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 where he was instrumental in creating, building and raising the first institutional funds.  The companies were:  Rubicon Genomics, Inc., a drug discovery and development tools and biomarker discovery company; ProNAi Therapeutics, Inc., a cancer therapeutics company; and, Neural Intervention Technologies, Inc. (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 managed its $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 $25 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 sold to W.L. Gore in 2006, generating the then largest cash return for this program since its inception in 2000.

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.

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, and is a member of the Board of Directors for Prometheus Laboratories, Inc.

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.