Stanley T. Crooke, M.D., Ph.D.

Dr. Crooke is Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Isis Pharmaceuticals.  Isis is a development stage biopharmaceutical company that is focused on a new paradigm in drug discovery, antisense oligonucleotides.  Since Dr. Crooke and his colleagues founded Isis in 1989, the Company has completed its initial public offering in May 1991, and has reported broad progress in antisense technology and its rapid conversion to therapeutic product opportunities.  Isis was the first company to commercialize an antisense drug and has achieved a number of important corporate collaborative relationships.  In 2006, Dr. Crooke was named in Nature Biotechnology as one of biotechnology’s influential individuals.

Dr. Crooke is currently a member of the San Diego State University BioScience Center Scientific Advisory Board, the Current Drugs Advisory Board, and the Editorial Board of Gene Therapy and Molecular Biology.  He is also Editor-in-Chief of Current Opinion in Anticancer Drugs and Section Editor for Biologicals and Immunologicals for Expert Opinion on Investigational Drugs.

Prior to founding Isis, Dr. Crooke was President of Research and Development for SmithKline Beckman Corporation (SKB).  He also coordinated the research and development activities of SKB including its instruments, diagnostics, animal health and clinical laboratory businesses.

Prior to joining SKB, Dr. Crooke helped establish the anticancer drug discovery and development program at Bristol Myers, which succeeded in bringing to market a significant number of drugs.

During his career, Dr. Crooke has supervised the development of 19 drugs currently on the market and others in development.  In addition to his involvement in the pharmaceutical industry, Dr. Crooke also maintains active academic positions.  He is an adjunct professor at San Diego State University, and has won a number of teaching awards.  He has authored over 400 publications and has edited 20 books.  Dr. Crooke is active in molecular and cellular biology and pharmacology of antisense oligonucleotides.

Dr. Crooke received his M.D. and Ph.D. from Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas and his B.S. in Pharmacy from Butler University, Indianapolis, Indiana.

B. Lynne Parshall, J.D.

Ms. Parshall is Director, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer of Isis Pharmaceuticals. She is responsible for overseeing the operations of finance, legal, patents, manufacturing, and business development and is also very involved in the Company’s corporate communications activities.  Ms. Parshall joined Isis in November 1991. Previously, Ms. Parshall was a Partner with the firm of Cooley Godward LLP, now Cooley Godward Kronish LLP, where she represented several health care companies in a general practice specializing in corporate partnering and other technology-based transactions.

Ms. Parshall received her J.D. at Stanford Law School, Stanford, California and her B.A. from Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Ms. Parshall is currently on the board of CardioDynamics International Corporation and is a Trustee of The Bishop School in La Jolla. Ms. Parshall is also a member of the Licensing Executives Society and a member of the American, California, and San Diego bar associations.

 

C. Frank Bennett, Ph.D.

Dr. Bennett is Senior Vice President of Research at Isis Pharmaceuticals. He is responsible for preclinical antisense drug discovery research. Dr. Bennett is one of the founding members of the company. He has been involved in the development of antisense oligonucleotides as therapeutic agents, including research on the application of oligonucleotides for inflammatory and cancer targets, oligonucleotide delivery and pharmacokinetics. He also runs the company's antisense mechanism program which is focused on the development of RNase H, RNAi, micro-RNA and splicing. Dr. Bennett has published more than 90 papers in the field of antisense research and development and has more than 100 issued U.S. patents.

Prior to joining Isis, Dr. Bennett was Associate Senior Investigator in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology at Smith Kline and French Laboratories, GlaxoSmithKline (currently, GlaxoSmithKline).

Dr. Bennett received his B.S. degree in Pharmacy from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico and his Ph.D. in Pharmacology from Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas. Dr. Bennett performed his postdoctoral research in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology at Smith Kline and French Laboratories, where he studied the signal transduction pathway of leukotrienes.

 

Richard S. Geary, Ph.D.

Dr. Geary is Senior Vice President of Development at Isis Pharmaceuticals. He is responsible for preclinical and clinical development of antisense drugs. Since joining Isis in 1995, Dr. Geary has been involved in discovery and development including the regulatory submission of more than ten investigational new drug applications to U.S. and other regulatory agencies. During his tenure at Isis, he has authored or coauthored ten book chapters and more than 40 peer-reviewed manuscripts, which form a body of work that fully characterize the pharmacokinetics and metabolism of antisense drugs and the relationship of drug concentrations to activity and safety.

Prior to joining Isis, Dr. Geary was Senior Research Scientist and Group Leader for the bioanalytical and preclinical pharmacokinetics group in the Applied Chemistry Department at Southwest Research Institute. Dr. Geary received his Ph.D. in Biopharmaceutics from the University of Texas, College of Pharmacy, Austin, Texas and his B.S. in Biology from Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas.

 

David J. Ecker, Ph.D.

Dr. Ecker is a co-founder of Isis Pharmaceuticals and currently serves as Vice President of Isis and Chief Scientific Officer of Ibis Biosciences, Inc., a majority-owned subsidiary of Isis. He oversees all areas of the business including the Ibis T5000 Biosensor System and related biodefense initiatives, emerging infectious disease identification technology, drug discovery, patents, business development, strategic direction and the management of government and corporate partnerships.

Prior to founding Isis Pharmaceuticals, Dr. Ecker was Assistant Director, Department of Molecular Genetics at SmithKline and French Laboratories (SK&F). While at SmithKline and French Laboratories, he focused on applications of molecular biology to drug discovery. Dr. Ecker contributed to a number of therapeutic programs including cancer, arthritis/inflammation, antiviral and antifungal. He constructed and supervised the SK&F oligonucleotide synthesis facility.

Dr. Ecker has published in a number of fields, including biodefense technology development, chemistry, DNA synthesis, gene construction and expression, protein structure and function, enzymology and gene regulation. He has authored more than 100 scientific publications and issued US patents.

Dr.Ecker received his Ph.D. in chemistry and biochemistry from Utah State University, Logan, Utah, and was an American Cancer Society Fellow in chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley.

 

Michael Treble

Mr. Treble is Vice President of Isis and President of Ibis Biosciences, Inc., a majority-owned subsidiary of Isis. Mr. Treble is responsible for spearheading the strategic direction and commercialization of the Company's Ibis T5000 Biosensor System.

Prior to joining Isis in December 2004, Mr. Treble was a founder of Tienta Sciences, Inc. and SonoPlot, Inc., venture start-up companies based upon technology licensing applications from Purdue and Wisconsin Universities.  Prior to that, Mr. Treble was President and CEO of NimbleGen Systems, Inc., a genomics-based company that produces high-density custom DNA arrays for academic, bio-pharm and ag-bio applications.  Mr. Treble was also the Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer and Director of Third Wave Technologies, Inc., a leader in the genomics diagnostic field.  Additionally, he served as Director of Marketing and Field Services for Roche Diagnostics and as Marketing Manager for Abbott Diagnostics.

Mr. Treble is on the Board of Gentra Systems, Inc., a private, venture backed DNA/RNA sample preparation platform company located in Minneapolis, MN.  He is also on the Board of Axela Biosensors, Inc., a protein analysis start-up company located in Toronto, Canada.

Mr. Treble received his Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Buffalo and Bachelor of Science from Canisius College, Buffalo, NY.

 

Kleanthis G. Xanthopoulos, Ph.D.

Kleanthis G. Xanthopoulos, Ph.D. has been the President and Chief Executive Officer of Regulus Therapeutics, LLC. since December 2007.

Before joining Regulus, shortly after its formation, Dr. Xanthopoulos was a managing director of Enterprise Partners Venture Capital. Prior to that, he was a co-founder and served as President and Chief Executive Officer and Director of Anadys Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ANDS) from its inception in May 2000 to November 2006. From 1997 to 2000 he was an executive at Aurora Biosciences Corporation (now Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated) as Vice President. Dr. Xanthopoulos participated in The National Institutes of Health Human Genome Project and was a Section Head of the National Human Genome Research Institute from 1995 to 1997. He was an Associate Professor of Molecular Biology at the Karolinska Nobel Medical Institute, Stockholm, Sweden from 1991 to 1995, and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at The Rockefeller University from 1987 to 1990.

An Onassis scholar, Dr. Xanthopoulos received his B.Sc. in Biology with honors from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, and received both his M.Sc. in Microbiology and Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Stockholm, Sweden.

Dr. Xanthopoulos is a member of the board of directors of Anadys Pharmaceuticals, Odyssey Thera, Inc., and an executive board member of BIOCOM, Southern California's life science industry association, where he chairs the Capital Formation Committee.