contact  |  jobs  |  site map  |  home
Investors > Corporate Governance > Board

Board

John J. Schwartz, Ph.D., Chairman of the Board, Principal, Quantum Strategies Management

John J. Schwartz, Ph.D., was elected to the Board of Directors of the Company in December 1998 and was elected Chairman of the Board at the same time. He is the former President and Chief Executive Officer of SyStemix, Inc. He is currently President of Quantum Strategies Management Company, a registered investment advisor located in Atherton, California. Prior to his positions at SyStemix, he served as Assistant Professor of Physics, and subsequently as Vice President and General Counsel, at Stanford University. Dr. Schwartz graduated from Harvard Law School in 1958 and received his Ph.D. degree in physics from the University of Rochester.

ˆTop

Eric H. Bjerkholt, Senior VP and CFO of Sunesis Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Mr. Bjerkholt is Senior Vice President and CFO of Sunesis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. At Sunesis, he leads the financial operations, public and investor relations, and treasury activities of the South San Francisco small molecule biopharmaceutical company. Before joining Sunesis, Mr. Bjerkholt served as Senior Vice President and CFO of IntraBiotics Pharmaceuticals, Inc., where he completed multiple financings. Earlier in his career, Mr. Bjerkholt co-founded LifeSpring Nutrition, Inc., a privately held nutraceutical company. From 1990 to 1997, Mr. Bjerkholt was an investment banker at J.P. Morgan & Co., Inc., where he founded its Western U.S. Healthcare Investment Banking Practice, leading many equity and financing transactions for biotechnology and other healthcare and life sciences companies. Mr. Bjerkholt holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a Cand. Oecon degree in economics and econometrics from the University of Oslo, Norway.

ˆTop

Ricardo Levy, Ph.D., Chairman, Catalytica Energy Systems

Ricardo B. Levy, Ph.D. is Chairman of the Board of Catalytica Energy Systems, Inc., and has been a member of its Board of Directors since June 1995, when the company was formed as a subsidiary of Catalytica, Inc. He also served as director of Catalytica Pharmaceuticals Inc. from 1995 to 2000. Dr. Levy was a founder of Catalytica, Inc. in 1974, serving as Chief Operating Officer from 1974 until 1991 and President and Chief Executive Officer until December 2000, when Catalytica, Inc. and Catalytica Pharmaceuticals Inc. were sold to DSM N.V. Before founding Catalytica, Inc., Dr. Levy was a founding member of Exxon's chemical physics research team, and prior to that served as Chief Executive Officer of Sudamericana C.A. in Quito, Ecuador. He currently also serves on the Board of Directors of Pharmacopeia, Inc. and NovoDynamics, Inc. Dr. Levy holds an M.S. from Princeton University, a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Stanford University and is an alumnus of Harvard University's Executive Management Program.

ˆTop

Martin McGlynn, President and CEO of StemCells, Inc.

Martin McGlynn joined StemCells, Inc. in January of 2001 as its President and Chief Executive Officer and was elected to its Board of Directors on February 6, 2001. Mr. McGlynn has spent several decades in the life sciences industry in Europe, Canada and the United States. He began his career with Becton Dickinson, Ireland Ltd., and spent eight years in manufacturing operations. He joined Abbott Labs in 1977 where he held positions as General Manager, Abbott Ireland Ltd., President and General Manager of Abbott Canada Ltd. and Vice President of Abbott International Ltd. In 1990, he joined the BOC Group as President of Anaquest, Inc., a global leader in anesthesia and acute care pharmaceuticals headquartered in New Jersey. Mr. McGlynn joined the biotech industry in 1994 when he became President and Chief Executive Officer of Pharmadigm, Inc., a private, venture capital-backed company engaged in the research and development of a new class of anti-inflammatory agents. Mr. McGlynn is a native of Dublin, Ireland. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from University College, Dublin. He is a former member of the Board of Directors of the Confederation of Irish Industries (CII) and the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association of Canada (PMAC).

ˆTop

Desmond O’Connell, Independent Management Consultant and Private Investor

Desmond H. O’Connell, Jr. became a director of the company in January 2007. He has been independent management consultant and private investor since 1990. He was a Director of Serologicals Corporation from 1998 to 2006, serving also as Acting Chief Executive Officer for a year and subsequently as Chairman of the Board until Serologicals was sold in July 2006. Mr. O’Connell has served as a Director of Abiomed, Inc. since 1995 and is currently a member of its Audit Committee and Governance and Nominating Committee. During 1991, he served briefly as Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Osteotech, Inc. Mr. O’Connell is a Trustee and Director of New Community Corporation in Newark, New Jersey. He holds an MBA from Harvard University Graduate School of Business and is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

ˆTop

Roger Perlmutter, M.D., Ph.D, Executive VP, Research & Development, Amgen, Inc.

Roger Perlmutter, M.D., Ph.D., is Executive Vice President of Research and Development at Amgen, Inc., a position he assumed in January 2001. He was formerly Executive Vice President, Worldwide Basic Research and Preclinical Development for Merck Research Laboratories. Dr. Perlmutter joined Merck as Senior Vice President, Merck Research Laboratories in February 1997 and was named Executive Vice President in 1999. Prior to joining Merck, Dr. Perlmutter was Chairman of the Department of Immunology and Professor of Immunology, Biochemistry and Medicine at the University of Washington. He previously held academic and clinical appointments at the California Institute of Technology and other academic institutions. Dr. Perlmutter was a Howard Hughes investigator earlier in his career and is one of the world's foremost authorities on immunology.

ˆTop

Irving L. Weissman, M.D., Professor of Cancer Biology, Pathology and Developmental Biology

Irving L. Weissman, M.D., is the Karel and Avice Beekhuis Professor of Cancer Biology, Professor of Pathology, and Professor of Developmental Biology at Stanford University and Director of the Stanford Institute for Cancer/Stem Cell Biology and Medicine, Palo Alto, California. Dr. Weissman's lab was responsible for the discovery of the first ever mammalian stem cell, the hematopoietic (blood-forming) stem cell. Dr. Weissman was responsible for the formation of three stem cell companies, SyStemix, Inc., StemCells, Inc., and Cellerant, Inc. He is a member of the Board of Directors and Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Boards of StemCells and Cellerant. Dr. Weissman co-discovered the mammalian and human hematopoietic stem cells and the human neural stem cell. Past achievements of Dr. Weissman's laboratory include identification of the states of development between stem cells and mature blood cells and identification of the states of thymic lymphocyte development. More recently, his laboratory at Stanford has developed accurate mouse models of human leukemias, and has shown the central role of inhibition of programmed cell death in that process. Dr. Weissman has been elected to the National Academy of Science. He has received the Kaiser Award for Excellence in Preclinical Teaching, the Pasarow Foundation Award, and the Outstanding Investigator Award from the National Institutes of Health.

ˆTop

© 2000-2007 StemCells, Incorporated, World Rights Reserved. Tel: (650) 475-3100