Company Growth: Thriving on Change
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Deborah Dunsire, President and CEO, Forum Pharmaceuticals

Dr. Dunsire is an industry leader who brings more than 25 years of scientific, clinical, operational, and commercial experience, and proven leadership in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. Prior to joining FORUM Pharmaceuticals in 2013, she served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc., now Millennium: The Takeda Oncology Company, from 2005 to 2013. During that period, she transformed the company into a biotechnology industry leader by focusing R&D, driving the development pipeline, fostering a culture of employee engagement, increasing the commercial mind-set across the organization, and crafting highly effective partnerships to drive the company’s growth. Millennium was acquired by Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited in 2008 for $8.8 billion, one of the largest biotech acquisitions at that time. Deborah was the first woman appointed to the board of Takeda Pharmaceuticals Limited in Japan. Prior to this, Deborah led the Novartis Oncology Business in North America, playing a critical role in the broad development and successful launch of a number of products, increasing revenues from $50 million to more than $2.2 billion. Deborah received her medical degree from the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.

Tillman Gerngross, Co-Founder and CEO, Adimab

Dr. Gerngross is the co-founder and CEO of Adimab and a venture partner at SV Life Sciences. He is also the co-founder of Kreogene, an oncology drug development company. Previously, he was a co-founder of GlycoFi, Inc. (SVLSF III) and served as the company's Chief Scientific Officer until its acquisition by Merck and Co in June of 2006. In addition, Dr. Gerngross holds faculty positions at the Engineering School at Dartmouth College, as well as the Departments of Biology and Chemistry. Dr. Gerngross has a M.S. degree in Chemical Engineering and a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the Technical University of Vienna. From 1989-93 he was a visiting scientist and later Postdoctoral Fellow at MIT.

David Schenkein, CEO, Agios

Dr. Schenkein joined Agios in August 2009 as the Chief Executive Officer and has been a hematologist and medical oncologist for more than 20 years. He currently serves as an adjunct attending physician in hematology at Tufts Medical Center. Prior to joining Agios, Dr. Schenkein was the senior vice president, clinical hematology/oncology, at Genentech, Inc., where he was responsible for leading the medical and scientific strategies for their BioOncology portfolio. While at Genentech, he served as an adjunct clinical professor of medical oncology at Stanford University School of Medicine. Prior to joining Genentech, he served as the senior vice president of clinical research at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, overseeing the clinical development of Velcade, a first-in-class cancer therapy now approved to treat multiple myeloma and non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Dr. Schenkein spent 17 years in academic and clinical medicine as an attending physician in hematology oncology at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, where he was an associate professor and held the position of director of the Cancer Center. Dr. Schenkein holds a B.A. in chemistry from Wesleyan University and an M.D. from the State University of New York Upstate Medical School.