The Dicerna Team

management team

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    Doug Fambrough, Ph.D.

    Chief Executive Officer

    Doug is a co-founder of Dicerna Pharmaceuticals and joined as its CEO in May 2010. Prior to joining Dicerna, Doug spent over a decade as a biotechnology venture capitalist with Oxford Bioscience Partners, one of Dicerna’s investors. At Oxford, he specialized in financing innovative life science technology companies such as the first generation RNA Interference company Sirna Therapeutics. Among his other investments are high-throughput DNA sequencing pioneer Solexa (acquired by Illumina); Xencor, which engineers antibody Fc domains to enhance drug properties; Rib-X Pharmaceuticals, a developer of antibiotics against multi-drug resistant pathogens; and Solstice Neurosciences, which markets the protein drug Myobloc for movement disorders. Prior to Oxford, Doug was a genomic scientist at the Whitehead/MIT Center for Genome Research (now known as the Broad Institute). He graduated from Cornell University and obtained his Ph.D. in genetics with Corey Goodman at the University of California, Berkeley.
     

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    Roberto Guerciolini, M.D.

    SVP Pharmaceutical Development

    Roberto is a board-certified internist and clinical pharmacologist who has eighteen years of experience in both the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Before joining the other founders of Dicerna, Roberto served as Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President of Development at Sirna Therapeutics before its 2007 acquisition by Merck. His responsibilities covered all the activities of drug development, including filing the IND and conducting the first ever clinical trial with a chemically-optimized siRNA molecule for the treatment of age-related macular degeneration. Prior to joining Sirna Therapeutics, Roberto held a management position with Millennium Pharmaceuticals, where he contributed significantly towards the successful filing of the NDA for Velcade®, a treatment for multiple myeloma. Previously, Roberto worked at Hoffmann-La Roche, and Schering-Plough. Roberto holds an M.D. degree with a specialty in Internal Medicine from the University of Perugia Medical School in Italy and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in clinical pharmacology at the Mayo Clinic. Roberto is certified by the American Board of Clinical Pharmacology. In addition to his medical training, Roberto holds an Executive MBA degree from the Haas School of Business, University of California-Berkeley.

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    Martin D. Williams

    SVP, Chief Business Officer

    Martin has twenty three years of experience in the global biopharmaceutical business. He has closed over $3 billion worth of corporate transactions, including partnerships, M&A, and public and private financings. He comes to Dicerna from Synta Pharmaceuticals, where he was Chief Business Officer and SVP for Commercial and Business Development, with responsibility for corporate development, sales & marketing, corporate communications and medical affairs. There, he helped the company complete its IPO in 2007 and negotiated a $1 billion collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline for its lead oncology product. Prior to joining Synta, Martin was Head of Corporate Development for Altus Pharmaceuticals, where he led all strategic partnering activities. Before joining Altus, he was Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Marketing at Oscient Pharmaceuticals. Martin held various leadership positions and directed the development, commercialization and launch of several flagship brands for Glaxo, Hoffmann-La Roche, American Cyanamid and Wyeth. These brands included Glaxo's blockbuster Zantac® and Zofran®; Hoffmann La-Roche's Xenical®; and Lederle/Wyeth's global anti-infective portfolio, including Zosyn®/Tazocin®. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, an MS from the University of Manchester, England, and a BA in biology from the University of Humberside, Hull, England.

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    Bob D. Brown, Ph.D.

    SVP Research

    Bob joined Dicerna after a long career at Genta, where he was Vice President, Research and Technology and had over 75 issued patents and patent applications. There, Bob became one of the only R&D executives in the biotechnology industry to follow a systemically administered oligonucleotide therapeutic (Genasense™) from the research bench, through Phase 1, 2, and 3 clinical trials and NDA review. At this time, Genasense remains the only systemically administered oligonucleotide ever subjected to FDA NDA review. At Genta, Bob actively participated in and drove technology creation and development, preclinical research, and very specific clinical trial design features. He worked directly with clinicians and key opinion leaders performing the studies on trial design, execution, and interpretation of results. Before joining Genta, Bob was co-founder and VP of Research and Development at Oasis Biosciences. He holds a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of California, Berkeley and a BS in Chemistry and a BS in Biology from the University of Washington.

founders

Dicerna was founded by Jim Jenson, Doug Fambrough and Roberto Guerciolini based on technology developed by Dicerna’s two scientific co-founders:

John Rossi, Ph.D., the Lidow Family Research Chair and Professor, Division of Molecular Biology and Dean, Graduate School of Biological Sciences at City of Hope's Beckman Research Institute. For more information on Dr. Rossi, see: http://www.cityofhope.org/directory/people/rossi-john/Pages/default.aspx

Mark Behlke, M.D., Ph.D., at Integrated DNA Technologies in Coralville, Iowa. For more information on IDT, see.http://www.idtdna.com >

board of directors

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Doug Fambrough, Ph.D., CEO

Stephen Hoffman, M.D., Ph.D., General Partner, Skyline Ventures

Jim Jenson, Ph.D. Dicerna co-founder

Dennis Langer, M.D., J.D., former SVP, GSK

Jonathan MacQuitty, Ph.D., Partner, Abingworth

David M. Madden, Chairman, Dicerna Pharmaceuticals Inc; Chairman, Adolor Corporation

Scientific advisory board

Dicerna’s SAB features several renowned scientific experts within the fields of RNAi, oncology and infectious diseases, including:

• Jim Jenson, Ph.D., Dicerna co-founder

• John Rossi, Ph.D., chair of the SAB, scientific co-founder of Dicerna, professor in the Division of Molecular Biology and dean, Graduate School of Biological Sciences at City of Hope's Beckman Research Institute.

• Mark Behlke, M.D., Ph.D., Dicerna scientific co-founder, vice president of molecular genetics and biophysics, and chief scientific officer at Integrated DNA Technologies.

• Carlo Croce, M.D., professor of internal medicine, chair of Molecular Virology, Immunology & Medical Genetics, and director, Human Cancer Genetics Program, Ohio State University.

• Frank McCormick, Ph.D., FRS, distinguished professor and director, UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center & Cancer Research Institute.

• Thomas M. Roberts, Ph.D., co-chair, Department of Cancer Biology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and professor of pathology, Harvard Medical School.

• Ronald Kahn, M.D., Joslin Clinic Section Head, Obesity & Hormone Action; Vice Chairman Joslin Board of Directors; Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.