MANAGEMENT TEAM
Elisabet de los Pinos, Ph.D.
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Dr. de los Pinos has over ten years of experience in Oncology and Translational Research in Biotech and Big Pharmaceutical settings. Prior to founding Aura, she was Marketing Manager at Eli Lilly Oncology Business Unit. At Lilly, she was responsible for Gemzar (pancreatic, lung, breast and ovarian cancer) and the successful launch of Alimta (for mesothelioma and 2nd line NSCLC), achieving double digit growth sales for the drugs under management.
Dr. de los Pinos received a magna cum laude doctorate in Molecular Biology at the University of Barcelona. She completed part of her training at Mount Sinai School of Medicine Institute of Molecular Medicine (NY-USA) and at Georgetown School of Medicine (Washington DC). Following that, she worked as a post-doctoral Researcher at the Institute of Cancer Research London (UK).
Dr. de los Pinos has received 5 different scholarships as a result of her academic achievements by the Spanish Government and the University of Barcelona and has several publications in peer-reviewed journals.
She later obtained a MBA at IE Business School and also completed the Entrepreneurship Development Program at the Massachussets Institute of Technology (MIT).
Peter Elliott Ph.D.
Chief Scientific Officer
Peter holds a B.Sc. in Pharmacology from London University and a Ph.D. in Psychopharmacology from Cambridge University under the direction of Dr’s Susan and Leslie Iversen. After post-doc’s with Charles Nemeroff at Duke, Mike Bannon at Yale and Claudio Cuello at McGill, Peter moved back to the UK to join Glaxo. During his 5 years (1988-1993), Peter led a number of CNS programs focusing on movement disorders, neurodegeneration and pain.
He then moved back to the USA to enter biotech where his first position was at Alkermes in Cambridge , MA . At Alkermes (1993–1996), Peter was Director of Pharmacology and was involved with their blood-brain barrier drug, RMP-7, and their stroke program. He then moved to ProScript which, after a few years, was acquired by LeukoSite and ultimately Millennium (1996-2001). Peter was Vice President of Pharmacology and Development during this time and was a co-developer of the multiple myeloma drug, Velcade©, and PS-519 for stroke. He then moved to join CombinatoRx (2001-2005) where he was Executive Vice President of Product Development and led the efforts resulting in 8 phase II programs in inflammation and oncology. Peter was then Senior Vice President of Research & Development at Sirtris Pharmaceuticals (2005-2009) where he led their programs dedicated to the discovery and development of novel small molecule modulators of sirtuins for the treatment of diseases of aging including, metabolic disorders, oncology, inflammation and neurodegenerative disorders. Work from his teams enabled multiple compounds to enter clincial development. He was also an integral part of the roadshow to take Sirtris public with a successful IPO in 2007. Sirtris was ultimately acquired by GSK for $720 MM in 2008.
Johannes Fruehauf MD, Ph.D
VP of Research and Development
Dr. Fruehauf serves as Vice President, Research and Development. In this function he oversees day-to-day operations of Aura’s internal and external drug discovery and development programs and acts as primary liaison with Aura’s academic collaborators. Dr. Fruehauf joined Aura from Cequent Pharmaceuticals, a clinical stage RNAi company he helped start in 2006, and where he was Vice President, Research overseeing Cequent’s Research and Development efforts and resulting in the IND filing of the first oral RNA interference drug. Dr. Fruehauf is one of the few individuals seeing an RNAi drug delivery concept through from inception at the bench in academia to clinical stage testing in patients. He did his Postdoc at the BIDMC/Harvard Medical School, where he co-invented the method of transkingdom RNA interference (tkRNAi). Dr. Fruehauf trained in Internal Medicine and Ob/Gyn at the University Hospital Mannheim/Germany. He studied Medicine in Frankfurt/Germany and Montpellier/France and received his PhD from the University of Heidelberg, Magna Cum Laude. He is the author of numerous peer reviewed articles and inventor of eight patents in the area of RNA interference, and serves as peer reviewer for Human Gene Therapy, EOBT, J Gene Medicine and Hepatology.