Management Team
Scientific Team
Board of Directors
Investors
Peter D. Parker
President and CEO
Mr. Parker is President and CEO of Cequent Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Prior to joining Cequent, Mr. Parker was a General Partner at Ampersand Ventures where he focused on the firm’s Life Sciences activities. He has served as a director of numerous companies including ACLARA Biosciences, Tomah Products, VITEX, Magellan Biosciences, Dynex and Pentose Pharmaceuticals and as Chairman of Alexis, NOVEX, CoPharma, Huntington Laboratories, Protein Ingredient Technologies, Cyclis Pharmaceuticals, Nanodyne, Panacos Pharmaceuticals, AC Tech, Boston Heart Lab and TekCel. Prior to Ampersand, Mr. Parker spent fourteen years at AMAX, Inc. where he was President of Climax Performance Materials Corporation and Corporate Director of Research and Development. He holds B.S. and M.S. degrees from Columbia University.
Lisa A. Velardo
Chief Financial Officer
Ms. Velardo has extensive finance and operational experience in a broad range of private, venture capital-backed businesses. Prior to joining Cequent, Ms. Velardo served as the Director of Finance and Administration at Watermill Ventures. Prior to Watermill, Ms. Velardo served as the Vice President of Finance and Administration at Vality Technology Inc., a $20 million data quality software firm.
At Cequent, Ms. Velardo is responsible for general financial management (financial operations and reporting, budgeting and forecasting, strategic planning, cash flow management, technical accounting and taxation). Ms. Velardo is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and holds a BS in Business Administration from Merrimack College.
Johannes Fruehauf, M.D.
Vice President, ResearchDr. Fruehauf is VP, Research at Cequent Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and co-inventor of transkingdom RNAi (tkRNAi). At Cequent, Dr. Fruehauf directs the research and development of novel therapeutics based on Cequent's proprietary technology. Prior to Cequent, Dr. Fruehauf was a group leader at the GI Cancer Laboratory at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School. Prior to his tenure at BIDMC, his clinical work focused on oncology, with an emphasis on breast cancer and gynecologic oncology, where he conducted clinical trials for neoadjuvant treatment of breast cancer at the University Hospital Mannheim. Dr. Fruehauf received his M.D. from the University of Frankfurt Medical School in 1997 and completed his doctoral thesis from the University of Heidelberg in 2000.
Jens Harborth, Ph.D.
Associate Director, RNAi Research
Dr. Harborth
is Associate Director, RNAi Research at Cequent Pharmaceuticals. Prior to Cequent, Dr. Harborth was
Senior Scientist at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. where he was responsible
for research and development of therapeutics based on RNA
interference (RNAi). In May 2001, Dr. Harborth and colleagues at Max
Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry published a paper in Nature demonstrating
that short double-stranded RNA sequences (known as small interfering RNAs,
or siRNAs) effectively shut down protein production in mammalian cells,
for the first time. At Alnylam, he extended the research and was
successful in demonstrating that RNAi works in
vivo (mice and non-human primates). These results were again published
in Nature in 2004 and 2006, respectively. He received his venia legendi (habilitation) and a PhD in biochemistry summa cum
laude from Georg-August University of Göttingen, Germany.
Susie Truong
Director, Finance and Administration
Ms. Truong comes to Cequent from Leerink Swann & Company, a boutique investment bank focused exclusively on the life sciences. During her tenure at Leerink Swann, Ms. Truong worked in operations for the institutional sales trading department. Prior to Leerink, Ms. Truong held various financial, marketing, and administrative positions with Buchanan Street Partners, Harmony Software (merged with Vigilance, Inc), Crimson Ventures and Alar Staffing Corporation. At Cequent, Ms. Truong is responsible for daily accounting, human resources, information technology, facilities management, and investor relations. Ms. Truong received her masters in biology (ALM) from Harvard University. Her thesis research was conducted at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in the field of breast cancer diagnostics using HRMAS spectroscopy. Ms. Truong has an undergraduate degree in finance from California State University, Long Beach and currently holds General Securities Licenses (7 and 63).
Pamela Fekete, Esq.
Director, Legal Affairs
At Cequent Pharmaceuticals, Ms. Fekete is responsible for providing legal counsel in the areas of intellectual property, food and drug law and regulatory policy governing pharmaceuticals and biologics, and business transactions. Ms. Fekete is a Registered Patent Attorney and received a J.D. from the Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, with a concentration in intellectual property and communications law. Ms. Fekete also holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in biology.
Prior to joining Cequent, Ms. Fekete was Intellectual Property Counsel for Rembrandt IP Management, LLC and practiced law at the intellectual property and FDA/regulatory boutique firm of Frommer Lawrence & Haug, LLP in New York. Prior to practicing law, Ms. Fekete was a Senior Associate Research Scientist at Bayer Corporation and a Research Assistant at Neurogen Corporation.
Alison Silva
Director, Development
Ms. Silva is Director, Development for Cequent Pharmaceuticals. Prior to joining Cequent, Ms. Silva was Laboratory Manager at Pfizer where she was responsible for pre-approved cardiovascular indicated treatments, dealing primarily with clinical trials and regulatory issues. Prior to her tenure at Pfizer, Ms. Silva was Laboratory Manager at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Co-Principal Investigator at the Cardiac Catheterization Lab of UMass-Worcester. At Cequent, Ms. Silva is responsible for preclinical development, regulatory issues and strategic development of the clinical platform. Ms. Silva received her undergraduate degree from Clark University and masters from University of Massachusetts Medical Center.
