EXECUTIVE TEAM
Mario Saltarelli, M.D., Ph.D. – Chief Executive Officer / Chief Medical Officer
Dr. Saltarelli has over 25 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry, primarily in senior executive awith extensive experience in anxiety, depression and other CNS disorders, and has led companies through all aspects of clinical development, regulatory approvals, strategic planning and major capital raises and mergers & acquisitions. Dr. Saltarelli was formerly with several market-leading companies including Pfizer, Abbott (AbbVie), Annexon, and Syntimmune.
Dr. Saltarelli earned his bachelor of science degree in psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a doctor of medicine degree and a doctor of philosophy degree in neuropharmacology from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He was an intern in internal medicine at the University of Maryland Medical Center and completed neurology residency at The Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Richard G Farrell – Co-Founder, Chief Financial Officer
Richard is a former Investment Banker with over 25 years of experience in finance, M&A, capital raises and corporate restructures in Australia and the United States. Richard has been founder and CFO of several companies and was formerly an Investment Banker with Beerworth & Partners in Sydney Australia, where he advised on takeovers and private placements. Prior to that, Richard was with Ernst & Young Corporate Finance and formerly Deloitte Touché Corporate Finance. Richard has a BComm. (Australian National University), LLB (Australian National University) and a Graduate Diploma in Finance & Investment from the Financial Services Institute of Australasia.
Kathryn King Ph.D. – Chief Operating Officer
Kathryn King, PhD, is a pharmaceutical industry executive with more than twenty-five years of clinical development achievements at large, global pharma companies and small, start-up biotech organizations. Kathryn has held senior leadership roles at Pathos, Aptinyx, Levo, AbbVie, Takeda, Veeva Systems and Abbott. She is an experienced clinical trialist dedicated to designing and driving innovation in clinical research studies, with the goal of addressing unmet medical needs for patients and their families. Kathryn brings deep domain expertise in Clinical Operations and complementary strengths in CMC, Quality & Compliance, Regulatory Strategy, Data Management, Statistical Analysis, and cross-functional leadership. In addition to her current role, Kathryn serves as an Adjunct Instructor in the Graham School at the University of Chicago. She earned a BS in biochemistry (with a second major in Philosophy) from the University of Notre Dame, followed by a MA in Health Care Ethics and a PhD in Philosophy from Loyola University in Chicago.
David G. Putman Ph.D. – Co-Founder & Chief Scientific Officer
Dr. Putman has more than 25 years of scientific and management experience in large and small pharmaceutical companies, including Syntex, Roche, UCB and Kadmus. Dr. Putman co-founded Anvyl LLC, a biotech that is developing cutting-edge therapies to address disorders of the central nervous system (CNS). Anvyl was founded with the goal of providing safe and efficacious therapies currently desperately needed for treating CNS conditions, like cognitive-deficit disorders, anxiety and pain. Using its expertise in allosteric modulation, Anvyl is creating a broad pipeline of first-in-class drugs to fill unmet medical conditions including Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorder, traumatic brain injury and other CNS disorders such as epilepsy, anxiety and pain. Dr. Putman has a BS in Chemical Engineering, a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry and was a postdoctoral fellow at Cornell University.
Olivier Dasse Ph.D. – Co-Founder & Senior VP of Chemistry
Dr. Dasse has 18 years of drug discovery and development experience that resulted in multiple preclinical and clinical candidates. Dr. Dasse co-founded Anvyl LLC, a company focused on the development of nicotinic and gabaergic positive allosteric modulators for the treatment of central nervous system disorders. Dr. Dasse served as program leader at Kadmus pharmaceuticals where he spearheaded medicinal chemistry efforts on inhibitors of fatty acid amide hydrolase, the main enzyme involved in endo-cannabinoid pharmacology. The program was sold to Organon for $270M. Prior to Kadmus, Dr. Dasse served as a senior scientist at UCB pharma where he conducted research on anti-inflammatory chemokine antagonists. Dr. Dasse has co-authored over 30 published scientific publications and patents. Dr. Dasse also served as an instructor/researcher in the French Military Forensics Institute. There, he worked on the development of methods for gun powder residue dating by UV spectroscopy as well as blood print enhancement by luminescence. Dr. Dasse earned his Ph.D. in organic chemistry at Florida State University where he worked on the total synthesis of anti-histaminic natural product steroids. He also earned his diplôme d’ingénieur from Ecole Supérieure de Chimie Organique et Minérale, Paris, France.