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our team

MANAGEMENT

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John Harris, M.D., Ph.D.

Founder
Bio
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Andrea Epperly, Ph.D.

Chief Executive Officer,
President and Board Member
Bio

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

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Michèle Ollier, M.D.

Board Member
Bio
kristen

Kristen Slaoui, Ph.D.

Board Member
Bio
DonaldGonzales

Donald Gonzales, M.D.

Board Member
Bio
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Andrea Epperly, Ph.D.

Chief Executive Officer,
President and Board Member
Bio

SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARD

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Amit G. Pandya M.D.

Advisor
Bio
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Rachael A. Clark, M.D., Ph.D.

Advisor
Bio
Masopust

David Masopust, Ph.D.

Advisor
Bio

John Harris, M.D., Ph.D.

Founder

Dr. Harris is the Vice Chair of Dermatology and Director of the Vitiligo Clinic and Research Center at UMass Medical School in Worcester, Massachusetts. He is a dermatologist and physician-scientist, caring for patients in a vitiligo specialty clinic and running a large NIH-funded research laboratory focused on understanding what causes vitiligo in order to develop new treatments. His group integrates basic, translational, and clinical research strategies to accomplish this. As a result, early clinical trials in vitiligo look promising, and more are being developed. While he has served as a consultant for many pharmaceutical and biotech companies, Villaris is the first company that he has founded

Andrea Epperly, Ph.D.

Chief Executive Officer,
President and Board Member

Andrea Epperly is Chief Executive Officer, President and a member of the Board of Directors of Villaris Therapeutics.  She has over 20 years of pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry experience.  She began her career at GlaxoSmithKline in research and development where she led discovery and development teams in oncology, metabolic diseases and dermatology and served as department head of drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics.  She then joined GSK’s Global Business Development team where she was responsible for pharmaceutical licensing and corporate development and closed several successful major partnering deals.  Most recently, she was responsible for project leadership and management of preclinical and clinical-stage programs across a group of portfolio companies at Kalika Biosciences.  Dr. Epperly earned her Bachelor’s degree and Ph.D. in chemistry from Virginia Tech.

Michèle Ollier, M.D.

Board Member

Michèle Ollier is a co-founder and Partner at Medicxi.  Prior to Medicxi, Michèle was a Partner at Index Ventures for 10 years, having joined the firm in 2006. She has led investments in, and continues to serve on the boards of Palladio Biosciences, Gadeta, Kaerus Biosciences, Epsilon-3 Bio, Linguaflex, Human Antibody Factory, Kymo Therapeutics, Mavalon Therapeutics, Villaris Therapeutics, Pearl River Bio and Yukin Therapeutics. She was also a director at OncoEthix (sold to Merck Pharmaceuticals), Minerva Neurosciences (NASDAQ: NERV) and Aegerion (NASDAQ: AEGR).

Prior to joining Index, Michèle was Investment Director at Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners in Paris for 3 years, where she served on the board of U3 Pharma. Before that, she spent more than 15 years in several development and marketing positions at Sanofi International, BMS, RPR/ Gencell/ Aventis International and Serono International. 

She currently serves on the board of directors of Ipsen Pharmaceuticals (Euronext:IPN). She also sits on the investment committees of the accelerator and technology transfer companies of Paris-Saclay and France-Nord. 

Michèle completed her medical studies in France at Paris Ouest University.

Kristen Slaoui, Ph.D

Board Member

Kristen Slaoui is Vice President and Head of Business Development for GlaxoSmithKline’s Global Pharmaceuticals Commercial Portfolio. She has spent nineteen years with GSK, first in R&D, where her work in pulmonary disease resulted in the discovery of the muscarinic receptor antagonist in the approved medicines Anoro™, Incruse™, and Trelegy™. Since joining GSK’s Business Development teams in 2006, she has executed more than $25 billion worth of deals and acquisitions, including the $3.6 billion acquisition of Stiefel Laboratories in 2009, participation in the $20+ billion three-part transaction with Novartis in 2015, and the recent $5.1 billion acquisition of TESARO, with transactions covering the pharma R&D, commercial, emerging markets, specialty pharma and consumer spaces. She holds multiple patents, has authored more than 40 original peer-reviewed publications, and she has had ongoing roles as a peer reviewer for a dozen established medical journals.  Dr. Slaoui earned Bachelor’s degrees in both Biology and Classical Studies from Gettysburg College.  She earned her Ph.D. in Physiology from The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and completed an NIH Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Pharmacology at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA.  After her term in Seattle, she accepted a position in Respiratory Drug Discovery at GSK, but continued her commitment to academic research by spending over a decade as an adjunct assistant professor at her alma mater, The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, MD.

Donald Gonzales, M.D.

Board Member

Don Gonzales is the founder and Chief Medical Officer of Cryosa. In addition to his role at Cryosa, he serves as Chief Medical Advisor for Stryker ENT. Prior to Cryosa, he was the Chief Medical Officer for Entellus Medical (ENTL), which was acquired by Stryker in 2018. Dr. Gonzales is a serial entrepreneur who has founded several successful companies in the ENT space including Spirox Medical (acquired by Entellus) and ENTrigue Surgical (acquired by Arthrocare). Dr. Gonzales graduated from Cornell University Medical College and completed his otolaryngology residency at Tulane University.

Amit G. Pandya M.D.

Advisor

Dr. Amit G. Pandya is a dermatologist at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation in Mountain View, CA and a Clinical Professor in the Department of Dermatology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. He earned his Doctor of Medicine degree from UT Southwestern Medical School and completed residencies in Internal Medicine at Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas and in Dermatology at UT Southwestern Medical Center. He has written multiple articles and book chapters in the field of dermatology and has given lectures and served as a visiting professor nationally and internationally. He has a special interest in vitiligo, melasma and other pigmentary disorders.  His ongoing research is focused on the etiology, epidemiology, measurement, quality of life, diagnosis and treatment of these cutaneous disorders. He is also interested in mentorship, diversity and pipeline programs.

Rachael A. Clark, M.D., Ph.D.

Advisor

Rachael A. Clark, the Shing-Yiu Yip and Cecilia M. Hepp Associate Professor of Dermatology at Harvard Medical School, is a physician scientist, a human immunologist, and the Director of the NIH-funded Human Skin Disease Research Center. Her research at Brigham and Women’s Hospital focuses on the study of human T cell responses in skin and other peripheral tissues, including T cell function in healthy skin, impaired T cell migration and responses in skin cancers, and maladaptive T cell activation in inflammatory skin diseases and cutaneous lymphomas. Her studies, driven by observations in patients and carried out on human tissues, have the goals of developing novel therapies for skin disease and advancing our understanding of human immune responses.

David Masopust, Ph.D.

Advisor

David Masopust, Ph.D. is a Professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School. He has received many research awards and is currently the program chair for the American Association of Immunologists. His research program, funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a Falk Catalyst Award, industry partnerships, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, focuses on resident T cell memory, immune surveillance, and immunotherapy.