthalmology residency at The New York Eye and Ear Infirmary and subsequent vitreoretinal fellowship at the University of California San Diego.

Ken Flanagan, PhD

Dr. Flanagan is a cell biologist with specific experience in cellular mechanisms of pathogenesis across autoimmune inflammation and oncology.   Prior to joining Therini Bio, Dr. Flanagan worked at Elan Pharmaceuticals and Prothena Biosciences, both initiating discovery phase programs around novel targets resulting in clinical development, as well working to understand the biology around later stage clinical programs.  His interests over the years in biotechnology have led him to support preclinical startup companies with a strong interest in allowing the drug development to be driven by the science, where mechanisms can be explored and applied to help patients in the clinic.  Dr. Flanagan earned his PhD in immunology from Columbia University focusing on tumor immunology, and completed his postdoctoral training at Genentech researching novel mechanisms of colitis pathogenesis.

Mathias Rickert, PhD

Dr. Rickert is Director Protein Science and Analytics at Therini Bio.  Mathias is a protein biochemist with broad experience in the biopharmaceutical sector across protein expression, purification, analytics, protein crystallography, and protein design.  Mathias has a strong interest in helping preclinical biotech start-up companies to build out their protein biochemistry capabilities to support preclinical drug and CMC development. Prior to joining Therini Bio, Mathias was at Applied Molecular Transport (AMT) before it went public in 2020. At AMT Dr. Rickert established protein production in mammalian cell culture and supported drug discovery and formulation for oral protein drug delivery applications.  In 2016 Dr. Rickert joined Delinia, Inc. as second employee, a biotech start-up, co-founded by Jeff Greve and Mike Rosenblum at UCSF. At Delinia Dr. Rickert established protein production and analytics to bring its lead candidate through preclinical development and CMV before Celgene acquired Delinia, Inc. in 2017. Dr. Rickert earned his PhD in Immunology from the University of Heidelberg, Germany, and did his postdoctoral training under Prof. Christopher K. Garcia at Stanford University.

Danny Joh, Ph.D., MBA

Dr. Joh is Director, Program Manager at Therini Bio. Dr. Joh has nearly 20 years of experience in cross–functional project management in the biopharma industry. He has built his career in several San Francisco area companies including Genentech, BioMarin, Sangamo and Eidos, working on projects of various development stages and of diverse therapeutic areas. Dr. Joh earned his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Texas A&M University and his MBA from Rice University.