MethylGene's management team has broad experience in finance, clinical development and scientific research in both the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.

Donald F. Corcoran
President & Chief Executive Officer

Mr. Corcoran has been our President and Chief Executive Officer since the Company's inception in 1997. Mr. Corcoran has over 25 years of experience in the biotechnology, pharmaceutical and health care industries. His background includes responsibilities in the areas of finance, accounting, marketing, human resources, business development and acquisitions/strategic planning. He was instrumental in the creation of MethylGene Inc. during his tenure as Vice President, Business Development at Hybridon, Inc., a publicly-traded drug research and development company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. During his time at Hybridon, Inc., Mr. Corcoran was responsible for establishing a number of corporate alliances with multinational health care companies. Prior to that time, he served as Business Planning Manager at Schering-Plough Corporation and served in a variety of managerial and staff positions at Eli Lilly and Company from 1982 to 1991. Mr. Corcoran is a director of Tranzyme Inc., a private United States development stage biotechnology company located in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. Mr. Corcoran received a B.A. in Economics and Biology from Union College, New York and an MBA from Cornell University's Johnson Graduate School of Management.

Jeffrey M. Besterman, Ph.D.
Executive Vice President, Research & Development and Chief Scientific Officer

Dr. Besterman joined us in January 1997 as Vice President, Research & Development and is now Executive Vice President, R&D and Chief Scientific Officer. He has over 25 years of drug discovery research and development experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Dr. Besterman previously served as Head, Oncology Research Section and later as Head, Department of Cell Biology and Member, Research Executive Committee at Glaxo Research Institute in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. Dr. Besterman led a multi-disciplinary team of over 30 scientists and clinicians in the exploration, identification and early clinical development of Glaxo's first anti-cancer compound, Lurtotecan (a topoisomerase I inhibitor). At MethylGene, Dr. Besterman has led the discovery, preclinical and clinical development of three anticancer compounds. Dr. Besterman has been a member of the National Cancer Institute's Special Review Committee for Natural Product Drug Discovery and an external reviewer for the National Science Foundation. He is also on the external review board of the Biotechnology Research Institute of the National Research Council of Canada. He is a co-inventor of 25 United States patents and patent applications and 70 peer reviewed scientific publications. Dr. Besterman serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of two emerging private biotechnology companies, Novothera Biotechnologies Inc., of Montreal, Québec and Gene Network Science Inc. of Boston, Massachusetts. Dr. Besterman received a B.Sc. in Biology from the State University of New York, a Ph.D. in Physiology and Biophysics from the University of Vermont's School of Medicine and completed his post-doctoral research at Pennsylvania State University's Medical Center. Dr. Besterman currently lectures in the graduate biotechnology program at McGill University.

Klaus B. Kepper, CMA
Vice President Finance & Chief Financial Officer

Mr. Kepper joined us in October 2000 as Chief Financial Officer. He has over 25 years of financial, operational and accounting experience. He previously served 15 years at Smith & Nephew, most recently as Vice President, Finance of their German operations, which include Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Eastern Europe. Mr. Kepper has been Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer as well as Treasurer and Secretary and member of the Board of Directors of Smith & Nephew Canada from 1989 to 1995 having been promoted from Controller. Mr. Kepper held other financial, accounting and controllership positions with Mallinkrodt Canada Inc. and Sommerville Belkin Industries Inc. Mr. Kepper holds B. Comm. and MBA degrees from Concordia University and is a Certified Management Accountant.

 
Charles Grubsztajn
Vice President, Business Development

Mr. Grubsztajn has lead MethylGene’s business development activities since 2005. His responsibilities include seeking licensing opportunities and negotiating the Company’s corporate partnerships, strategic alliances, licensing deals and research collaborations. Mr. Grubsztajn has played a leading role in outlicensing deals that together have generated more than US$100 million in cash. He led MethylGene’s 2006 US$272M cancer co-development and profit-share deal with Pharmion Corporation (now Celgene). More recently, he led business efforts to form a research partnership with Otsuka Pharmaceuticals for ocular diseases. Prior to MethylGene, he was at Caprion Pharmaceuticals (now Thallion), where he was involved in numerous technology outlicensing and inlicensing deals with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, as well as academia and governments. Mr Grubsztajn is a member of the Licensing Executives Society and the Canadian Healthcare Licensing Association and has presented at several workshops. He has been a board member of the Maimonides Geriatric Center Foundation since 2001. In 2008, He was granted the Certified Licensing Professional designation from the Licensing Executives Society. He received his MBA and Law degrees from McGill University.