Management Team

Martin D. Cleary

Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Mr. Cleary is a prominent, high profile health care/biotech industry executive with successful and productive experience in both established and early stage companies. He has a history of providing consistent, rapid and extraordinary financial return to investors. His background also includes broad-based general management accomplishments, and a proven track record for building successful organizations. He is widely recognized as a seasoned leader and among the strongest dealmaker and fundraisers in the industry. Since 1986, Mr. Cleary has raised over $400 million in equity and partnership funds.

Previously, Mr. Cleary served as Chairman and CEO of Juvaris BioTherapeutics, a vaccine company that he founded in 2003. Previously, Mr. Cleary was President, CEO and Director of Genteric; President, CEO and Co-founder of CardioGene Therapeutics (sold to Boston Scientific); President, CEO and Co-founder of Theragen (sold to GenVec); Group Vice President and CFO of Cytogen; and Vice President of Operations at Johnson & Johnson’s IOLab.

 

John W. Commissiong, PhD

Chief Scientific Officer

Dr. Commissiong is the scientific founder of Amarantus Therapeutics. His background is in neurophysiology and more recently molecular neuroscience. He has held positions as Professor: Department of Physiology, McGill University (1079-89); Chief: Unit of Neural Transplantation, NINDS (1989-94); and Head: Neurotrophic Factors Group: Laboratory of Molecular Biology, NINDS (1994-97). While at the NIH in the 1990s, he developed the technologies that form the basis of AMARANTUS. In 1994, he received the NINDS Merit Award for research related to the molecular repair of neural tissue after injury.

In 1997, he pioneered the development of phenotype-retentive astrocyte cell line with the purpose to discover neurotrophic factors as drug candidates to treat neurodegenerative diseases, with Parkinson’s disease as the focus. In 2002, his Group discovered MANF, an 18 kDa neurotrophic factor indicated for Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, stroke and cardiac ischemia, and the first such molecule to be discovered since GDNF was announced in 1993. Dr. Commissiong is convinced that increased understanding of homotypic, bidirectional, molecular communication between astrocytes and neurons will lead to the discovery of new classes of drugs to treat clinical depression, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.

 

Bob Zimmerman

Chief Development Officer

Bob Zimmerman has over 25 years experience in the biopharmaceutical industry in both public and privately held companies. He has biopharmaceutical development experience with both small molecules and protein drugs from research through product approvals. Since 2003, he has been a consultant to the biopharmaceutical industry on drug development strategies, non-clinical programs to support regulatory filings and clinical development, R&D pipeline evaluations, and the creation of strategic plans. Clients have included start-ups, small to mid-sized biotech companies, large pharma, and venture capital firms. Prior to consulting, Bob held senior level positions at Signature BioSciences (President, COO, EVP R&D), and was VP of Research at Bayer’s Biotechnology Center in Berkeley. He previously held various R&D leadership positions at Chiron, Cetus, and Charles River Biotechnology Services. He holds a Doctor of Science degree in Physiology and Radiobiology from the Harvard School of Public Health.

 

Gerald E. Commissiong

Chief Business Officer

Mr. Commissiong is an entrepreneur, currently in the biotechnology space. In 2008, he incorporated Amarantus Therapeutics as the Founding CEO and was responsible for building the infrastructure to move its lead candidate forward for the treatment of Parkinson’s Disease. In 2007, he was a professional athlete with the Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League. He attended Stanford University, graduating with a bachelor’s in Management Science & Engineering.

 

Marc Faerber

Chief Financial Officer

Mr. Faerber has over thirty years of experience and over nineteen of those in life sciences. His experience has spanned Fortune 500 companies to start-ups, and everything in between. During the past ten years Mr. Faerber has been providing financial, business and advisory services to a broad base of start-up companies primarily in the fields of cardiology, gastroenterology, orthopedics, diagnostics and biotechnology.

Mr. Faerber has extensive transactional experience, including considerable experience in establishing international organizations throughout Europe and parts of Asia, international technology licensing and distribution transactions, mergers and acquisitions, and numerous funding transactions, including an initial public offering as well as other international business structural issues. During Mr. Faerber’s career he has held various positions in finance and corporate management including CFO, CEO and Director. Mr. Faerber started his career working for KPMG, is a certified public accountant, and has a Bachelor of Sciences in Business Administration from Providence College.