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James A. Schoeneck
Chairman of the Board
James A. Schoeneck has served on our board of directors since April 2010. Mr. Schoeneck was Chief Executive Officer of Depomed, Inc. a commercial specialty pharmaceutical company, from 2011 until 2017, and joined the Board of Depomed in 2007. From 2005 until 2011 he was Chief Executive Officer of BrainCells Inc., a privately-held biopharmaceutical company. Prior to joining BrainCells Inc. he served as Chief Executive Officer of ActivX BioSciences, a development-stage biotechnology company. Mr. Schoeneck’s pharmaceutical experience also includes three years as President and Chief Executive Officer of Prometheus Laboratories Inc., a pharmaceutical and diagnostics products company. Prior to joining Prometheus, Mr. Schoeneck spent three years as Vice President and General Manager, Immunology, at Centocor Inc. (now Janssen Biotech, Inc.), a biotechnology company, where he led the development of Centocor’s commercial capabilities. His group launched Remicade®, which became one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical brands. Earlier in his career, he spent 13 years at Rhone-Poulenc Rorer Inc. (now Sanofi), a pharmaceutical company, serving in various sales and marketing positions of increasing responsibility. Mr. Schoeneck holds a B.S. in Education from Jacksonville State University.
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Enrique Conterno
Chief Executive Officer and Director
Enrique Conterno joined FibroGen, Inc. as our Chief Executive Office and member of our board of directors in January 2020. Before coming to FibroGen, Mr. Conterno was a Senior Vice President for Eli Lilly and Company, serving as President, Lilly USA from January 2017 and President, Lilly Diabetes from 2009 until his retirement from Lilly in December 2019. Prior to 2009, Mr. Conterno served in various other roles for Eli Lilly and Company, including President, U.S. Operations, Vice President for the U.S. Neuroscience Business Unit, President and General Manager, Mexico, and Executive Marketing Director, Intercontinental Operations and Japan. Mr. Conterno earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Case Western Reserve University and a master’s degree in business administration from Duke University. Mr. Conterno is a member of the Board of Governors at the American Red Cross, and the Board of Visitors at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.
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Suzanne Blaug
Director
Suzanne Blaug has more than 30 years of strategic and commercial experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. She has successfully brought new drugs to market at the global, regional, and local country levels in multiple therapeutic areas including Oncology, Cardiovascular, Immunology, Nephrology, Infectious Diseases, Neurology, and Psychiatry. Ms. Blaug most recently served as Senior Vice President, Global Marketing and Commercial Development at Amgen Inc. from 2012 to 2018. From 2004 until 2012, she was at Johnson & Johnson, where she held several positions including Head of Janssen Alzheimer Immunotherapy, Vice President Strategic Marketing and New Business Development at Janssen Europe, and Area Managing Director – UK, Italy, and Greece. Ms. Blaug started her career at Bristol-Myers Squibb in 1983, where she held numerous marketing, strategic, and general management positions in the U.S., Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. Ms. Blaug is currently a senior advisor at McKinsey & Company, and she serves on the Healthcare at Kellogg Advisory Council at Northwestern University, as well as the Center for the Business of Healthcare Corporate Advisory Board at the University of North Carolina. Ms. Blaug received her B.S. degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and her M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
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Jeffrey L. Edwards
Director
Jeffrey L. Edwards was appointed to our board of directors in 2015 after retiring from Allergan Inc., which he joined in 1993 and where he served as Executive Vice President, Finance and Business Development, Chief Financial Officer from September 2005 to August 2014. From 2003 to 2005, Mr. Edwards served as Allergan’s Corporate Vice President, Corporate Development, and previously served as Senior Vice President, Treasury, Tax, and Investor Relations. Prior to joining Allergan, Mr. Edwards was with Banque Paribas and Security Pacific National Bank, where he held various senior-level positions in the credit and business development functions. Mr. Edwards currently serves as Compensation Committee Chairman of Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc., a publicly traded life sciences research and clinical diagnostic products company. Mr. Edwards also serves on the board of directors and Compensation Committee of Clearside Biomedical Inc., a publicly traded, development stage pharmaceutical company. Mr. Edwards received a B.A. in Sociology from Muhlenberg College and completed the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Business School.
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Jeffrey W. Henderson
Director
Jeffrey W. Henderson has served on our board of directors since August 2015. Mr. Henderson has 30 years of financial, commercial, and pharmaceutical industry experience. Most recently he served as Chief Financial Officer for Cardinal Health Inc. from 2005 until 2014. His many responsibilities at Cardinal Health included oversight of the Company’s China commercial operations. Prior to Cardinal Health, Mr. Henderson was President and General Manager of Eli Lilly Canada Inc. and Vice President and Corporate Controller of Eli Lilly & Company. He joined Eli Lilly in 1998 as Vice President and Corporate Treasurer. His prior experience includes 10 years with General Motors, where he served in executive and managerial posts in Great Britain, Singapore, New York, and Canada. Mr. Henderson serves on the board of directors and as Chairman of the Audit Committee of Qualcomm Incorporated, and is a director of Becton, Dickinson and Company and Halozyme Therapeutics, Inc. He has also been an Advisory Director to Berkshire Partners LLC, a private equity firm, since 2015. Mr. Henderson received his B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Kettering University, Flint, Michigan, and his M.B.A. from Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration.
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Maykin Ho, Ph.D.
Director
Dr. Maykin Ho joined the board of directors in December 2018. Dr. Ho has more than 30 years of experience in the healthcare and finance industries. She serves on the boards of directors for Agios Pharmaceuticals, Parexel International Corporation, the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, and the Institute for Protein Innovation. Dr. Ho is also a venture partner of Qiming Venture Partners and a member of the Biotech Advisory Panel of the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong. She is a retired partner of the Goldman Sachs Group where she served as senior biotechnology analyst, co-head of healthcare for global investment research and advisory director for healthcare investment banking. Prior to Goldman Sachs, Dr. Ho held various managerial positions in licensing, strategic planning, marketing and research at DuPont-Merck Pharmaceuticals and DuPont de Nemours & Company. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School and a graduate of the Advanced Management Program at The Fuqua School of Business, Duke University. Dr. Ho received a Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology and a B.S. from the State University of New York, Downstate Medical Center.
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Thomas F. Kearns Jr.
Director
Thomas F. Kearns Jr. has served on our board of directors since November 1996, as lead independent director since June 2017, and as Chairperson of the Board since September 2019. Mr. Kearns is a retired Partner of The Bear Stearns Companies, Inc., where he was an investment banker in the healthcare area from 1974 until 1987. Prior to his career at Bear Stearns, Mr. Kearns worked for Merrill Lynch from January 1959 until August 1969. Mr. Kearns was Chairman of the National Advisory Board of Carolina Performing Arts at the University of North Carolina from 2008 until 2015.Mr. Kearns was a Trustee of the University of North Carolina Foundation and Endowment Fund for 16 years. He served on the board of directors of Biomet Inc. from January 1980 until May 2005 and on the board of directors of Franklin Street Partners from 2013 until 2018. He received his B.A. in History from the University of North Carolina.
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Kalevi Kurkijärvi, Ph.D.
Director
Kalevi Kurkijärvi, Ph.D., has served on our board of directors since November 1996. He has also served on the board of directors of our subsidiary, FibroGen Europe Oy, since November 1997, and as Managing Director (CEO) since January 2019. Dr. Kurkijärvi has been the Chairman and Founding Partner of Innomedica Oy, a business development company specialized in licensing, distributor search, and strategic planning for companies in the pharmaceutical, diagnostics, and biotechnology industries since March 2010, and from August 1997 to February 2010 he served as Director, with financial matters as his main responsibility. He was also the Founding Partner and former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Bio Fund Management Ltd., a Finnish-Danish venture capital company, from 1997 until 2010. He has also been Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of his family’s import-export trading company, Biketex Ltd., since October 1993. Dr. Kurkijärvi has more than twenty years of experience in international life science business and over ten years in corporate finance. He currently serves on the boards of directors of Innomedica Oy (chair), Biketex Ltd. (chair), and Idea Development ID Oy (chair). He previously served on the boards of directors at other biotechnology companies such as Paratek Pharmaceuticals Inc., Ark Therapeutics Plc, BioTie Therapies Plc (chair), Hytest Oy (chair), Stick Tech Oy (chair), Hormos Medical Oy (chair), Map Medical Oy (chair), Bio Orbit Oy (chair), and Juvantia Pharma Oy, among others. Prior to founding Bio Fund, Dr. Kurkijärvi worked as Executive Director of the venture capital group at the Finnish National Fund of Research and Development (SITRA). He has also served as Executive Vice President at Wallac Oy and as President and Chief Executive Officer of Pharmacia Diagnostics Production Oy. Dr. Kurkijärvi received a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Turku in 1992, where he also worked for several years in research and teaching.
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Gerald Lema
Director
Gerald Lema was appointed to the board of directors in September 2017. Mr. Lema has nearly 30 years of pharmaceutical, diagnostics, healthcare, and consumer experience in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the U.S., and Latin America. He currently serves as Partner and Representative Director of Cylon Capital, a private investment group based in Tokyo that creates value for brands and technologies in the Japanese and Asia Pacific markets. Prior to Cylon Capital, Mr. Lema served as President of Asia Pacific at Baxter International from 2005 until 2015. He has also served as President, Japan at Baxter International since April 2007. Before Baxter, Mr. Lema worked for 18 years at Abbott Laboratories where he held several positions of increasing responsibility in general management, strategy and business development. His last position with Abbott was Corporate Vice President, Asia Pacific and Chairman, Abbott Japan, in Tokyo. Mr. Lema currently serves as a Director of Catalyst, a global nonprofit organization. He is co-author of Foreign Investment through Debt-Equity Swaps, and published in the MIT Sloan Management Review. Mr. Lema is a graduate of the Stanford University Executive Program, earned an M.B.A. from the Freeman School of Business at Tulane University, and has a B.S., Engineering from Universidad del Valle, Colombia.
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Rory B. Riggs
Director
Mr. Riggs has served on our board of directors since October 1993. Since April 2010, Mr. Riggs has served as founder and Chief Executive Officer of Locus Analytics, LLC and Syntax, LLC, sister development-stage ventures focused on creating a new information technology platform for business and finance. Mr. Riggs is co-founder and Chairman of Royalty Pharma, the largest acquirer of drug royalties, and Cibus Global Ltd., the leading company in gene editing in agriculture. In addition, he sits on the boards of directors of the following companies: Intra-Cellular Therapies, Inc., Nuredis, Inc., GeneNews, Ltd. and eReceivables, LLC (Chair). Since June 2006, Mr. Riggs has also served as managing member of New Ventures, a series of venture funds focused on biotechnology and healthcare. Mr. Riggs served as President of Biomatrix, Inc., a biomedical company, from 1996 until 2000. From 1991 to 1995, he was Chief Executive Officer of RF&P Corporation, an investment company owned by the Virginia Retirement System. He was also Managing Director of PaineWebber andCompany in the mergers and acquisitions department. Mr. Riggs holds a B.A. from Middlebury College and holds an M.B.A. from Columbia University.
Our Partners
We are interested in building strong partnerships that complement our strengths.