Board of Directors

Earl M. Collier, Jr.
Elazer Edelman, M.D., Ph.D.
Robert F. Higgins
Peter Barton Hutt
Edwin M. Kania
Robert S. Langer, Sc.D.

Frank Litvack, M.D.
Amir H. Nashat, Ph.D.

Earl M. Collier, Jr.

Executive Vice President, Genzyme Corporation

Mr. Collier is currently the Executive Vice President of Genzyme and responsible for managing their oncology, cardiovascular and genetics businesses. Mr. Collier joined Genzyme full time in 1997, during which time he also served as president of Genzyme Biosurgery and its predecessor, Genzyme Surgical Products. Prior to Genzyme, Mr. Collier was president of Vitas Healthcare Corp, the largest provider of hospice services in the U.S, from 1991 to 1995. He has also been a partner at Hogan & Hartson law firm in Washington, D.C., served as deputy administrator for the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) in Baltimore, MD during the Carter Administration, and was deputy administrator of the New York State offices of Health Systems Management. In addition to Pervasis, Mr. Collier also serves as a Director of deCODE genetics and Newton-Wellesley Hospital.

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Elazer Edelman, M.D., Ph.D.

Thomas D. and Virginia W. Cabot Professor of Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Dr. Edelman is the Thomas D. and Virginia W. Cabot Professor of Health Sciences and Technology at MIT, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and a coronary care unit cardiologist at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. Dr. Edelman also directs the Harvard-MIT Biomedical Engineering Center (BMEC), dedicated to applying the rigors of the physical sciences to elucidate fundamental biologic processes and mechanisms of disease. Dr. Edelman and his laboratory have pioneered basic findings in vascular biology. Work with antisense oligonucleotides, HDL receptor biology and tissue engineered endothelial implants are a few examples of novel directions taken by his laboratory. Many of his findings are now in clinical trial validation. Dr. Edelman is a fellow of, the American College of Cardiology, the American Heart Association, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and the American Society for Clinical Investigation.

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Robert F. Higgins

Managing General Partner, Highland Capital Partners

Mr. Higgins is the Managing General Partner at Highland Capital Partners and has more than twenty years of experience in venture capital and has been an investor in many successful healthcare services, medical technology and information technology companies. Some of the companies he has backed are AVEO Pharmaceuticals, Codon Devices, Conor Medsystems (Nasdaq: CONR), Helicos BioSciences, Magen BioSciences, Mitotix (Neuer Market: GPC Biotech AG), Origin Medsystems (acquired), PerSeptive Biosystems (IPO/acquired), and PRAECIS PHARMACEUTICALS (Nasdaq: PRCS). In addition, Mr. Higgins has also served on the boards of SmartBargains, Staples.com and WordWave (acquired by Merrill Corporation). Currently, he is a member of the Advisory Board of the Department of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School and the Advisory Board of the Harvard - MIT Division of Health Sciences & Technology. Also, Mr. Higgins is a faculty member at the Harvard Business School where he teaches courses in entrepreneurial management.

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Peter Barton Hutt

Senior Partner, Covington and Burling

Mr. Hutt is a senior counsel in the Washington, D.C. law firm of Covington & Burling specializing in food and drug law. Mr. Hutt served as Chief Counsel for the Food and Drug Administration during 1971-1975. He is the co-author of the casebook used to teach food and drug law throughout the country. Mr. Hutt has been a member of the Institute of Medicine since it was founded in 1971, and he currently serves on the Panel on the Administrative Restructuring of the National Institutes of Health. He also serves on academic and venture capital advisory boards, and the boards of numerous startup biotechnology companies. He was named by The Washingtonian magazine as one of Washington’s 50 best lawyers (out of more than 40,000) and as one of Washington’s 100 most influential people; by the National Law Journal as one of the 40 best health care lawyers in the United States; and by European Counsel as the best FDA regulatory specialist in Washington, D.C.

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Edwin M. Kania

Managing Partner and Chairman, Flagship Ventures

Ed Kania is the Managing Partner and Chairman of Flagship Ventures. Prior to co-founding Flagship Ventures in 1999, he spent 15 years as Managing General Partner of OneLiberty Ventures and as General Partner at its predecessor firm, Morgan Holland Ventures. His direct investment experience covers over 100 companies. In addition, he has been intimately involved in the launch and development of more than a dozen companies as the founding and lead investor. Mr. Kania is currently a director of Aspect Medical Systems (Nasdaq: ASPM), EXACT Sciences (Nasdaq: EXAS), AblaTx, Acceleron Pharma, Epitome Biosciences, TransMedics, and VisEn Medical.

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Robert S. Langer, Sc.D.

Institute Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Dr. Langer is one of fourteen Institute Professors (the highest honor awarded to a faculty member) at MIT. Dr. Langer has written over 840 articles, and has over 500 issued or pending patents worldwide. Dr. Langer has served as a member of the United States Food and Drug Administration’s SCIENCE Board, the FDA’s highest advisory board, from 1995 - 2002 and as its Chairman from 1999 - 2002. In 1989 Dr. Langer was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, and in 1992 he was elected to both the National Academy of Engineering and to the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Langer has received over 130 major awards, including the Charles Stark Draper Prize the Gairdner Foundation International Award, and the Lemelson-MIT prize. Dr. Langer has served, at various times, on 15 boards of directors and 30 Scientific Advisory Boards of such companies as Wyeth, Mitsubishi Pharmaceuticals, Warner-Lambert, and Momenta Pharmaceuticals.

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Frank Litvack, M.D.

Professor, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles

Dr. Litvack is a Professor of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Medicine and is board certified in three specialties; Internal Medicine, Cardiovascular Diseases and Interventional Cardiology. In addition he maintains a small consultative medical practice in Los Angeles. From 1986 until 2000 he was Co-Director at the Cardiovascular Intervention Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. During his academic medical career he published extensively and is the author of more than one hundred research articles. As well as being an inductee in the NASA Space Technology Hall of Fame, Dr. Litvack has been an entrepreneur involved with the founding, development or sale of several medical technology companies. These include Progressive Angioplasty Systems which was sold to United States Surgical in 1997, Savacor which was sold to St. Jude Medical in 2005 and Conor Medsystems which was sold to Johnson & Johnson in 2007.

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Amir H. Nashat, Ph.D.

Principal, Polaris Venture Partners

Dr. Nashat is a principal at Polaris Venture Partners, where he has focused on investments in the life sciences since joining the firm in 2002. Dr. Nashat currently represents Polaris as a Director of Athenix Corporation, eNOS Pharmeceuticals, Hydra Biosciences, Medio Pharmaceuticals, and WaveRX. Additionally, he is a Board Observer to GI Dynamics, and supports Polaris’ investments in Advion and Saegis. Dr. Nashat also serves on the Board of the New England Venture Capital Association, on the Advisory Board of the Simmons School of Management Entrepreneurship Initiative, and is a Catalyst for the Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation at MIT.

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