Team
Harri Järveläinen DVM, PhD, MBA
Co-founder and CEO
Dr. Järveläinen is a pharma industry veteran with a track record of more than 50 development programs – leading preclinical and clinical development, manufacturing, business development, fundraising, and project management. The industry experience includes several years’ of experience with working on the development of small molecule muscarinic agonists. Over the past 20 years, he has held various progressively senior-level roles at large companies such as AstraZeneca, Nestlé, and Pharmaron. He has actively and successfully built and operated several early-stage biotech companies, incl. San Diego-based academic start-up Cend Therapeutics that he took from academia into Phase 2 as the only FTE (now public on Nasdaq as Lisata Therapeutics). He earned his Veterinary Medicine and PhD degrees from the University of Helsinki (Finland) and completed postdoctoral training at New York University Medical Center (New York, NY) and the Max Planck Institute (Berlin, Germany). He also holds an MBA from the University of New South Wales (Sydney, Australia). He is the author of over 40 peer-reviewed scientific publications, patents, and book chapters.
Guangdi Wang, PhD
Co-founder and CSO
Dr. Guangdi Wang is an accomplished medicinal chemist with deep expertise in the field, holding 20 patents and a proven track record of advancing academic start-up companies into proof-of-concept studies. He currently serves as a Professor of Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry at Xavier University of Louisiana and holds adjunct faculty positions at Tulane University and the University of New Orleans. Dr. Wang earned his Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from the University of New Orleans, where his graduate research focused on the fundamental aspects of mass spectrometry. This work provided him with extensive experience in medicinal chemistry, in silico tools, advanced mass spectrometric techniques and their applications in the development and optimization of small molecule candidate drug compounds.
Theresa Branchek, PhD
Non-Executive Director
Dr. Theresa Branchek is a distinguished scientist and executive with over 25 years of experience in drug discovery and development across early-stage biotech and established pharmaceutical companies. She is the former President of Lundbeck USA, where her leadership focused on advancing CNS projects in psychiatry and neurology. She has authored over 100 peer-reviewed scientific publications and is an inventor on more than 100 issued patents and patent applications. Her groundbreaking work has significantly advanced our understanding of GPCR biology and its therapeutic applications in CNS disorders. Dr. Branchek holds an B.A. in Biology from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Oregon. She is a Fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology and an active member of several professional organizations, including ASPET (American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics), BPS (British Pharmacological Society), and SfN (Society for Neuroscience).