Management at Chaperone Therapeutics
Kalpana Merchant, Ph.D., President and
Chief Executive Officer
As the President and Chief Executive Officer at Chaperone Therapeutics, Inc., Dr. Kalpana Merchant brings over 25 years of scientific, strategic and leadership experience in drug discovery and development to the company. Dr. Merchant led and contributed to drug discovery and development programs at Eli Lilly and Company and Pharmacia Corporation primarily in the areas of chronic neurodegenerative diseases and psychiatric disorders. She specializes in translational strategies and technologies that improve the success rate of therapeutic development. In 2014 she retired from the position of the Chief Scientific Officer for Tailored Therapeutics-Neuroscience at Eli Lilly. Dr. Merchant has been appointed a member of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) Advisory Council and the Cures Acceleration Network Review Board for the National Institutes of Health, the Executive Scientific Advisory Board of the Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research and the Wellcome Trust Review Board. She received her Ph.D. in neuropharmacology from the University of Utah and conducted postdoctoral research in pharmacology at the University of Washington.
Maria Sippola-Thiele, Ph.D., MBA, Chief Operating and Business Officer
Maria Sippola-Thiele serves as the Chief Operating and Business Officer at Chaperone Therapeutics. Maria brings a wealth of expertise in business development and intellectual property management to Chaperone, having served as the Associate Director of the first Human Genome and Gene Therapy Center at the University of Michigan Medical Center under the Direction of Francis Collins, as Associate Director of the University of Michigan Medical Center Technology and Corporate Research Office and as Assistant Dean for Business Development at the Duke University School of Medicine. She has served as a founder and in other leadership positions in biotechnology and therapeutic development companies. Dr. Sippola-Thiele received her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Turku, Finland, carried out Postdoctoral training at the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health and earned her MBA from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business.
Elyse Bourque, Ph.D., Vice President, Medicinal Chemistry
Elyse Bourque serves as Vice President, Medicinal Chemistry at Chaperone Therapeutics. Dr. Bourque has over 15 years of pharmaceutical experience in drug discovery and development. As Associate Scientific Director at Genzyme she led medicinal chemistry programs for the rare diseases portfolio, resulting in the development of venglustat, a CNS-penetrant compound currently in Phase 2 for Fabry’s disease. Elyse received her Ph. D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Sherbrooke, Canada and completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Leeds, United Kingdom.
Ofer Nemirovsky, Strategic Advisor
Ofer Nemirovsky serves as a Strategic Advisor to Chaperone Therapeutics. Mr. Nemirovsky has a distinguished career, during which he spent thirty years with HarbourVest Partners, a Boston, Massachusetts private equity fund of funds, and one of the largest private equity investment managers around the globe. Mr. Nemirovsky served as a Managing Director of HarbourVest for 25 years. Mr. Nemirovsky earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and a B.S. in Finance from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He served as a Director of the National Venture Capital Association, and currently serves as a Trustee of the University of Pennsylvania and as an involved participant in several philanthropic organizations.
Joe McMahon, Strategic Advisor
Joe McMahon serves as a Strategic Advisor to Chaperone Therapeutics. Mr. McMahon is President and CEO of Bioventure Partners, an investment and growth advisory firm. Previously, Mr. McMahon served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of KBI Biopharma, a contract drug development organization serving over 250 biopharmaceutical companies globally, from 2005 to 2016. Mr. McMahon joined KBI Biopharma in 2002 and initially served as its Vice President of Operations and Business Development. In 2015 Mr. McMahon led the sale of KBI to JSR Corporation and in 2016 oversaw the sale of kSep Systems, for which he was a co-founder and board member, to Sartorius AG. Prior to KBI, Mr. McMahon served as Vice President with Covance Biotechnology Services from 1996 until 2002, including a role in the sale of Covance Biotechnology Services to Akzo Nobel in 2001.
