Nathan Collins, Ph.D.
Over 20 years of industry experience in the Biotech and Pharma industry, with a consistent track record of successful technology discovery and development leading to cutting edge breakthrough commercialization. Strategic and tactical experience in for-profit and non-profit organizations running large business units for growth, profitability and innovative impact.
Strong business development background capturing >$300 million in realized revenues to date, through transactions in technology partnerships, contracts, product development and licensing. Success in building new organizations and teams as well as restructuring existing ones to meet/surpass technical and business goals and achieve optimal success within targeted markets. Track record of contract wins with federal agencies such as NIH, NCI, DTRA, and most recent DARPA.
Strong background in managing drug, diagnostic and technology pipelines from target identification through clinical development for multiple programs in cancer, infectious diseases, immunology, neurosciences, and biodefense. Success in directing use-inspired basic and translational research programs for discovery of drugs and diagnostics, development of discovery technologies, and life sciences instrumentation platforms. Established my own research programs as principal investigator as well as directed integrated product development teams.
Peter Nestler, Ph.D.
Peter has over 25 years of experience in academic research and pharmaceutical lead discovery focused on the interplay of disciplines and technologies in the context of understanding and modulating biological processes. He has served in leadership roles since 1995 in academia and industry. He held a faculty position at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and led drug discovery project teams, medicinal chemistry groups, and various initiatives.
At the global level, he was heavily engaged in the Aventis Chemical Biology Initiative as the leader of the Chemical Biology Proteases platform. Throughout the years, he has been contributing to a multitude of therapeutic area projects, such as antithrombotics, diabetes, degenerative and inflammatory joint diseases, oncology, and most recently in cystic fibrosis. He has delivered various novel lead and drug compounds to the Sanofi pipeline, such as a Factor Xa inhibitor and a dF508-CFTR corrector. In the process, he was involved in and drives key disciplines of lead generation, including automated chemistry and high throughput purification, computational chemistry and cheminformatics, as well as data management and database design and programming for LIMS, portfolio tracking, and compound registration processes. He co-founded a biotech startup focusing on high-throughput screening of single-cell transcriptomeic responses.
As a Desert Angel, Peter has been supporting young companies and fostering the start-up ecosystem in Tucson and Southern Arizona. He has been involved with Tech Launch Arizona and the University of Arizona Center for Innovation as a Commercialization Partner and a Mentor-in-Residence for more than 5 years.
Fahad Al-Obeidi, Ph.D.
He is Research Professional with the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Arizona,
Tucson, Arizona. His career has been focused on protein-based and small molecule drug design, discovery and development applying both molecular modeling and medicinal chemistry principles. He has worked in drug discovery for more than 30 years in both industrial and academic settings in the development of new chemical entities from lead compound identification through to FDA approval and clinical use. When he was graduate student at the Department of Chemistry in the University of Arizona he carried out research on designing super agonist peptides for the G-protein-coupled receptor of α-Melanotropic Stimulating Hormone (GPCR α-MSH) using a combination of molecular modeling and chemical design. The outcome of this effort was the identification of super agonist MT-II compound. MT-II was licensed from the University of Arizona to Palatin Technology of New York and was subsequently modified to become bremelanotide. Bremelanotide was licensed to AMAG Pharmaceuticals for development and led to the FDA approved drug Vyleesi.In addition, while in graduate school,he was also involved in the development of combinatorial technology for the generation of chemical libraries for use in drug discovery. This technology was used to establish SELECTIDE biotech in Tucson, Arizona in 1991. His later use of combinatorial technology while at SELECTIDE led to the discovery of the anticoagulant HMR2906 (Aventis 2906, Sanofi 2906), an inhibitor of Factor-Xa of the coagulation cascade. During his work as group leader in Sanofi Pharmaceuticals led group of scientists to identify several candidates of advanced lead compounds against variety of biological targets of interest to Sanofi as exempliedin references and patents.
In the current proposal on discovery and development of oxytocin super against as pain modulator for patient treatment to replace opiate therapy without the opiate toxicity and side effects. He uses his knowledge in molecular modeling and medicinal chemistry to design and discover leads and backups candidates to support the success of the team to achieve their goal.
He has a demonstrated a record of accomplished and productive research projects in an area of drug discovery for various kinds of biological targets, and his expertise and experience enables him to successfully participate in Drug Discovery Programs based on Biologics and Small Molecules.