About Us

About Us

Stephen Collins, MD, PhDReturn to Top

President, Chief Executive Officer, Director

Dr. Collins’ career has focused on the research and clinical development of therapeutics for CNS disorders. Prior to joining NTP as its CEO, he was Chief Scientific Officer & Vice President of Clinical Affairs of Ovation Pharmaceuticals, a CNS-focused biopharmaceutical company acquired by Lundbeck A/S for $900 million. Dr. Collins joined Ovation in 2003, shortly after its formation and was responsible for establishing the company's R&D group and growing it into a team of over 60 professionals. He was also responsible for establishing the safety and post-marketing research groups as well as all scientific and medical in-licensing activities. His R&D team performed the preclinical and clinical activities for four development programs of Ovation, which resulted in two approved NDAs, two programs in global Phase III, one program in Phase II, multiple INDs, and life-cycle management projects for the firm's marketed assets. Prior to Ovation, Dr. Collins was Global Senior Director of CNS and Pain at Johnson & Johnson, overseeing the early-stage development of neurologic, pain and psychiatric agents. He was also a member of the CNS in-licensing advisory team. Prior to Johnson and Johnson, he worked in Abbott Laboratories' Pharmaceutical and Hospital Products Divisions. While there, he developed drugs for neurologic, psychiatric and pain indications and was responsible for the preclinical and clinical programs that supported the successful filing and approval of multiple NDA and sNDA submissions. Previous to his industry experience, Dr. Collins was in the Departments of Neurology and Neurosciences at Case Western Reserve University, where he founded the Comprehensive Epilepsy Center as well as the Drug Development Center of the Department of Neurology. Prior to that he was on the faculty of the University of California, San Francisco's, Department of Neurology, where he had completed residency and Fellowship training. Dr. Collins earned his MD and PhD at Case Western Reserve University and performed his undergraduate studies in Physics at the University of California, Berkeley.

Michael Venuti, PhDReturn to Top

Chief Scientific Officer

Dr. Venuti has had a 33-year career in drug discovery and development, focused on both specific clinical programs for major therapeutic indications and the supporting technologies required for innovation. Prior to joining NTP in July 2011, Dr. Venuti was Chief Executive Officer, President and Chief Scientific Officer of iPierian, a company focused on defining the utility of adult stem cells in drug discovery, from February 2010 to April 2011. From 2007 to 2010, he was Chief Executive Officer of BioSeek, Inc., a company which provides drug candidate profiling in human primary cell-based systems, and which was sold to Asterand plc in February 2010. Beginning in 2005, Dr. Venuti was Chief Scientific Officer, and later Chief Executive Officer, of Discovery Partners International, a drug discovery services company, which was reverse-merged into Infinity Pharmaceuticals, and whose operations were sold to Galapagos in 2006. Dr. Venuti remains on the Board of Directors of Infinity Pharmaceuticals, and serves as head of that board’s R&D Committee. From 1994 to 2001, Dr. Venuti was Director of Medicinal Chemistry, and then Chief Technical Officer, at Arris Pharmaceutical Co., (later Axys Pharmaceuticals, Inc.), and was responsible for 10 biotech-pharma collaborations in protease inhibitor drug discovery and new technology development. When Axys was acquired by Celera in 2001, he became General Manager, site head of research and Senior Vice President of Pharmacogenomics, remaining with that company through 2005. From 1988-1993, Dr. Venuti was Director of Bioorganic Chemistry at Genentech, leading the first group of medicinal chemists in a biotechnology company to exploit the tools of recombinant DNA-based technology as applied to drug discovery, with focus in the area of peptidomimetic chemistry. He began his career in drug discovery and development in 1980 as a medicinal chemist at Syntex. Dr. Venuti has an A.B. degree in chemistry from Dartmouth College, received a Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry from The Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1979, and then carried out postdoctoral work at the Institute of Organic Chemistry, Syntex Research, Palo Alto CA. He held an appointment as Adjunct Professor of Chemistry in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of California, San Francisco, from 1992 through 2008. He has been a consultant to a number of San Francisco Bay Area venture capital firms and multiple start-up biotech companies. He also served as Executive Scientific Advisor to BIO Ventures for Global Health, and contributed to the development of the Innovation Map for Drug Discovery for Neglected Diseases.

Holli CarlsonReturn to Top

Vice President, Operations

Ms. Carlson's career has focused on the development of CNS therapies which have resulted in multiple successful NDA and sNDA approvals. Prior to joining NTP in March 2008, Ms. Carlson served as the Director of Strategic Planning & Portfolio Management at Ovation Pharmaceuticals. In this role, she was responsible for the development of long range R&D planning, as well as initiating the first R&D portfolio analysis of corporate-wide research. Previously, Ms. Carlson was the Director of Clinical Affairs-Operations at the company, where she drove the strategic development, oversight and execution of global development programs on four compounds across several therapeutic indications. She was also responsible for R&D operations assessments for Ovation in-licensing activities. This work ultimately resulted in two approved NDAs, two programs in global Phase III, one program in Phase II, multiple INDs and multiple life-cycle management projects for the firm's marketed assets. She established and directed the operations of the clinical affairs division for the company, including its data management, clinical studies, statistics and pre-clinical functions. Prior to Ovation, Ms. Carlson held various clinical operations positions with Abbott Laboratories in both the Pain and Anesthesia group of the Hospital Products Division and the CNS Venture group of the Pharmaceutical Products Division. There she led the clinical development of neurologic, psychiatric and pain indications for several compounds, including multiple INDs and approved NDAs. Prior to Abbott, Ms. Carlson worked at G.D. Searle and Premier Research on multinational and domestic clinical programs of new chemical entity research. Ms. Carlson earned her Bachelor of Arts in Modern Languages from Knox College.

Todd Verdoorn, PhDReturn to Top

Vice President, Neurobiology

Dr. Verdoorn has 28 years of experience conducting neuroscience research in academic, industrial and biotechnology settings. Before joining NTP, he was CSO of Orasi Medical, Inc., an emerging diagnostics company focusing on neurological and psychiatric diseases. At Orasi, Dr. Verdoorn was responsible for clinical R&D programs to develop software devices that use human electrophysiology scans to evaluate brain function in patients with Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis, tinnitus and other CNS diseases. Before joining Orasi, he was a founder and served as the CSO/COO of Algos Therapeutics, Inc., a successful St. Paul, MN biopharmaceutical start-up focused on pain drug discovery. At Algos, Dr. Verdoorn built the foundation of a profitable and growing preclinical contract business that is now called Algos Preclinical Services. From 1997 through 2003, Dr. Verdoorn held senior leadership positions at Bristol Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute where he led the discovery and clinical development projects for novel drugs to treat Alzheimer’s disease, stroke and neuropathic pain. He spent six years on the faculty of the Department of Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and performed his postdoctoral research fellowship at the Max-Planck-Institute in Germany with Dr. Bert Sakmann, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1992. Dr. Verdoorn earned his Ph.D. in Neurobiology from the University of North Carolina. He has authored over 35 original research articles, published a variety of reviews and book chapters, generated three issued and pending patents, and has received numerous awards and grants, including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from the NSF.

Stephen Wanaski, PhDReturn to Top

Vice President, Research & Development

Dr. Wanaski's career has focused on drug formulations along with preclinical and clinical research and development including pharmacology, pharmacokinetics and toxicology. Prior to joining NTP in May 2008, Dr. Wanaski was Senior Director, Clinical Pharmacology & Toxicology at Ovation Pharmaceuticals. He was responsible for the strategic development of preclinical and clinical pharmacology programs across 10 diverse therapeutic indications and successfully led numerous IND- and NDA-enabling pharmacology and toxicology studies. His scientific and clinical development efforts contributed to successful regulatory filings and approvals for several late-stage epilepsy and antipsychotic drug candidates. Previously, Dr. Wanaski co-founded RND Pharmaceuticals, now Silamed, Inc., an oncology-focused biopharmaceutical company applying bioorganosilicon chemistry to new and approved drug candidates with validated therapeutic pathways. Dr. Wanaski also held several positions of increasing responsibilities at NeoPharm, an oncology-focused biotechnology company. While there, he managed translational medicine and clinical pharmacology departments which contributed to the generation of novel clinical designs involving biomarkers and novel technologies to expedite drug development. He also designed and formulated novel anti-cancer therapies in order to increase the safety and efficacy profiles of known agents. Dr. Wanaski earned his PhD in biochemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and holds a BA in psychology from the University of Notre Dame.

Brian WilliamsReturn to Top

Vice President, Corporate Development & Finance

Mr. Williams' life sciences career has focused on finance, business development and strategic affairs. Prior to joining NTP in March 2008, Mr. Williams worked at Ovation Pharmaceuticals, a biopharmaceutical company he joined shortly after its formation. He helped to grow the organization dramatically through business development activity which included the acquisition of three development stage compounds as well as the establishment of numerous corporate partnerships. He also led a project to in-license a series of technologies, which resulted in the creation of one of the company's novel clinical developmental assets. In addition, Mr. Williams led a corporate initiative to create the company's international business de novo, which resulted in an integrated network of multinational partners and a European office with the ability to distribute product across 90 countries. Previously, Mr. Williams worked in the biotechnology division of Baxter Healthcare, where he assumed roles of increasing responsibility that focused on biopharmaceutical business development, in- and out-licensing activity and corporate ventures. Prior to this, Mr. Williams worked at Robertson Stephens and PaineWebber, specializing in life sciences mergers and acquisitions as well as corporate advisory, wherein he helped close $2 billion in liquidation events for private and public companies. Mr. Williams earned his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, where he obtained his degree in one year, and he received his BS in Finance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.