Board of Directors

Michael Cima, PhD

Professor of Engineering, Material Science & Engineering, MIT

Dr. Michael J. Cima is a Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has an appointment at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research.  Cima joined the MIT faculty in 1986 as an Assistant Professor.  He was promoted to full Professor in 1995.  He was elected a Fellow of the American Ceramics Society in 1997. 

Dr. Cima now holds the Sumitomo Electric Industries Chair at MIT.  Prof. Cima is author or co-author of over two hundred peer reviewed scientific publications, forty-five patents, and is a recognized expert in the field of materials processing.  Prof. Cima is actively involved in materials and engineered systems for improvement in human health such as treatments for cancer, metabolic diseases, trauma, and urological disorders.  Prof. Cima's research concerns advanced forming technology such as for complex macro and micro devices, colloid science, MEMS and other micro components for medical devices that are used for drug delivery and diagnostics, high-throughput development methods for formulations of materials and pharmaceutical formulations.  He is a co-inventor of MIT’s three dimensional printing process.  His research has led to the development of chemically derived epitaxial oxide films for HTSC coated conductors.  He and collaborators are developing implantable MEMS devices for unprecedented control in the delivery of pharmaceuticals and implantable diagnostic systems.  Finally, through his consulting work he has been a major contributor to the development of high throughput systems for discovery of novel crystal forms and formulations of pharmaceuticals.  Prof. Cima also has extensive entrepreneurial experience.  He is co-founder and a director of MicroChips Inc., a developer of microelectronic based drug delivery and diagnostic systems.  Prof. Cima took two sabbaticals to act as senior consultant and management team member at Transform Pharmaceuticals Inc. a company that he helped start and that was ultimately acquired by Johnson and Johnson Corporation.  He is a co-founder and director at T2 Biosystems a medical diagnostics company.  Most recently, Prof. Cima co-founded Entra Pharmaceuticals a specialty pharmaceutical company and Taris Biomedical a urology products company.

He earned a B.S. in chemistry in 1982 (phi beta kappa) and a Ph.D. in chemical engineering in 1986, both from the University of California at Berkeley. Prof.

 

Alan Crane

President and CEO Tempo Pharmaceuticals
Venture Partner, Polaris Venture Partners

Mr. Crane is currently President and CEO of Tempo Pharmaceuticals, Inc. He has also been a venture partner at Polaris Ventures since April, 2002.  From 2002 until 2006, Mr. Crane was President and CEO of Momenta Pharmaceuticals.  He joined Momenta as the fifth employee and built the company into a public company, creating an advanced and diversified pipeline, entering into two strategic collaborations with the Sandoz division of Novartis, and raising $275 million.  Prior to this, Mr. Crane was senior vice president of global corporate development at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, where he was responsible for leading Millennium's strategic partnering, mergers and acquisitions, and licensing activities, generating over $2 billion in partner funding and acquiring 19 development stage products.  Prior to Millennium, Mr. Crane was a marketing executive at Dupont-Merck and a consultant with the Boston Consulting Group and Arthur D. Little.

Mr. Crane serves on the boards of Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, Adnexus and Vaccinex and is a member of the board of Children's Hospital Trust and a founder and member of the board of the Autism Consortium.

He received his M.B.A. in 1992 and his B.A. summa cum laude and M.A. in 1986, all from Harvard University. Mr. Crane also attended Harvard Medical School from 1986 to 1988 before pursuing a business career.

Michael Greeley

General Partner
Flybridge Capital Partners

Michael Greeley is a General Partner at Flybridge Capital Partners focused on information technology, healthcare and medical technology investments.  Among a range of general investment themes, Michael is currently focused on opportunities involving the convergence of healthcare and IT, technology-enabled business services, and technologies that address the physical security and homeland defense markets.  Michael currently represents the firm on the boards of BlueTarp Financial, MicroCHIPS, PolyRemedy, Predictive Biosciences, Protein Forest, T2 Biosystems and VidSys and led the firm’s investment in Magen BioSciences. 

Michael founded IDG Ventures Atlantic in 2001 before it transitioned to Flybridge Capital Partners in 2008.  Michael served on the board of International Data Group, the flagship Limited Partner for the IDG Ventures global network of funds.

Previously, Michael was with Polaris Venture Partners, where he focused on both early-stage and later-stage financings for emerging growth companies. Before Polaris, Michael served as Senior Vice President and Founding Partner of GCC Investments, was a Vice President and one of the early professionals at Wasserstein Perella & Co., was a member of the Mergers and Acquisitions Department of Morgan Stanley & Co., and worked in the Leveraged Buyout Group of Credit Suisse First Boston.

Michael currently serves as Chairman of the New England Venture Capital Association where he served as President from 2005 to 2008. He is also on the investment committee of the Partners Innovation Healthcare Fund, a member of the Executive Business Advisory Council for Mass General Hospital for Children, and a trustee and on the investment committee of the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. Additionally, Michael authors a column called “Nothing Ventured” for BioIT World magazine and blogs on the venture industry for Xconomy.

Michael received a BA with honors in Chemistry from Williams College and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Robert Langer, D. Sc.

Institute Professor, MIT

Robert S. Langer is the David H. Koch Institute Professor (there are 14 Institute Professors at MIT; being an Institute Professor is the highest honor that can be awarded to a faculty member).  Dr. Langer has written approximately 1,050 articles.  He also has approximately 750 issued and pending patents worldwide.  Dr. Langer’s patents have been licensed or sublicensed to over 220 pharmaceutical, chemical, biotechnology and medical device companies.  He is the most cited engineer in history.

He 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.

Dr. Langer has received over 170 major awards including the 2006 United States National Medal of Science; the Charles Stark Draper Prize, considered the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for engineers and the 2008 Millennium Prize, the world’s largest technology prize.  He is the also the only engineer to receive the Gairdner Foundation International Award; 72 recipients of this award have subsequently received a Nobel Prize.  Among numerous other awards Langer has received are the Dickson Prize for Science (2002), Heinz Award for Technology, Economy and Employment (2003), the Harvey Prize (2003), the John Fritz Award (2003) (given previously to inventors such as Thomas Edison and Orville Wright), the General Motors Kettering Prize for Cancer Research (2004), the Dan David Prize in Materials Science (2005), the Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research (2005), the largest prize in the U.S. for medical research, induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame (2006), the Max Planck Research Award (2008) and the Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research (2008).  In 1998, he received the Lemelson-MIT prize, the world’s largest prize for invention for being “one of history’s most prolific inventors in medicine.”  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.  He is one of very few people ever elected to all three United States National Academies and the youngest in history (at age 43) to ever receive this distinction. 

Forbes Magazine (1999) and Bio World (1990) have named Dr. Langer as one of the 25 most important individuals in biotechnology in the world.  Discover Magazine (2002) named him as one of the 20 most important people in this area.  Forbes Magazine (2002) selected Dr. Langer as one of the 15 innovators worldwide who will reinvent our future.  Time Magazine and CNN (2001) named Dr. Langer as one of the 100 most important people in America and one of the 18 top people in science or medicine in America (America’s Best).  Parade Magazine (2004) selected Dr. Langer as one of 6 “Heroes whose research may save your life.”  Dr. Langer has received honorary doctorates from Harvard University, the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, Yale University, the ETH (Switzerland), the Technion (Israel), the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel), the Universite Catholique de Louvain (Belgium), the University of Liverpool (England), the University of Nottingham (England), Albany Medical College, the Pennsylvania State University, Northwestern University, Uppsala University (Sweden) and the University of California – San Francisco Medal.  

Dr. Langer received his Bachelor’s Degree from Cornell University in 1970 and his Sc.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1974, both in Chemical Engineering.

 

Stanley N. Lapidus

Chairman
Helicos Biosciences Corporation

 

Douglas A. Levinson, PhD

Founding CEO, T2 Biosystems, Inc.
Partner, Flagship Ventures

Dr. Levinson joined Flagship in 2006, bringing over fifteen years of experience in the biotech industry to Flagship’s venture investment and new venture creation activities. At Flagship, Dr. Levinson is a member of the investment team and focuses on early-stage companies in the biotech industry.  He was Founding CEO of T2 Biosystems and he currently serves on the Board of Resolvyx.

Prior to Flagship, Dr. Levinson was with TransForm Pharmaceuticals since 2000 as part of its scientific founding-team along with Professors Bob Langer and Michael Cima of MIT.  As Vice President of Emerging Science and Technology, he led the design, development and implementation of TransForm's basic technology platforms and business model.  TransForm was acquired by Johnson & Johnson for $230 million in 2005.

Prior to TransForm, Dr. Levinson was a founding scientific team member with Millennium Pharmaceuticals, where he was responsible for establishing the company's early scientific program in Immunology/Inflammation, which he grew to the largest research effort at the company.  Before that, he was with Creative Biomolecules where he was responsible for the generation of synthetic single-chain antibody molecules.

Dr. Levinson holds a Ph.D. in Genetics from Harvard University and a B.S. cum laude in Molecular Biology from the University of Massachusetts. He has authored numerous patents in the field of high-throughput platform technologies and molecular genetics and has published extensively in scientific journals.

 

John McDonough

John McDonough joined T2 Biosystems in 2007.  Prior to joining T2, Mr. McDonough was President of Cytyc Development Corporation and had responsibility for designing and executing Cytyc Corporation’s acquisition and investment strategy for growing the company from a single product company with revenue of approximately $300 million in 2003 to a company with revenue of approximately $750 million from multiple products in 2007. In total, Cytyc acquired five companies totaling over $1 billion in acquisitions and also entered into alliances and investments with several early stage companies.  John most recently led the efforts that resulted in Cytyc’s acquisition by Hologic, Inc. in October, 2007 for over $6 billion, representing almost a four times increase in Cytyc’s market cap over a four year period.  During Mr. McDonough’s tenure at Cytyc, he also had responsibility for Cytyc’s Research & Development, Operations and Regulatory functions. 

Mr. McDonough came to Cytyc after serving as co-founder, CEO and president at SoundBite Communications, a customer communications company which went public in 2007.  Previously, he was COO of Direct Hit Technologies, an Internet search engine company that was successfully acquired in January, 2000 for over $500 million, and CEO and President of Workgroup Technology, a publicly held company that developed and marketed product development management solutions.  Mr. McDonough also spent 10 years with Easel Corporation where he held the role of CFO, COO and then CEO of a start-up company that grew into a publicly held company in 1990 and which was acquired in 1995. 

Mr. McDonough is a Certified Public Accountant and was a Senior Accountant with Deloitte, Haskins and Sells after graduating magna cum laude from Stonehill College in 1981.