Chris O’Mara is the Director of Clinical Operations at NFlection. He is a former Senior Clinical Research Coordinator at University of California San Francisco Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, former Clinical Trial Specialist at Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical, Inc, and former Senior Clinical Trial Manager at MyoTherix, Inc. Chris has managed multiple investigator-initiated and sponsored clinical trials across various trial phases in both oncology and rare diseases. He was also a clinical operations subject matter expert for Food and Drug Administration and European Medicines Agency inspections in academia and industry, respectively. Chris holds a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in biological sciences from Dominican University of California.
Patrice Horwath
Ms. Horwath has over 20 years of clinical development and operation experience directing global pharmaceutical, medical device and combination products through all phases of clinical development. Prior to joining NFlection, Ms. Horwath held positions in clinical development and operations with Kalika Biosciences, Ralexar Therapeutics, Medtronic Neuromodulation, and 3M Pharmaceuticals. Ms. Horwath holds a bachelor of arts degree in health and human services from Metropolitan State University.
Guy Webster
Guy Webster received an MD and PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, and completed a dermatology residency at New York University. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Dermatology. Dr. Webster is Clinical Professor of Dermatology at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia and was previously Professor and Vice Chair for Clinical Affairs. He has published widely on infectious and inflammatory diseases of the skin. At Jefferson, Dr. Webster started the Clinical Trials Unit and has participated in numerous phase 2, 3 and 4 trials as well as many interactions with the FDA.
Diane Marcou
Diane Marcou is an independent financial consultant who provides interim financial leadership to early stage companies. Working with start-up companies for many years, Ms. Marcou has applied her strategic planning and leadership capabilities to identify, implement and improve business systems, create operating plans and support growth. She has helped her clients raise hundreds of millions of dollars in equity and debt financing, mergers and acquisitions and strategic partnerships.
Marcou has provided financial and strategic advisory services to a number of venture-backed technology and life sciences companies, including Fractyl Laboratories, TARIS Biomedical, Cytrellis Biosystems, Boston Microfluidics, T2 Biosystems and Topera Medical. For more than 25 years working across private and public sector organizations, she has consistently built effective teams, strengthened relationships with investors, partners, customers and employees, secured funding and negotiated critical business agreements.
Prior to working as an independent financial consultant, Marcou was Chief Financial Officer and VP of Finance and Administration for Incentive Systems (dba Centive), a privately held venture-funded software company, and Chief Financial Officer at Workgroup Technology, a publicly traded software company with domestic and international operations. Ms. Marcou earned her CPA at PricewaterhouseCoopers (formerly Coopers & Lybrand) and graduated summa cum laude with a BS in Business Administration from Boston College.
Marcou volunteers as treasurer for several non-profit organizations and serves on the board of directors for Plowshares Education Development Center.
Gerd Kochendoerfer
Gerd Kochendoerfer has over 20 years of experience in leadership roles in small and medium-sized pharmaceutical/biotech organizations in both early/late stage development and commercial settings. Leadership roles include cross-functional teams developing technology innovation, building development pipelines, and supporting commercial launches, as well as strategic and operational oversight for development operations departments. He was a member of diligence and deal teams responsible for numerous product acquisitions and in and out-licensing deals, and member of steering committees for key strategic alliances. Prior to joining Nflection, Gerd was Senior VP and Head of Operations at PellePharm, a BridgeBio company. Prior, Gerd helped transform Depomed from a small drug delivery company to a major specialty pharma company in the pain and neurology space as Senior Vice President. Earlier in his career, Gerd held research and drug development management positions at FibroGen, leading the Roxadustat program, and Gryphon Therapeutics, building a pipeline of engineered and/or polymer-modified protein therapeutics. Gerd holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley. He has published more than 25 papers in peer-reviewed literature and holds multiple patents.
William Hodder
William Hodder joined NFlection in October 2021 as Chief Executive Officer, bringing more than 35 years of broad biopharmaceutical industry experience including fundraising, business development, corporate and product marketing, sales, and product development.
Most recently, Mr. Hodder was Chief Business Officer for Escient Pharmaceuticals a privately held biotechnology company that is advancing first-in-class G Protein-Coupled Receptor (GPCR)-targeted drugs for neuro-immuno-inflammatory and autoreactive diseases. At Escient, Mr. Hodder led the completion of a $77.5 million Series B financing and was responsible for all finance and operational functions. Previously, he was Senior Vice President, Corporate Development at Protagonist Therapeutics (Nasdaq: PTGX), a clinical stage biotech company where he was responsible for all licensing and alliance management as well as certain fundraising and operations activities. At Protagonist, Mr. Hodder led, or played a significant role in, licensing and fundraising transactions that raised over $220 million including the licensing of a pre-clinical asset to Janssen Biotech for upfront and future milestone payments totaling $990 million. Prior to joining Protagonist, Mr. Hodder was a co-founder and CEO of Trenovus, Inc., a biotech company focused on developing novel inhibitors of heterotopic ossification present in several serious and rare conditions including Ankylosing Spondylitis and Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva. Mr. Hodder also previously served as Vice President of Business Development and Corporate Officer at FibroGen, Inc., where he was responsible for all licensing and M&A activity, raising over $500 million for the company. This included the out-licensing of HIF prolyl hydroxylase inhibitors for anemia indications to Astellas for the European, South Africa and Middle East territories. Prior to joining FibroGen, Mr. Hodder served as Director of Business Development and Marketing at Aradigm, a drug delivery company. He has also held sales, marketing, and product development positions at Penederm (acquired by Mylan Laboratories), Ciba Geigy (now Novartis), Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, and Marion Laboratories (now Sanofi).
Mr. Hodder received a B.S. in biology from Oakland University and an M.B.A. from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business.