Team

Bill Wexler has worked on over 150 individual projects, serving in various capacities including: Chairman; Chief Executive Officer; Chief Restructuring Officer and other designated roles of senior responsibility. Since 2017, he has served as Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive officer of Homer City Holdings, LLC which owns and operates a multiple unit merchant power plant which is located in western Pennsylvania. From July 2012 to December 2019, he served in various roles, including as Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer and sole Director and shareholder representative of Upstate New York Power Products, Inc. which owned and operated merchant power plants throughout upstate New York. From January 2012 to April 2013, Mr. Wexler served as Chief Restructuring Officer of VMR Electronics, LLC, a manufacturer of cable assembly products for the electronics interconnect industry. Between 2006 and 2011, he served as a managing director and national finance practice lead at BBK, Ltd., a turn-around advisory firm. From 2002 to 2005, he served as Group Managing Director of Corporate Restructuring at Huron Consulting Group, LLC. From 2000 to 2002, he was a Managing Director at Berenson Minella & Co., a boutique investment-banking firm. Between 1986 and 2000 he served as a Senior Director at BNP Paribas, where he established and led Paribas Properties, Inc., a real estate investment arm of the bank. In addition, he was a Senior Officer in the bank’s North American asset workout group. Mr. Wexler began his career in 1981 in commercial lease brokerage, asset management and investment sales at Jones Lang Wootton. He earned a BA in Political Science from Johns Hopkins University.

Dorothy Clarke held various leadership positions at Johnson & Johnson over 20 years across the company’s pharmaceutical, medical devices & diagnostics, and consumer sectors. She initially joined the Law Department, serving as Assistant General Counsel in the Regulatory and Medical Devices Groups, and later served as Vice President, Regulatory Affairs; Vice President, Chief Privacy Officer; Chief Compliance Officer for Medical Devices & Diagnostics, and most recently Vice President, Research & Development, Innovation and Business Development Compliance. During her tenure at Johnson & Johnson, Ms. Clarke led compliance, regulatory and data protection functions, addressed regulatory inquiries and investigations, and conducted due diligence for numerous acquisitions. Prior to Johnson & Johnson, she was an attorney at the law firms Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren, S.C., and Fox, Bennett & Turner, where she represented pharmaceutical companies and patient advocacy groups, as well as healthcare organizations and professionals including hospitals, nursing homes and physicians. Ms. Clarke holds a J.D. from New York University School of Law.

Dr. Bristol’s career in research & development and drug discovery has spanned more than 30 years. Since his retirement from Pfizer in 2007, he has spent the subsequent 16 years as a consultant, actively engaged in various Boards of Directors, Scientific Advisory Board and advisory roles in the biopharmaceutical industry, including Chairman of the Board of Directors of Deciphera Pharmaceuticals, Lead Independent Director of Erasca, and Senior Advisor to Frazier Life Sciences.

Prior to his retirement, Dr. Bristol was Senior Vice President, Worldwide Drug Discovery Research at Pfizer, overseeing discovery collaborations and managing a large team of scientists across multiple company sites in the U.S., U.K., and Japan who produced an industry-leading number of drug development candidates across 11 broadly defined therapeutic areas. Before that, he worked at Parke-Davis for 20 years, where he held positions of increasing responsibility in Chemistry and Drug Discovery and participated in collaboration oversight committees. Early in his career, Dr. Bristol was a Principal Scientist at Schering-Plough, leading the gastrointestinal research program. His drug discovery research has resulted in numerous publications, abstracts, and patents. Dr. Bristol holds a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of New Hampshire and a B.S. in Chemistry from Bates College

Dr. Michael Andreeff, PhD, received his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, and additional training and faculty appointments at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York, NY, in the Departments of Pathology and Leukemia. 

Dr. Andreeff has been a pioneer in flow cytometry since 1971, when he established the first flow cytometry laboratory at the University of Heidelberg, and organized the first European conference on flow cytometry. In 1977 he joined Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, NY, became head of the Leukemia Cell Biology and Hematopathology Flow Cytometry Laboratory, organized the first Clinical Cytometry Conference in 1986 and the first Molecular Cytogenetics Conference in 1990. 

He is Professor of Medicine and holds the Paul and Mary Haas Chair in Genetics at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He has received uninterrupted NCI funding for over 30 years, serves as Principal Investigator of the P01 grant entitled “The Therapy of AML”, participates as Principal Investigator in the MD Anderson Cancer Center Leukemia, Lymphoma, Ovarian and Breast Cancer SPORE grants, the CML P01 and additional R21 and R01 grants. He has published over 639 peer-reviewed papers, 5 books and 75 book chapters 

Dr Andreeff’s group has worked extensively on drug resistance in hematopoietic malignancies and breast cancer and developed or co-developed several new therapeutic agents including the novel triterpenoids CDDO and CDDO-Me and Bcl-2-, XIAP-, surviving-, MEK- and HDM2- inhibitors. Over the last decade, his group has made major contributions to the understanding of micro-environment-mediated drug resistance and developed strategies to exploit the underlying mechanisms for the treatment of hematopoietic and epithelial malignancies. His group reported the role of bone marrow-derived multipotent mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC) in tumor stroma formation and developed therapeutic strategies based on this discovery. 

Dr. Christopher Rohde, PhD, is the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Factor Bioscience, which he joined in early 2012 following the completion of his Ph.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Rohde is also the co-founder of Novellus Therapeutics, where he served as President until its acquisition by Brooklyn in 2021. Chris has extensive experience developing mRNA technologies and technologies for high-throughput and high-content screening and is the named inventor on more than 100 patents. His work is described in numerous peer-reviewed publications, and has been covered by Technology Review, Nature, Bioscience Magazine, Analytical Chemistry, The Economist, and many others.

Dr. Karp is the Distinguished Chair in Clinical Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Professor of Anesthesia at Harvard Medical School in Boston. He is also a principal faculty member at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, and an affiliate faculty member at the Broad Institute and at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. Dr. Karp was elected a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, Royal Society of Chemistry, American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering’s College of Fellows, Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES), and the Canadian Academy of Engineering. He has published over 125 peer-reviewed papers with more than 30,000 citations. Several technologies developed in his lab have led to multiple products currently in development or on the market, and to the launch of ten companies. Dr. Karp has received more than 50 awards and honors. Most recently, he received the Clemson Award for Applied Research, the highest award for innovation from the Society for Biomaterials. Boston Magazine recognized Dr. Karp as one of 11 Boston Doctors Making Medical Breakthroughs and the Boston Business Journal recognized him as a Champion in Healthcare Innovation. MIT Technology Review magazine also recognized Dr. Karp as being one of the top innovators in the world in its “TR35” list, and three members from his laboratory have subsequently received this award. His work has been selected by Popular Mechanics as one of the Top 20 New Biotech Breakthroughs that Will Change Medicine.