Senior Management
- Thomas J. Schall, Ph.D., President and CEO
- Markus J. Cappel, Ph.D., Chief Business Officer
- Susan M. Kanaya, Senior Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer
- Juan Jaen, Ph.D., Senior Vice President, Drug Discovery
- Maureen Howard, Ph.D., Vice President of Research
- Petrus (Pirow) Bekker, M.D., Ph.D., Vice President, Medical and Clinical Affairs
Thomas J. Schall, Ph.D.
President and CEO
One of the earliest investigators in the field of chemokine biology, Dr. Schall founded ChemoCentryx in 1997 to focus on the discovery and development of chemokine-based therapeutics. Prior to founding ChemoCentryx, Dr. Schall spent several years at a division of Schering Plough, the DNAX Research Institute, where he made fundamental contributions to the understanding of chemokines and their receptors in human in disease. Before that Dr. Schall served for some years as a scientist with Genentech, Inc. During his scientific career, Dr. Schall published over 100 book chapters and articles in noted peer-reviewed journals. In his business capacity, Dr. Schall has led ChemoCentryx through several rounds of major private equity and business development investment (>$150 million in total), in addition to raising significant amounts of non-dilutive funding (in excess of $24 million) through such sources as DARPA and the NIH / NIAID. He has overseen the company's development of a wide pipeline of drug candidates in clinical trials and preclinical development. Dr. Schall received his Ph.D. in Cancer Biology at Stanford University.
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Markus J. Cappel, Ph.D.
Chief Business Officer
Dr. Cappel has extensive expertise in forming strategic alliances with major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Prior to joining ChemoCentryx, Dr. Cappel served as Vice President of Business Development at Alkermes, Inc., where he was responsible for the company's AIR pulmonary drug delivery platform. While there, he contributed to forging two major alliances with Eli Lilly, a multi-product deal with GlaxoSmithKline and an exclusive development partnership with MedImmune.
Previously, he was Director of Business Development with Millennium Pharmaceuticals, where he was responsible for negotiating drug discovery partnerships with large pharmaceutical companies. Dr. Cappel was also Director of Business Development with Cygnus Corporation, responsible for partnering activities in Europe and Japan.
Dr. Cappel received his B.S. in Pharmacy and a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutics from J.W. Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany, as well as an MBA from Harvard Business School.
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Susan M. Kanaya
Senior Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer
Ms. Kanaya joins ChemoCentryx from publicly-traded Kosan Biosciences where she served as Senior Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer. There she was responsible for all financial and accounting operations, investor and public relations, information technology and other corporate-related matters. Among her accomplishments at Kosan Ms. Kanaya was instrumental in securing more than $165 million in equity and debt financing, including an $80 million initial public offering.
Prior to joining Kosan in 1999 Ms. Kanaya was at SUGEN, Inc. (acquired by Pharmacia, and in turn Pfizer) since 1994, most recently as Vice President, Finance. Prior to SUGEN Ms. Kanaya served as a controller with two high technology companies and as a Supervising Senior at KPMG. Ms. Kanaya is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley.
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Juan Jaen, Ph.D.
Senior Vice President, Drug Discovery
Dr. Jaen joins ChemoCentryx with more than 20 years expertise in drug discovery, chemistry and preclinical development across a number of therapeutic areas. Most recently, he served as Vice President of Chemistry at Tularik and then Amgen (following Tularik's acquisition by Amgen in 2004). During his ten-year tenure there, Dr. Jaen was instrumental in building a highly efficient drug discovery organization that delivered eight small molecule candidates into clinical development. In addition to his leadership role in shaping Tularik's research portfolio, Dr. Jaen was responsible for various aspects of the company's preclinical and clinical development projects and led a number of Tularik's multiple corporate research collaborations. Prior to Tularik, Dr. Jaen spent 13 years at Parke-Davis/Warner-Lambert, most recently Chemistry Director, with responsibility for the neurodegenerative disease research area.
Dr. Jaen holds a Ph.D. degree in Organic Chemistry from the University of Michigan. He is an author on more than 60 scientific publications and is an inventor on 39 issued U.S. patents.
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Maureen Howard, Ph.D.
Vice President of Research
Dr. Howard has 20 years of industry experience specializing in the fields of inflammation and autoimmunity. Prior to joining ChemoCentryx she directed several important programs from discovery research into clinical development while serving as Vice President and Director of Research and Development at Corixa Corporation. While there, she led her department through preclinical development and clinical trial interface for several promising new therapeutics focused on the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis.
Prior to her time with Corixa, Dr. Howard was founding Director of the Immunology Department at the DNAX Research Institute in California, where she established a research team that made seminal discoveries in T cell regulation of the immune system.
Dr. Howard received her Ph.D. at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Australia, later training with Dr. William Paul, Chief of the Laboratory of Immunology in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease at the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Howard is credited with the discovery of the immunoregulator interleukin 4 (IL-4) and played a key role in the discovery of anti-inflammatory agent interleukin 10 (IL-10). Dr. Howard has published her research in the area of immune system therapeutics in journals including Science, Cell and Immunity.
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Petrus (Pirow) Bekker, M.D., Ph.D.
Vice President, Medical and Clinical Affairs
Dr. Bekker brings more than fifteen years of clinical development expertise. Prior to joining ChemoCentryx, Dr. Bekker was Senior Director of Global Safety for Amgen, overseeing all aspects of product safety worldwide, and also served as Senior Director of Clinical Development and Director of Clinical Development, where he was responsible for programs in inflammation, bone metabolism and neurology programs at all stages of development from preclinical to post-marketing. While at Amgen, Dr. Bekker led the development and facilitated the approvals of several Amgen products, including Enbrel® and Kineret® and contributed to the evaluation of in-licensing candidates for the company.
Previous to his tenure at Amgen, Dr. Bekker spent nearly seven years at Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals where he played a key role in the clinical development of the osteoporosis drug Actonel®.
Dr. Bekker received his medical training in his native South Africa, and his Ph.D. in molecular biology from Penn State University.
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