Management Team
Luca Santarelli, M.D.
Chief Executive Officer
Christian Meyer, M.D., Ph.D.
Chief Medical Officer
Richard Porter, Ph.D.
Chief Operating Officer
Aled Williams
Chief Commercial Officer and Head of Patient Access
Jeffrey Stavenhagen, Ph.D.
Vice President, Biology
Behrad Derakhshan, Ph.D.
Vice President, Head of Business Development
Board of Directors
Thomas F. Woiwode, Ph.D.
Board Member and Chair
Stephen Squinto, Ph.D.
Board Member
Jørgen Søberg Petersen M.D., Ph.D., DMSc
Board Member
Timothy Anderson
Board Member
Hans Schikan
Board Member
Luca Santarelli, M.D.
Board Member and CEO
Luca Santarelli, M.D.
Chief Executive Officer
Dr. Luca Santarelli is the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Therachon AG as well as Venture Partner at Versant Ventures. Dr. Santarelli has more than 20 years experience in academic and industrial R&D.
Prior to joining Therachon in 2015, Dr. Santarelli spent 12 years at Roche, most recently serving as the Senior Vice President and head of Neuroscience, Ophthalmology and Rare Diseases, as well as Small Molecule Research at Roche in Switzerland. In this capacity, he advanced over 20 NMEs to the clinic and various NMEs to registration studies including ocrelizumab in Multiple Sclerosis, gantenerumab in Alzheimer’s disease, bitopertin in Schizophrenia and olesoxime in Spinal Muscular Atrophy.
Previously, he was a faculty at Columbia University and a co-founder of BrainCells Inc., a company focused on the discovery of novel antidepressants that are able to stimulate the growth of new neurons, with Nobel laureate Eric Kandel, Rene Hen and Fred Gage. He has also previously cofounded Synosia and Flexion, two of Roche’s asset spin-offs and lead the company to multiple in-licensing deals.
Dr. Santarelli completed his MD and Psychiatry Residency at the University of Turin, Italy and a postdoctoral fellowship at Columbia University, focusing on the molecular mechanisms of psychiatric disorders and adult brain stem cells. Luca’s work has been published in high impact journals including Nature, Science, Nature Neuroscience, Archives of Neurology and JAMA Psychiatry.
Christian Meyer, M.D., Ph.D.
Chief Medical Officer
Dr. Christian Meyer, M.D, Ph.D., is the Chief Medical Officer of Therachon, bringing to the company more than 15 years of leadership in the biotechnology sector.
Most recently, Dr. Meyer was the Chief Medical Officer at uniQure N.V. where he supported Glybera, the first AAV gene therapy ever approved, and was instrumental to uniQure's IPO on NASDAQ in 2014. He also led the clinical development of several additional AAV gene therapies for Acute Intermittent Porphyria, Sanfilippo B, Huntington's disease and Hemophilia B, the latter of which he led into the pivotal stage after obtaining Breakthrough Therapy and PRIME designation. Prior to uniQure, he was also active in the Rare Disease space where he held several senior executive positions at Cardoz AB, Symphogen A/S and Zymenex A/S. Dr. Meyer began his career at Novo Nordisk A/S and held numerous academic and hospital positions before entering the pharmaceutical industry.
Dr. Meyer received his M.D. and Ph.D. from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
Jeffrey Stavenhagen, Ph.D.
Chief Medical Officer
Dr. Jeffrey Stavenhagen brings 20 years of scientific leadership experience in both the US and Europe using emerging technology platforms for the development of novel biologics.
Most recently as a Senior Director at Lundbeck (Denmark) he lead their global biologics program for the treatment of CNS diseases. Prior to that, he served as Director, Molecular Immunology at Amplimmune. Dr. Stavenhagen held roles of increasing responsibility at MacroGenics.
Dr. Stavenhagen started his career as an assistant professor at the University of Dayton in the Department of Biology. He received his Ph.D. in molecular biology from Columbia University and conducted Post-Doctoral research at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington.
Aled Williams
Chief Commercial Officer and Head of Patient Access
Aled Williams is the Chief Commercial Officer and Head of Patient Access, bringing more than twenty-five years of experience in healthcare and pharmaceuticals.
Most recently, he served as Vice President and Global Strategy Head for rare gastrointestinal diseases at Shire where he was responsible for the commercialization and development of GATTEX® and Revestive® for short bowel syndrome. Additionally, he served as the Vice President and Global Strategy Head for Gaucher disease and the Global Commercial Team Leader for Hereditary Angioedema. Prior to Shire, he held leadership positions of increasing responsibility at Bristol-Myers Squibb, Novartis and Roche.
Mr. Williams holds a post-graduate diploma in management studies from the University of South Wales, United Kingdom, and a BSc (Hons) in microbiology and biochemistry from the University of Reading, United Kingdom.
Richard Porter, Ph.D.
Chief Operating Officer
Dr. Richard Porter brings over 20 years of experience working across multiple therapeutic areas in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries.
Dr. Porter spent over 14 years in total at Roche in positions of increasing responsibility, most recently as the Global Head of Operations Management for Neuroscience Ophthalmology and Rare Diseases directing the strategic and operational activities of the department.
Dr. Porter has also served as a Product General Manager of the Emerging Business Unit at Shire Pharmaceuticals, and held scientific leadership positions at Vernalis and ASTRA. He brings extensive experience at both an operational and strategic level having brought multiple projects through development.
Dr. Porter received his academic training at the University of Southampton and postdoctoral at the University of Oxford (United Kingdom) and at the University of Rochester (United States).
Elvire Gouze, Ph.D.
Scientific Founder
Dr. Gouze is the scientific founder of Therachon following her seminal findings showing the therapeutic potential for achondroplasia of soluble FGFR3 decoys.
She performed her post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical School, where she later became an Instructor in Orthopedic surgery in the Center for Molecular Orthopedics. Dr. Gouze was later appointed Assistant Professor at the University of Florida and since 2009 has been Team Leader at Inserm Nice, France.
Dr. Gouze is an expert in novel therapeutics for musculoskeletal disorders, focusing her research program on achondroplasia, a rare genetic disease causing short stature. In 2013, researchers in Dr. Gouze’s lab published a seminal paper in Science Translational Medicine that showed a soluble decoy version of FGFR3 increased bone length and reduced complications associated with achondroplasia in mice that have the same genetic mutation as humans with achondroplasia. In 2014, Dr. Gouze founded Therachon with financial backing from Versant Ventures and Inserm Transfer Initiative to discover and develop innovative therapies for rare genetic conditions. Dr. Gouze currently serves as the Acting Head of Pharmacology at Therachon.
Dr. Gouze holds a PhD in Molecular Pharmacology from the University Henri Poincare in Nancy.
Behrad Derakhshan, Ph.D.
Vice President, Head of Business Development
Dr. Behrad Derakhshan joined Therachon as Vice President, Head of Business Development in April 2017. Dr. Derakhshan brings 10 years of experience in the rare/ultra-rare disease space, most recently as a Director at Alexion Pharmaceuticals responsible for Business Development and Strategic Evaluation.
In this role, he reviewed and evaluated numerous opportunities for potential in-licensing or acquisition. Prior to this role, Dr. Derakhshan served as the Director of New Products, leading Global Commercial Insights and Analytics, also at Alexion, where he provided commercial support for both early stage development and late stage life cycle programs for Alexion’s internal portfolio as well as external Business Development opportunities.
Prior to Alexion, Dr. Derakhshan spent several years in life science consulting, first as a Senior Consultant at Easton Associates and then as an Associate Director at Navigant Consulting, Inc. Dr. Derakhshan provided consulting services to numerous Top 20 pharmaceutical, medical device and biotechnology companies, including business development/opportunity searches, corporate and commercial strategies, payer/reimbursement strategies and strategic product development.
Dr. Derakhshan conducted his Posdoctoral training at the Yale University School of Medicine and earned his Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Biochemistry from a joint program between Weill Cornell Medical College in New York and the University of Surrey, UK. While at Cornell, he was the recipient of an “International Young Investigator Award” for research performed during his graduate degree. He received a First-Class Honors BSc. with distinction in Biochemistry from the University of Surrey.
Thomas F. Woiwode, Ph.D.
Board Member and Chair
Tom Woiwode, Ph.D. has been with Versant Ventures since 2002, serving as a Venture Partner since 2008 and a Managing Director since 2014.
Dr. Woiwode has served in a number of operating roles over this time, most recently as the Chief Operating Officer of Okairos, a biopharmaceutical company developing genetic vaccines for major infectious diseases. He led the process that culminated in the sale of Okairos to GlaxoSmithKline for $325M. Prior to his role with Okairos, Dr. Woiwode co-founded EuroVentures, a wholly owned biotech incubator within Versant Ventures, and in this role, served as the founding Chief Business Officer for three biotech companies created within Versant: Flexion (public), Synosia (public, merged with BioTie), and Amira (acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb for up to $475M). Prior to his role as a Venture Partner, Tom was a Principal at Versant Ventures and served on the boards of Antipodean, Metabolex and Saegis. Tom was a research scientist at XenoPort before joining Versant. Tom earned his PhD in Organic Chemistry as an NSF Fellow at Stanford University and graduated summa cum laude with a BA in English and received the Departmental Citation for his B.S. in Chemistry from UC Berkeley. Tom currently serves on the boards of Annapurna, Anokion, Audentes, CRISPR, Gritstone and Therachon.
Timothy Anderson
Board Member
Timothy Anderson is director and co-founder of Cowen Healthcare Investments, a private investment fund sponsored by an affiliate of Cowen Inc., a diversified financial services firm.
In addition, he also serves on the board of Compass Therapeutics and the investment committee of Lagunita Biosciences. Prior to Cowen Healthcare Investments, Mr. Anderson was an investment banker in Cowen and Company’s healthcare investment practice. He received his Bachelor’s degree from Bowdoin College.
Jørgen Søberg Petersen M.D., Ph.D., DMSc
Board Member
Jørgen Søberg Petersen has been Venture Partner at Novo Ventures since September 2017.
After nine years in clinical and academic medicine in Denmark and the United States, Mr. Petersen spent 18 years in senior research and development roles in Denmark, Switzerland, the United States, France and Germany. He co-founded and built the Nasdaq-listed biotech company Zealand Pharma (ZEAL.CO), established the Immunology franchise at Merck, and has held leadership roles at Lundbeck and Novo Nordisk.
Mr. Petersen has industrial research and development experience across multiple therapeutic areas, including CNS, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, oncology and autoimmune disease, and has been involved in a number of major pharmaceutical licensing deals and alliances. He received his M.D., Ph.D. and DMSc from the University of Copenhagen and an Executive MBA degree from the Technical University of Denmark.
Hans Schikan
Board Member
Hans Schikan currently serves as Chair of the Board of Directors for InteRNA (Netherlands), Complix (Belgium) and Asceneuron (Switzerland) in addition to serving on the boards of Swedish public companies Swedish Orphan Biovitrum, Wilson Therapeutics and Hansa Medical. Furthermore, he is member of the Top Team of the Dutch Top Sector Life Sciences & Health (Netherlands).
Previously, Hans Schikan was the CEO of Prosensa, which used RNA modulating treatments to treat rare diseases such as Duchenne muscular dystrophy. During his time at Prosensa, he oversaw the listing of the company on Nasdaq and the conclusion of an M&A deal with BioMarin for up to $840 million. Prior to that, Hans Schikan held senior positions in Global Marketing and Strategic Development at Genzyme and leadership roles at Organon. Hans Schikan received his Pharm.D. from the University of Utrecht (Netherlands).
Stephen Squinto, Ph.D.
Board Member
Stephen Squinto, Ph.D., is a Venture Partner with OrbiMed who brings over 25 years of biotechnology industry experience.
Dr. Squinto was a co-founder of Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and recently served as its Executive Vice President and Chief Global Operations Officer. Prior to 2013, he was Alexion’s Global Head of Research and Development. From 1988 to 1992, Dr. Squinto held various positions at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Prior to Regeneron, he held a joint academic position at both the Tulane University and LSU Medical Schools. He is a recipient of numerous honors and awards from academic and professional organizations for his scientific work. Dr. Squinto received his B.A. in Chemistry and Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Biophysics from Loyola University of Chicago.