We are a team of seasoned biotechnology professionals with significant experience developing and launching leading pharmaceutical products.
David J. Matlin
Chairman
David Matlin has been on our board of directors since December 2020 and chairman of our board since May 2021, and is in charge of supervising and providing independent judgement to our Board, as well as overall strategic planning and business planning. Mr. Matlin was the Chief Executive Office of MatlinPatterson Global Advisers LLC, a global private equity firm, which he co-founded in 2002, as well as a co-founder of MatlinPatterson Asset Management, a series of U.S. based credit hedge funds begun in 2010. Mr. Matlin was a former Managing Director at Credit Suisse First Boston and also a founding partner of Merrion Group, LP. He currently serves on the public board of TriSalus Life Sciences Inc. (NASDAQ: TLSI), as well as the board of several privately held companies. Mr. Matlin holds a J.D. from the Law School of the University of California at Los Angeles and a B.S. in economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Rob Etherington
CEO/President
Rob Etherington brings nearly 30 years of sales, marketing and leadership experience in the pharmaceutical industry to Clene. Prior to joining Clene as CEO, Mr. Etherington worked for Actelion Pharmaceuticals, which was the largest biopharmaceutical company based in the EU until Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceuticals acquired the company in 2017. He initially joined Actelion as founding Director of Marketing in 2000, the same year the company went public, and went on to hold various roles of increasing responsibility. Mr. Etherington served as the first U.S. commercial employee, leading U.S. commercial operations and serving as Chair of the U.S. Commercial Strategic team where he was responsible for five marketed drugs. Prior to Actelion, Mr. Etherington began his pharmaceutical career with a number of sales and marketing roles at Parke-Davis, a division of Pfizer, culminating in a Team Leader position that oversaw the drug Lipitor. As the founding CEO of Clene, Mr. Etherington has raised more than $150M in equity financings, and has driven Clene’s focus on neurodegenerative diseases.
Arjun “JJ” Desai, MD
Board Member
Arjun “JJ” Desai, M.D., brings a diverse and successful track record as a Stanford trained clinical physician, medical technology executive, bio-technology executive, and investor. His early career started as a founding or early team member at multiple medical and biotechnology companies including Profusa, Qool Therapeutics, Incline Therapeutics, and Avinger. Concomitantly, Dr. Desai served as both clinical instructor and faculty for the Biodesign Program at Stanford. In 2016, Dr. Desai was recruited to serve as the Global Vice President, External Innovation for Johnson & Johnson, where he led the JLABS organization and Center for Device Innovation as Chief Operating Officer. He built 12 offices globally, with >500 early-stage assets under management across medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and consumer technology. Dr. Desai was later recruited to lead a global team at Insightec, the world’s foremost leader in focused ultrasound therapeutics, with an emphasis on neuroscience. As a senior executive, Dr. Desai leads teams across Israel, Europe, the U.S., Japan, and China – responsible for strategic development, pharmaceutical drug development partnerships, and global market access and reimbursement. Dr. Desai serves on the Board of Directors for TriSalus Life Sciences (NYSE: TLSI), Obvius Robotics (board chairman), PathologyWatch, Tympa Health, Wesper, and as a senior advisor to Empyrean Neuroscience (co-founder; CRISPR Therapeutics). Dr. Desai holds an M.D. from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and a B.S. in economics from the University of Oklahoma.
Jonathon T. Gay
Board Member
Jonathon Gay is a Managing Partner at Kensington-SV Global Innovations LP (KSV), a growth stage investment firm which he co-founded in 2018. Prior to joining KSV, Mr. Gay served for five years as a Managing Partner and co-led the investment strategy of Kensington Capital Ventures (KCV), an investment group within Kensington Capital Holdings (KCH). While at KCV, he oversaw transaction and execution of deals and monitored portfolio companies. Previous to co-leading KCV, Mr. Gay was a principal at KCH, a single-family office where he focused on private equity and venture capital fund and direct investment strategies. Prior to joining KCH, Mr. Gay worked as a Vice President at HGGC in Palo Alto, California, where he performed functions in all aspects of the firm’s private equity practice including fund raising, investment sourcing, investment analysis and deal execution. Prior to joining HGGC, Mr. Gay served as an Operations Analyst at Sorenson Capital. Mr. Gay received his MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.
Shalom Jacobovitz
Board Member
Shalom Jacobovitz has been on our board of directors since March 2013 and served as the Chairman of the Board from November 2015 to May 2021. Mr. Jacobovitz has over 30 years of professional experience in the development of pharmaceuticals and biotech products. Mr. Jacobovitz is the Chief Executive Officer of CiVi Biopharma, Inc., a privately held biopharmaceutical company, and the former Chief Executive Officer of the American College of Cardiology (ACC). At the ACC, Mr. Jacobovitz led the ~50,000 member organization in its mission to transform cardiovascular care and improve heart health. Prior to joining the ACC, Jacobovitz served as President of Actelion Pharmaceuticals U.S., a biopharmaceutical company and subsidiary of Actelion specializing in orphan cardiopulmonary therapies. Mr. Jacobovits has also held positions at F. Hoffmann La Roche, Abbott Canada, Nordic Labs and Marion Merrill Dow (now known as Sanofi) in Canada. Mr. Jacobovitz earned a B.S. in biology at Western University, formerly known as the University of Western Ontario.
Matthew Kiernan AM, Ph.D., DSc
Board Member
Professor Matthew Kiernan has been on our Board since September 2023. He is the CEO and Institute Director of Neuroscience Research Australia, the Scientia Professor of Neuroscience at the University of NSW and Staff Specialist Neurologist for the South Eastern Sydney Local Health District. Prior to these roles, he held the prestigious appointment of Bushell Chair of Neurology at the University of Sydney, and was Co-Director of the University’s Brain and Mind Centre. Professor Kiernan leads a research group comprised of a team of clinicians, scientists, biomedical engineers, doctoral and postdoctoral students with a focus on neurological disease. His research team’s focus is clinical neurology, including frontotemporal dementia and motor neurone syndromes such as ALS. Currently his team is investigating the mechanisms and the prevention of neurodegeneration in ALS and frontotemporal dementia; chemotherapy-induced neurotoxicity; spinal muscular atrophy and inherited neuropathies. His research has been recognized through a number of awards including the Sheila Essey Award of the American Academy of Neurology in 2022. Professor Kiernan is Editor Emeritus of the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry (BMJ Publishing Group, United Kingdom), having served as Editor-in-Chief of the journal from 2010-2022. He is past President of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Neurologists, Board Member of Motor Neurone Disease Research Australia and President of the Brain Foundation, the largest priming institution for neuroscience in Australia, responsible for distributing funding towards research and medical education for the treatment and prevention of neurological disorders. In 2019 he was elected Chair of the World Federation of Neurology Research Committee for Neurodegenerative Disease and currently serves as Scientific Chair for the World Congress of Neurology.
Vallerie V. McLaughlin, MD
Board Member
Vallerie V. McLaughlin, M.D., is the Kim A. Eagle M.D. Endowed Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine, to which she was appointed in 2014; and Director of the Pulmonary Hypertension Program at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, to which she was appointed in 2003. Dr. McLaughlin is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology, American College of Chest Physicians, and American Heart Association (AHA). She has been the Principal Investigator of several major clinical trials of drug therapies for pulmonary arterial hypertension and has published numerous papers in this field. Dr. McLaughlin is a former editorial board member of Chest, a Guest Editor for the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, and past Editor-in-Chief of Advances in Pulmonary Hypertension. She is a past Chair of the Scientific Leadership Committee and past Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Pulmonary Hypertension Association, has chaired the American College of Cardiology Foundation/AHA Clinical Expert Consensus Document Committee for Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension, and was Chair of the Cardiovascular Medical Research and Education Fund Steering Committee. She received her medical degree from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, IL, and completed her internal medicine residency at University of Michigan Hospitals and cardiology fellowship at Northwestern University.
Alison H. Mosca
Board Member
Alison Mosca brings over 25 years of experience, focused on private family wealth management, including wealth structuring, preservation and transfer, philanthropic advising, tax, investment and risk management counsel. Ms. Mosca is a Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Kensington Capital Holdings, a single family office she helped launch in 2008. Prior to founding Kensington Capital Holdings, she built a multi-family office within Audax Group, a leading middle market private equity firm for the founding members and their families. Previous to her work at Audax Group, Ms. Mosca spent several years at PricewaterhouseCoopers in its Private Client Group and Audit Assurance practices, where she served a variety of clients including broker-dealers, venture capital and private equity funds and their general partners, investment managers, insurance, high tech and manufacturing companies. Ms. Mosca’s experience also includes both non-profit and for-profit board level experience and mentoring. She is a Certified Public Accountant and received an M.S. with distinction in Personal Financial Planning from Bentley University and a B.S., cum laude with university honors program distinction, in Accounting from Northeastern University.
Reed N. Wilcox
Board Member
Reed Wilcox co-founded Clene Nanomedicine and has been on our board of directors since 2013. From September 2014 through June 2023, Mr. Wilcox was President, Trustee and member of the board executive committee of Southern Virginia University, a private liberal arts college in Buena Vista, Virginia, and he has since been designated as President Emeritus. Mr. Wilcox has extensive experience in management, growth and strategy consulting, having served as Vice President and Director of Boston Consulting Group, co-founder and Chief Development Officer of General Resonance, LLC, founder and owner of Resonance RNW LLC, co-founder of The Flagship Group, and CEO of The Lifelike Company. Mr. Wilcox also served a three-year mission as president of the France Marseille/Toulouse Missions of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Mr. Wilcox earned a B.S. in economics and international relations summa cum laude from Brigham Young University, MBA with High Distinction as a Baker Scholar from Harvard Business School, and J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School. Mr. Wilcox is an inventor on over 20 U.S. patents and has extensive international business experience in Europe, Asia and Africa.