Peter Parker, Co-Chairman
Mr. Parker joined Marina's Board of Directors as part of Marina’s acquisition of Cequent Pharmaceuticals in July 2010. He co-founded Cequent after two decades of very successful venture capital experience in healthcare investing. Prior to Cequent, Peter was a General Partner at Ampersand Ventures for over 15 years. While there, he was pivotal in raising 6 Ampersand funds, totaling over $500MM in capital. He focused his investments in healthcare, serving as founding investor and a Director in several firms including: ACLARA Biosciences, AC Tech, Alexis, CoPharma, Cyclis Pharmaceuticals, Dynex, Huntington Laboratories, Magellan Biosciences, Nanodyne, NOVEX, Panacos Pharmaceuticals, Pentose Pharmaceuticals, Protein Ingredient Technologies, TekCel, and Tomah Products. After leaving Ampersand, Peter also started Boston Heart Lab, BioEssences, and StemSpan Solutions. Prior to Ampersand, Mr. Parker held various senior management positions at AMAX Inc. Mr. Parker holds a B.S. and an M.S. from Columbia University.
Gregory Sessler, Co-Chairman
Mr. Sessler has served on Marina’s Board of Directors since June 2008 and currently serves as Chair of the Audit Committee and as a member of the Compensation and Nominating & Corporate Governance Committees of the Board of Directors. Mr. Sessler has served as the Chief Operating Officer since December 2008 and as the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Spiration, Inc. since 2002, and is also currently a Director and Chairman of the audit committee of VLST, Corp. Prior to joining Spiration, Mr. Sessler served as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Rosetta Inpharmatics, a leader in informational genomics, from March 2000 until its acquisition by Merck & Co., Inc. in July 2001 for $540 million. Mr. Sessler is a member of the AICPA and FEI, and he previously served on the Board of Directors of Corixa Corporation. He also serves on the Executive Committee and is a past chairman of the Board of Directors of the Washington Biotechnology and Biomedical Association (WBBA). Mr. Sessler holds a B.S. degree, magna cum laude, from Syracuse University and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
J. Michael French
Mr. French joined Marina in June 2008 as Chief Executive Officer. He became a Director in September 2008 and President in October 2008. Mr. French was Senior Vice President of Corporate Development at Sirna Therapeutics from 2005 until 2007 when the company was acquired by Merck. Sirna was well-known as one of the leading RNAi companies. Earlier, Mr. French was Chief Business Officer at Entelos, Inc., a pre-IPO biotechnology company, as well as a variety of other positions at healthcare companies, including Health IQ and Bayer Pharmaceuticals. He also served for 13 years in the United States Army and Army Reserve. Mr. French holds a M.S. degree in physiology and biophysics from Georgetown University and a B.S. degree in aerospace engineering from the United States Military Academy.
James M. Karis
Mr. Karis joined Marina's Board of Directors in August 2009. Previously, Mr. Karis served as President, Chief Executive Officer and a Director of Entelos from January 2000 until May 2009. Prior to Entelos, he held senior positions in the contract research industry, serving as Chief Operating Officer and President of PAREXEL International Corporation, and earlier, as Chief Operating Officer of Pharmaco International. He was the Vice President of International Operations for Baxter International and a founder of KMR Group, a leading pharmaceutical R&D benchmarking consulting firm. Mr. Karis serves on the Board of BayBio, an advocacy group for Northern California’s life science community. He has a B.S. in management and economics from Purdue University and a M.S. in applied economics from The American University.
Chiang Li, M.D.
Dr. Li joined Marina's Board of Directors as part of Marina’s acquisition of Cequent Pharmaceuticals in July 2010. Dr. Li was a co-founder of Cequent Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and served as a member of its Board of Directors since the company’s inception. His research team at Harvard invented transkingdom RNAi™ (tkRNAi) technology, which promises to generate and accelerate the development of a variety of medical therapies based on RNA interference. Dr. Li serves as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Boston Biomedical, Inc., a leader in developing therapies targeting cancer stem cell pathways. He also serves as the Director of the Skip Ackerman Center for Molecular Therapeutics at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center of Harvard Medical School. From September 2003 to January 2007, Dr. Li was Chief Scientific Officer, Executive Vice President of ArQule Inc. where he led drug discovery as well as global clinical trials. Dr. Li established ArQule’s R&D, which led to the successful transformation of ArQule from a world leading chemistry service business to a R&D focused company. He has published numerous highly cited articles in leading science journals. His work has received a number of prestigious recognitions, including direct election to fellow of American College of Physicians, the 2010 North American Technology Innovation of the Year Award, induction to America’s top physician, and the 2008 GRL research award (Biotechnology). Dr. Li graduated from the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Science and Technology and received his M.D. degree Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Medical School, completed medical residency and fellowship at Harvard’s Brigham Women’s Hospital/Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
Michael Taylor, Ph.D.
Dr. Taylor joined Marina's Board of Directors as part of Marina's acquisition of Cequent Pharmaceuticals in July 2010. He has been in the pharmaceutical industry for more than twenty years with extensive experience in drug discovery and development, licensing and business development, and managing R&D alliances with pharmaceutical and biotech partners. Most recently, Dr. Taylor served as Senior Vice President for Pfizer's Global R&D division where he was responsible for global project and portfolio management. In other positions with Pfizer (and previously Warner-Lambert/Parke-Davis), Dr. Taylor led discovery, and early- and late-stage development projects across multiple therapeutic areas, including Lipitor® and Neurontin®. He has authored or coauthored 65 articles, reviews, and published abstracts and holds 6 patents. Dr. Taylor earned a Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry from the State University of New York at Buffalo and was awarded an NIH postdoctoral fellowship in natural products synthesis and structure elucidation at the University of Pennsylvania.