Board of Directors

Thomas A. Collet

President and Chief Executive Officer
Meditrina Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Thomas A. Collet is president and chief executive officer of Meditrina Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and a co-founder of the Company.

Prior to Meditrina, Thomas served as president and CEO of three early-stage life science companies which he was instrumental in creating, building and financing.  The companies were:  Rubicon Genomics, a drug discovery and development tools and biomarker discovery company; ProNAi Therapeutics, a cancer therapeutics company; and, Neural Intervention Technologies (NIT), a medical device company developing a therapy for the treatment of hemorrhagic stroke.   Previously, he was a general partner at Tullis-Dickerson (TD), where he helped manage a $40 million seed and early stage fund.  Prior to his tenure at TD, Thomas was vice president, business development at Monsanto where he helped start Integrated Protein Technologies, the Company’s internal venture for the production of pharmaceutical proteins in green plants.  Thomas started his career with McKinsey & Company, Inc, where he advised clients in Europe and in the United States on strategy and operations in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries.  At McKinsey & Company, his clients were primarily small, fast-growing, and technology-focused business units of Fortune 100 companies. 

Cumulatively, Thomas’ companies have raised more than $24 million in seed and early-stage capital since 2001 from venture capitalists, pharmaceutical companies, individual investors and government programs.  Of particular note, NIT, which was supported by the State of Michigan Technology Tri-Corridor, was recently sold to W.L. Gore, generating the largest cash return for this program since its inception.

Thomas received his doctorate in biochemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and also conducted post-doctoral research at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California.  He is fluent in English and German.

Holly Vene

Chief Operating Officer and Vice President, Business Development
Meditrina Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Holly Vene currently serves as Meditrina’s chief operating officer and vice president, business development and is a co-founder of the Company.  In this role, she is responsible for the commercial operations of the Company, including business development, commercial development, corporate strategy, finance and the legal department.

Prior to joining Meditrina, Holly founded and was a principal at Strategic Partnering International (SPI), which focused on providing strategic and business development consulting expertise to the pharmaceutical and biotech industries.  SPI clients included: large pharmaceutical companies, midsized European privately-held companies, emerging major biotech companies, start-up specialty pharmaceutical companies and generic companies.

Previously, Holly worked at Searle & Co., Inc., where she held numerous management positions during her tenure.  As vice president, European Operations, she was responsible for business development and new product planning, including a number of projects in the field of women’s health.  During Holly’s career at Searle she also held commercial positions in the US and Asia/Pacific business segments, as well as in a corporate role as Senior Director of Strategic Planning working with the new management team in charting its new direction following the acquisition of Searle by Monsanto.  Holly started her career at PepsiCo where she held various management positions in the Franchise, Bottling Group and Food Service divisions.

Holly completed her MBA at New York University’s Stern School of Business and participated in the International Management Program at HEC, France.  She received her B.S. in mathematics and French from Dickinson College.

Robert S. Whitehead

President and Chief Executive Officer
Slate Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Robert S. Whitehead is president and chief executive officer of Slate Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a specialty pharmaceutical company he founded in May 2007, and is a member of the Board of Directors for Protiva Biotherapeutics, Inc. and airPharma LLC.

Previously, Bob served as president and chief operating officer of Auxilium Pharmaceuticals, Inc., president and CEO of Prestwick Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and senior vice president and chief business officer at ZymoGenetics, Inc., respectively. 
Prior to joining ZymoGenetics, he served as president, Americas at Elan Biopharmaceuticals, where he had leadership responsibility for all commercial activity in the United States, Canada and Latin America.  Prior to joining Elan, Bob held the position of president and COO at Dura Pharmaceuticals where he was involved in the turnaround of Dura and the eventual sale of the company to Elan in 2000 for $1.8 billion.  Subsequent to that acquisition, he consolidated all US commercial operations for Elan and was responsible for $1.2 billion in revenues and $250 million in operating income.  Bob has also served as chairman and CEO at Trega Biosciences, senior vice president of commercial operations for Solvay Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and as president and general manager of Searle Canada.  He began his business career at Marion Laboratories, Inc. where he held several positions in sales and marketing.