30 BioExecutive International
M
AY
2005
genetics and microbiology department
at the University of Massachusetts
Medical School. Of the other advisors,
two are leading researchers in RNA
and ribosomes, two in cancer, and
one in muscle physiology. Its execu-
tive board brings even more breadth
and depth to the organization. (See
"Executive Science.")
Everyone brings an essential piece
of the hybrid vehicle assembled
to carry out PTC's unique plan.
Fortunately, it is a creative project
they all clearly relish.
It is also a job suited to the com-
pany's smaller scale, according to Peltz.
"That's what I realized early on," he
says. "We were pioneers in post-
transcriptional control, and I could
study the mechanisms all I wanted to,
but if I wanted to translate that from
just basic understanding to treatments,
I needed to build an organization with
skills that would let us do that, and
that's what we did."
In any company, he notes, drug
discovery and development require
interdisciplinary teams of chemists,
biologists, therapeutic specialists,
engineers, clinical researchers, and
business people to take products from
science to market. "Besides putting
men on the moon, putting a drug in a
person is the most super-complicated
Scientific Advisory Board
Allan Jacobson, PhD (chairman of
the department of molecular genet-
ics and microbiology at the University
of Massachusetts Medical School)
Eric N. Jacobsen, PhD (professor in the
department of chemistry and chemi-
cal biology at Harvard University)
Paul A. Marks, MD (president emeri-
tus and head of the developmental
cell biology laboratory at Memorial
Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center,
also vice chairman, secretary, and
cofounder of Aton Pharma, Inc.)
Robert Schneider, PhD (professor
in the department of microbiology
and codirector of the translational
cancer research and breast cancer
research programs at the New York
University School of Medicine
H. Lee Sweeney, PhD (professor and
chairman of physiology at the University
of Pennsylvania School of Medicine)
Marvin Wickens, PhD (professor of
biochemistry at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison and president
of the International RNA Society
Joseph Puglisi, PhD (associate professor
of structure biology and director of the
magnetic resonance laboratory at the
Stanford University School of Medicine)
Board of Directors
Allan Jacobson PhD (see above)
Michael Schmertzler (designee of Credit-
Suisse First Boston Equity Partners LP)
Carl Goldfischer, MD (manag-
ing director of Bay City Capital)
Søren Carlsen, PhD (managing partner of
Novo A/S, head of Novo venture team)
Harvey Berger, MD (principal founder
of Ariad Pharmaceuticals, Inc.)
Michael Kranda (director of bio-
technology venture invest-
ments for Vulcan Capital)
Axel Bolte (investment advisor
and management team mem-
ber at HBM Partners AG)
Stuart W. Peltz (see bio elsewhere)
E
XECUTIVE
S
CIENCE
Chief Medical Officer: Along with COO
William Ju, Langdon Miller joined PTC
Therapeutics in July 2003 from Pharmacia,
where he was head of global oncol-
ogy research, after the Pfizer takeover.
Miller previously worked at the National
Cancer Institute as a senior investigator
and strategic director of clinical trials.
He earned his MD at Northwestern
University Medical School and was a cli-
nician at Stanford and the University of
California at San Francisco. At Pharmacia,
Miller led the development of break-
through cancer products epirubicinin
and irinotecan and authored eight
NDAs. He describes what drew him to
biotech startup PTC Therapeutics after a
career in large-scale pharmaceuticals:
"When Pharmacia was acquired by Pfizer
I had the opportunity to entertain sev-
eral offers from Pfizer and other major
pharma companies around the country.
However, I happened to meet Stuart
and other members of the PTC team
at a party that Claudia was hosting. A
causal chat there led to discussion of a
new opportunity in my own back yard!
"As I viewed the prospects for me at PTC,
four fundamentals were visibly in place at
the company. The potential for success
was firmly grounded because it relied
upon well characterized mechanisms of
post-transcriptional biological control
and offered unambiguous clinical devel-
opmental pathways. The company's
therapeutic focus satisfied my own
sense of idealism in wanting to address
diseases of high unmet medical need
using a novel pharmacological approach.
The funding effort and infrastructure
were beautifully articulated, indicating
that this was a going concern. Most
important, the quality, experience, and
camaraderie of the management and
scientific teams made it clear that being
at work every day was going to be fun!
"The past two years has more than
met my initial expectations. In addi-
tion, I have also reaped the biotech
benefits of less bureaucracy, crisper
decision-making, more diversity of job
function, greater chance for direct inter-
actions at all levels of the company,
and the satisfaction of deploying my
own big-pharma experience to help
nurture a developing organization."
B
IOGRAPHY
: L
ANGDON
M
ILLER
, MD
