Julian Adams President and Chief Scientific Officer
Julian Adams, Ph.D., is the President and Chief Scientific Officer. Prior to joining Infinity, Dr. Adams was the Senior Vice President, Drug Discovery and Development at Millennium Pharmaceuticals. In this capacity, he had global responsibility for multiple drug discovery programs, including the successful discovery and development of VELCADE®, a proteasome inhibitor for cancer therapy. He joined Millennium through its acquisition of LeukoSite in 1999 where he was Senior Vice President, Research and Development. Dr. Adams joined LeukoSite as a result of its acquisition of ProScript, Inc., where he had served as a member of the founding management team, Executive Vice President of Research and Development, and a member of the Board of Directors. Earlier in his career, Dr. Adams served in various positions, including Director, Medicinal Chemistry at Boehringer Ingelheim, where he successfully discovered the drug Viramune® for HIV. Also, from 1982-1987, he was a Medicinal Chemist at Merck.
Dr. Adams received a B.S. from McGill University and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the field of synthetic organic chemistry. He has received many awards, including the 2001 Ribbon of Hope Award for VELCADE® from the International Myeloma Foundation. Dr. Adams is an inventor of over 40 patents and has authored over 100 papers and book chapters in peer-reviewed journals. He is the editor of Proteasome Inhibition in Cancer Therapy published in July 2004.
Steven H. Holtzman Chair & Chief Executive Officer
Steven H. Holtzman is a founder, and has served as Infinity's Chief Executive Officer since the Company's inception. From early 1994 through mid 2001, Mr. Holtzman served as the Chief Business Officer of Millennium Pharmaceuticals. In this role, at various times he had management responsibility for the Company's activities in the areas of: business development, M&A, licensing, intellectual property and corporate law, human resources, finance, corporate and government affairs, bioethics, public policy, media relations, investor relations, and corporate communications.
Prior to joining Millennium, from 1986-1994, Mr. Holtzman was a founder, the first employee, and Executive Vice President of DNX Corporation, the first commercial enterprise devoted to the development of agricultural, biomedical, and pharmaceutical applications of transgenic animal technology. Prior to DNX, in the early 1980's, Mr. Holtzman conceived of and was the founding Executive Director of the Ohio Edison Program, the nation's first state government program directed to achieving economic development through funding young technology-based ventures and university/industry collaborative research and development efforts. In the late 1970's, Mr. Holtzman was an instructor and tutor in moral philosophy and the philosophy of language at Corpus Christi College, Oxford University, U.K.
Mr. Holtzman co-founded and from 1995-2000 was the Co-Chair of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) Bioethics Committee. From 1996-2001, he served as a presidential appointee to the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, the principal advisory body to the President and Congress on ethical issues in the biomedical and life sciences. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Anadys Pharmaceuticals, Inc. He is a Trustee of The Hastings Center for Bioethics and a Trustee of the Berklee College of Music. Mr. Holtzman received his B.A. in Philosophy from Michigan State University and his B.Phil. graduate degree in Philosophy from Oxford University, which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar.
David S. Grayzel Vice President, Clinical Development and Medical Affairs
David S. Grayzel, M.D., is the Vice President, Clinical Development and Medical Affairs.
Dr. Grayzel joined Infinity from Dyax Corp, a biopharmaceutical company focused on antibody and protein therapeutics. At Dyax, he was Director of Corporate Development and Business Operations, responsible for marketing and commercialization strategy for therapeutic products in the development pipeline, including late-stage clinical trials as well as business initiatives for in-licensing of targets, out-licensing of late-stage compounds, and co-development partnerships.
Dr. Grayzel obtained his medical degree at Harvard Medical School where, working in the Department of Genetics investigating familial inheritance of cardiovascular disease, he assisted in identifying the gene causing Holt-Oram Syndrome. He completed his internship and residency training in Internal Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. Prior to his medical training, Dr. Grayzel was a Curriculum Director at Stanford University Medical Center, creating the first case-based medical ethics curriculum. He holds a B.A. with honors from Stanford University.
Steven J. Kafka Vice President, Strategic Product Planning & Finance
Steven J Kafka, Ph.D., is the Vice President, Strategic Product Planning & Finance. Dr. Kafka is responsible for corporate financial planning & analysis, new product planning and forecasting, and portfolio management. Dr. Kafka joined Infinity from Millennium Pharmaceuticals, where he was Senior Director, Finance. As leader of the Financial Planning & Analysis group at Millennium, he and his team were responsible for corporate business planning, financial management, and product portfolio strategy support. He also served as a member of the VELCADE® leadership team where he helped to establish and oversee the product's U.S. commercial strategy and operations and its global co-development strategy with partner Johnson & Johnson.
Dr. Kafka worked for several years as senior engagement manager with Strategic Decisions Group (SDG), a business strategy consulting firm, where he specialized in the pharmaceutical industry. His experience at SDG included leadership of portfolio integration efforts for the merger of two global pharmaceutical firms, establishment of portfolio strategy and ongoing management for the Japanese assets of a global pharma firm, and product development strategy projects across a host of therapeutic areas.
Vito J. Palombella Vice President, Biology
Vito J. Palombella, Ph.D., is the Vice President, Biology. Prior to joining Infinity, Dr. Palombella was the Director of Molecular Biology and Protein Chemistry at Syntonix Pharmaceuticals. While at Syntonix, Dr. Palombella focused on improving and expanding the Company's core Fc receptor-mediated drug delivery technology (Transceptor). Before joining Syntonix, Dr. Palombella was Senior Director of Cell and Molecular Biology at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, which he joined through its acquisition of LeukoSite (where he held the same title) in 1999. Prior to its acquisition by LeukoSite, Dr. Palombella held a number of positions at ProScript, Inc. (between 1994 and 1999). While at ProScript, LeukoSite, and Millennium, Dr. Palombella was involved with the discovery and development of VELCADE®, a proteasome inhibitor for cancer therapy. He also managed a number of additional cellular and molecular biology projects, including research into NF-κB regulation.
Dr. Palombella received a B.S. in Microbiology from Rutgers University and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Viral Oncology and Immunology from the New York University Medical Center. He was also a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University in the laboratory of Dr. Tom Maniatis.
Adelene Q. Perkins Executive Vice President and Chief Business Officer
Adelene Q. Perkins is the Executive Vice President and Chief Business Officer with responsibility for business development,corporate strategy and development, finance, organization development and human resources, IR/PR, legal, and facilities and operations. Ms. Perkins joined Infinity from TransForm Pharmaceuticals where she served as Vice President of Business and Corporate Development and, as an early member of the management team, played an instrumental role in building the company.
Prior to TransForm, from 1992-1999, she was at Genetics Institute, now a unit of Wyeth, where she was appointed to the newly formed position of Vice President of Emerging Businesses with a mandate to identify and capitalize on opportunities to form new business ventures. In this role, she co-founded and served as General Manager of the DiscoverEase™ Business Unit where she was responsible for building and managing an operating unit that generated a library of over 800 novel genes that encode for secreted proteins which was partnered with over 50 corporate and academic partners. She also formed and served as CEO of MetaMorphix, a joint venture between Genetics Institute and Johns Hopkins University directed at discovering and developing members of the TGF-b superfamily. She initially joined Genetics Institute in Corporate and Business Development where she led corporate and product strategy initiatives and was responsible for numerous business development transactions both in- and out-licensing technologies and products.
From 1985-1992, Ms. Perkins was at Bain & Company, an international strategy consulting firm, where she provided strategic and operational advice to clients in the healthcare industry. She managed Bain's internal strategy initiative which identified the need for industry practice areas, including the formation of the firm's healthcare practice.
Ms. Perkins holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Villanova University.
Gerald E. Quirk Vice President, General Counsel
Gerald E. Quirk, J.D., ED.M, is the Vice President and General Counsel. Mr. Quirk joined Infinity with over 12 years of experience representing biotechnology companies in connection with securities offerings and SEC compliance activities, mergers & acquisitions, licensing and other collaboration agreements, and product commercialization initiatives. Prior to joining Infinity, Mr. Quirk served in a number of progressively responsible legal and business development positions at Genzyme Corporation, having most recently been responsible for the provision of all non-patent legal services to Genzyme's oncology, biosurgery and cardiovascular divisions. Mr. Quirk began his career as an associate in the business law department and biotechnology practice group at Palmer & Dodge LLP, a Boston law firm.
Mr. Quirk earned his J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law, his Ed.M. in Educational Administration from Harvard University, and his B.A. in Political Science from Swarthmore College.
Jeffrey K. Tong Vice President, Corporate and Product Development
Jeffrey K. Tong, Ph.D., is the Vice President, Corporate and Product Development. As a member of Infinity's leadership since the inception of the Company, Dr. Tong is responsible for leading Infinity's product development teams. Prior to joining Infinity, Dr. Tong was with the Palo Alto office of McKinsey & Company, where his work focused in healthcare with projects for leading biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies in areas of new business building, technology spinouts, and venture investing. Prior to McKinsey, Dr. Tong was a founding researcher of the Harvard Center for Genomics Research.
Dr. Tong received his educational training at the interface of molecular biology, synthetic chemistry, and medicine. His previous research interest was in the area of histone deacetylase biology where he was involved with multiple teams in the identification and functional characterization of novel histone deacetylases and their macromolecular complexes. Dr. Tong holds A.B. and M.M.S. degrees from Harvard College and Harvard Medical School, respectively, as well as A.M. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University under the direction of Stuart Schreiber.
James L. Wright Vice President, Pharmaceutical Development
James L. Wright, Ph.D., is the Vice President, Pharmaceutical Development. At Infinity, Dr. Wright is responsible for manufacturing, formulation, and analytical controls in support of the development of new chemical drug candidates. He brings 25 years of pharmaceutical drug development experience to Infinity. Prior to joining Infinity, Dr. Wright was the Vice President of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Millennium Pharmaceuticals. Before Millennium, Dr. Wright was Senior Vice President of Development at Alkermes, where he led the development efforts for injectable sustained release and pulmonary drug delivery. His accomplishments at Alkermes included the approval of Nutropin Depot® and Risperdal® ConstaTM.
Dr. Wright is active in the academic community and is currently an Adjunct Professor of Pharmacy, an instructor for the Pharmaceutical Solids Short Course, and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Research Station, all at the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Wright also serves as a member of the Board of Directors for Medicine in Need (MEND), a not-for-profit organization at Harvard, working on pulmonary and oral drug delivery methods designed to treat tuberculosis in the Third World.