ABOUT US
Bacainn was founded in 2017 in Concord, MA and has a discovery team based at University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, MA.
Bacainn is funded by Morningside Ventures and operated by Morningside BioPharma Advisory.
LEADERSHIP TEAM
ADVISORS
Ed Campanaro
Prior to entering the biopharmaceutical industry, Ed held hospital positions as an ICU registered nurse at The Massachusetts General Hospital and later as a Captain in the U.S. Air Force. Ed holds an MS from The Georgetown University with a concentration in Clinical Research Administration, and a BSN from The University of Massachusetts-Boston.
Ed has more than three decades of drug development experience spanning multiple biopharmaceutical companies and various therapeutic areas. Prior to joining Artugen, Ed was Snr. Vice President of Clinical Operations at Arsanis, Inc. where he oversaw internal and external clinical operations, data management, statistics, and medical writing functions involved in the execution and analysis of a complex global Phase 2 ICU-based trial. Before joining Arsanis, Ed headed-up Clinical Operations and Data Management at bluebird bio, Inc. He also spent close to 15 years at Cubist Pharmaceuticals, where he led cross-functional teams through the successful execution and completion of global clinical development programs of novel antibiotics, leading to the successful marketing approvals for multiple acute-care products.
Ed joined Artugen in 2019 as a consultant and interim Head of Clinical Operations, overseeing the planning and execution of the company’s clinical trial program.
Dr. Chris Stevens
Dr. Stevens began his career as an academic gastroenterologist with 10 years of clinical and research experience at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts as an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School where he was an NIH funded physician scientist in the field of mucosal immunology in the context of inflammatory bowel disease with over 30 peer-reviewed publications. Dr. Stevens left academia in 1998 to join Circe biomedical as its Medical Director developing a bioartificial liver, a combination cell therapy/device product for the treatment of fulminant hepatic failure. Following Circe he was medical director at Altus Pharmaceuticals developing liprotamase, a pancreatic enzyme replacement therapy, for the treatment of exocrine pancreatic insufficiency. Since 2004 he has been an independent consultant for over 40 companies with a focus on drug development of therapies targeting not only gastrointestinal diseases, but also other indications including hereditary angioedema, arthritis, diabetes, hepatitis and oncology. He has worked in all phases of drug development from pre-IND to NDA, BLA and MAA filing, orphan drug and fast track applications and FDA advisory committee presentations.
Dr. Stevens was the Senior Vice President of Alnara which was sold to Lilly after the NDA filing of liprotamase, an exocrine pancreatic enzyme replacement therapy. He consulted with Cubist Pharmaceuticals for more than five years, shepherding their investigational drug surotomycin for the treatment of Clostridium difficile infection from IND filing to the completion of its successful phase 2 trial. He was a consultant for 8 years for Dyax, Inc supporting the development of peptides and monoclonal antibodies for the treatment and prevention of hereditary angioedema resulting in the sale of Dyax to Shire. Dr. Stevens was also a gastroenterology expert with Millenium/Takeda assisting them with their BLA and MAA for vedolizumab that was approved for both ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease in the US and in Europe.
Most recently Dr. Stevens was the Chief Medical Officer for Arsanis, Inc from 2016 to 2019 overseeing the development of ASN100 for the prevention of bacterial pneumonia from preIND through to Phase 2. Dr. Stevens now serves as Artugen’s consultant to the biopharmaceutical industry.
Dr. Ellie Hershberger, Pharm D
Dr. Ellie Hershberger, Pharm D is a clinical advisor with over eighteen years of experience in leading the development of small and large molecules across multiple therapeutic areas. Dr. Hershberger’s experience includes leading drug candidates through early and late-stages of development with over 20 successful regulatory submissions in the US and globally. Dr. Hershberger has held a number of leadership positions in various levels of increasing responsibility at Pfizer, Cubist, Merck, and Visterra. She played a leading role in the development of Zerbaxa® and Cubicin® while serving as Global Program Development Lead at Merck and Senior Medical Director at Cubist. At Visterra, she led the clinical and operation teams responsible for global development of novel biologic therapies. Dr. Hershberger has a BS in Chemistry, a Doctorate in Pharmacy and completed a fellowship in Infectious Diseases PK/PD.
Dr. Hershberger now serves as Artugen’s clinical advisor.
Cheryl Cormier
In 2018, Cheryl joined Artugen Therapeutics as Operations Manager to lead the operations and expand the company, supporting its Chief Executive, Ronnie Farquhar.
Ronald Farquhar, D. Phil
Ronald (Ronnie) Farquhar studied microbiology both as an undergraduate (BSc, 1st Class, Edinburgh, 1982) and as a postgraduate (D. Phil., Oxford, 1985). Over the next 5 years Ronnie worked at Shell Research and then as a sponsored postdoctoral fellow at Merck. Ronnie joined Pfizer Research in Sandwich, Kent in 1988 and over the following 10 years he worked within infection discovery with a focus on antifungals and antivirals. In 1998, Ronnie joined Millennium Pharmaceuticals where he ran the company’s major alliances with Pfizer and Wyeth (in infection) and with Bayer (in early discovery). Following this, Ronnie served as head of preclinical and discovery biology at ActivBiotics (antibacterial drug discovery) and subsequently as head of Charles River Labs’ Preclinical Services, Massachusetts business. From 2009-2015, Ronnie led discovery and pharmaceutical research at Cubist Pharmaceuticals. Ronnie joined Morningside Ventures in 2015 as an entrepreneur-in-residence, charged with the identification of new infection and immunity related investments. Approved products to which Ronnie contributed include: Miraviroc® and Ceftolozane/Tazobactam®. Clinical development stage compounds to which Ronnie contributed include: Rifalazil®, Surotomycin®, CB-618 (a beta-lactamase inhibitor) and CB-634 (a pain therapeutic).
In February 2016 Ronnie founded Artugen Therapeutics Ltd. to exploit recent advances in microbiome science towards identification of novel live biotherapeutics (LBTs). He has also founded Bacainn Biotherapeutics Ltd. (chronic inflammation focus) and ClearB Therapeutics Ltd. (chronic hepatitis B virus infection focus). Ronnie serves as CEO of Artugen Therapeutics, Bacainn Therapeutics and ClearB Therapeutics.
Christopher Murphy
Christopher Murphy received his B.S. in Microbiology and Immunology from McGill University, and Ph.D. in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics from the University of Notre Dame. He went on to pursue postdoctoral research in bacterial genetics in Jon Beckwith’s lab at Harvard Medical School. Over the past 25 years Chris has held industry positions focused on infectious disease, pain and cancer supportive care. While at ActivBiotics, Inc. he was instrumental in driving the preclinical work to support Galera Therapeutics GC4419 advancement into the clinic for the treatment of severe oral mucositis. Chris later spent 7 years at Cubist Pharmaceuticals as director of the in vivo pharmacology group, playing key roles in advancing antibacterial and pain clinical candidates, and serving on the diligence team for preclinical assets and collaborations. Chris has also held senior positions at Millennium Pharmaceuticals and Kaleido Biosciences and is a consultant for Artugen Therapeutics and ClearB Therapeutics.
In April 2017, Chris joined Bacainn Therapeutics as Vice President of Research and Development, leading the company’s advancement of inflammation-targeted molecules into the clinic.
Beth McCormick
Dr. McCormick earned her Ph.D. in Microbiology in the topic area of intestinal ecology, and completed postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School. She remained on the faculty of Harvard Medical School where she was an Associate Professor of Pediatric Gastroenterology, and Director of Research for the Mucosal Immunology and Biology Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital. In 2008, she joined the University of Massachusetts Medical School where she is Professor and Vice Chair of the Department of Microbiology and Physiological Systems. Dr. McCormick is also the Founding Executive Director of the University of Massachusetts Center for Microbiome Research, which she established in 2014. Dr. McCormick is one of the original pioneers in the field now known as Cellular Microbiology. Her work provided the first evidence that epithelial cells in response to pathogen contact orchestrate a pro-inflammatory program, which recruits inflammatory cells. Dr. McCormick has since identified new, previously unidentified and unexpected virulence mechanisms that are key to the inflammatory response, leading to both novel biological principles of host-microbe interactions and therapeutic intervention strategies for the treatment inflammatory bowel disease, and cancer. Her work continues to identify novel ways in which microbes interact with the intestinal epithelium, publishing over 100 original research papers and opinion pieces in this area. Dr. McCormick is an elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, is on the Board of Editors for Gastroenterology, and Gut Microbes, and serves as a member of four Editorial Review Boards.
Devon Holler
Ashely Mansell, PhD
Professor Ashley Mansell is a senior scientist and head of the Pattern Recognition Receptors and Inflammation in the Centre for Innate Immunity and Infectious Diseases, Hudson Institute of Medical Research. Ashley completed his undergraduate studies at Monash University, majoring in Chemistry prior to beginning work as a Research Assistant at the Commonwealth Scientific Research Organisation. He was then employed at Swinburne College of Technology as a Research Officer where he was instrumental in the design and synthesis of peptides to support studies in HIV and cell adhesion research. Ashley subsequently moved to Ireland where he completed his Ph.D. studies in the Department of Biochemistry in the laboratory of Professor Luke O’Neill at Trinity College, Dublin. Returning to Australia, he was recruited to the Monash Institute of Medical Research under Prof Paul Hertzog to form a Toll-like receptor (TLR) research laboratory where he has continued his research and established his own independent research group investigating Pattern Recognition Receptors and their role in inflammation. Dr Mansell has been instrumental in founding innate immune and PRR international research networks. His group focuses on how inflammasomes and TLRs detect and induce inflammation during infectious and chronic inflammatory diseases. Dr. Mansell began collaborations with Bacainn in the Fall of 2019.
Jennifer Locke
As the Chief Business Officer at Bacainn Therapeutics, Jennifer serves as the key strategic leader overseeing both our business development and business operations divisions. She brings more than 15 years of experience in the biotech industry-leading high-performing teams, directing innovative development strategies, and executing operational excellence from early-stage drug discovery through NDA/BLA filing and into commercial launch. Prior to joining Artugen, Jennifer was the Senior Director Program Management at Seres Therapeutics where she ran the successful development of SER-109 for recurrent C. difficile into Phase 3, and SER-287 for ulcerative colitis into Phase 2 as well as the early-stage development of several other assets in the Seres’ portfolio. She has also held several leadership roles of increasing responsibilities at Merck and Cubist. Jennifer holds a Master of Science (M.S.) Project Management & Global Business from Boston University and a B.A. English, Spanish, and Women’s Studies from Fairfield University.
Shannon Foley
Shannon is the Senior Director, Head of Finance, of Bacainn Therapeutics where she is responsible for financial planning and operations.
Ben Miller, PharmD
Ben received his Doctor of Pharmacy degree from Ohio Northern University and completed a postdoctoral industry fellowship in clinical research through Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences and Cubist Pharmaceuticals.