Our Team
Our name encompasses our mission: to create a new class of therapeutics that inhibit NOD-like receptors — specifically the NLRP3 inflammasome, which is an intracellular multi-protein complex that assembles in response to environmental danger signals and plays a key role in the regulation of innate immunity.
We are pursuing this mission at a time of growing awareness about the revolutionary potential of the NLRP3 inflammasome. Supported by blue-chip investors and led by a management team with a proven track record in drug discovery, NodThera is pushing the science of NLRP3 inflammasome inhibition into new frontiers.
Leadership


Adam Keeney, Ph.D.
President and Chief Executive Officer
Adam previously held the position of global head of business development at Sanofi Genzyme, where he led BD activities across each of Sanofi’s specialty care therapeutic areas, including immunology, neurology, oncology, rare diseases and rare blood disorders. Adam was also head of R&D strategy and chair of the internal governance body that oversaw the review, prioritization and execution of all external R&D investments at Sanofi. Prior to Sanofi, Adam held roles of increasing responsibility at Johnson & Johnson, including as site head of the company’s California Innovation Center, where he catalyzed early stage innovation across J&J’s pharmaceuticals businesses. Adam began his career as a research scientist at H. Lundbeck A/S. He holds a Ph.D. in neuropharmacology from the University of Nottingham, UK.


Alan Watt, Ph.D., MBA
Chief Scientific Officer
Alan has over 30 years of experience in drug discovery and development in both the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors. His previous roles include serving as vice president of therapeutics at Bicycle Therapeutics, as chief operating officer and executive vice president of R&D at Trident Pharmaceuticals, and as chief executive officer of Xenovium. Alan formerly led inflammasome discovery at GlaxoSmithKline, where he established the Pattern Recognition Receptor Discovery Performance Unit within GSK’s Immuno-Inflammation Centre of Excellence for Drug Discovery (CEDD). He also previously served as head of drug metabolism and in vivo pharmacology at Merck. Alan holds a Bachelor of Science in chemistry from the University of Southampton, a Ph.D. in drug metabolism from the University of Hertfordshire and an MBA from the Open Business School. He has over 50 peer-reviewed scientific publications.


Alison Strutt, Ph.D.
Head of Finance and Operations
Alison is a seasoned healthcare finance executive with extensive transactional and operational experience. She formerly held a number of senior finance roles at GlaxoSmithKline, including as chief of staff to the chief finance officer, where she was responsible for transforming GSK’s reporting processes. Alison also served as chief financial officer of GSK’s drug discovery group, where she established the Tres Cantos Open Lab and Catalyst Science Park at GSK’s UK R&D site. Prior to working for GSK, Alison led the UK M&A life sciences sector group at Deloitte. Alison holds a Ph.D. in chemistry and physical chemistry from the University of Wales, Cardiff.


Chris Gabel, Ph.D.
VP, Biology
Chris began his research career as an assistant professor in cell biology at Columbia University studying lysosomal enzyme trafficking. He subsequently transitioned to drug discovery research and spent over 20 combined years seeking to identify novel therapeutics as part of the inflammation drug discovery units at Pfizer and Amgen. While at Pfizer, Chris and his research team pioneered studies aimed at understanding cellular processes involved in regulating posttranslational processing of newly synthesized IL-1β. The lead compound that emerged from this effort was later demonstrated by others to be a selective inhibitor of NLRP3 activation, establishing the drugability of this axis. Chris later spent several years working as an independent consultant, during which time he helped to launch NodThera. Chris received his Bachelor of Science in biochemistry from Iowa State University and his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Washington. He has over 70-peer reviewed publications.


Mark Bock, Ph.D.
VP, Chemistry
Mark has over 40 years of drug discovery experience. He began his pharmaceutical career at Merck and spent 29 years at the company, where he led research groups targeting enzyme inhibitors, G-protein coupled receptors and ion channels. Mark later served as executive director of global discovery chemistry at Novartis, where he managed the company’s external medicinal chemistry drug discovery efforts in Asia and Europe and successfully advanced several candidate compounds to human clinical trials. Following his retirement from Novartis, Mark consulted for numerous companies in the U.S., Asia, and UK, including NodThera. Mark received his Ph.D. from the University of Georgia (R. K. Hill) and carried out post-doctoral studies at Harvard with E. J. Corey. He is the author or co-author of over 125 peer-reviewed scientific publications and inventor of more than 80 issued U.S. patents.


Nick Clarke, Ph.D.
VP, Preclinical Development
Nick is leading the development of NodThera’s lead candidate, NT-0167, through pre-IND testing. Prior to joining NodThera, he spent over 21 years at Pfizer in the U.K. and U.S., where he led successful drug development projects across a variety of therapeutic areas, including allergy, respiratory, inflammation and rare disease. Under his leadership, these projects progressed through early preclinical experimentation and candidate selection to initial clinical studies in volunteers and Phase 2a and Phase 2b studies in patients. Nick received his Bachelor of Science in pharmacology from the University of Portsmouth and his Ph.D. in anatomical neuropharmacology from the University of Oxford.
Board
Don Nicholson, Ph.D.
Chair
Don most recently served as CEO at Nimbus Therapeutics. He previously spent 25 years at Merck, where he held strategic, leadership and operational roles across diverse therapeutic areas including inflammation, immunology and neuroscience. Don began his career at Merck Frosst in Montreal as a senior research biologist and held positions of increasing responsibility, including vice president and site head of the Merck Neurosciences Research site in San Diego, vice president of Immunology and infectious diseases and vice president and worldwide discovery head for the bone, respiratory, immunology and endocrine franchise in New Jersey. Don has co-authored more than 150 publications in peer-reviewed scientific and medical journals and is internationally recognized for his contributions to the field of apoptotic cell death. He received his doctorate in biochemistry from the University of Western Ontario and trained as a Medical Research Council postdoctoral fellow at the University of Munich in Germany. He is the recipient of multiple academic and professional honors. Don is also a member of the board of directors of Kymera Therapeutics and Generation Bio and serves as board chair at Jnana Therapeutics.
Adam Keeney, Ph.D.
President and Chief Executive Officer
Adam previously held the position of global head of business development at Sanofi Genzyme, where he led BD activities across each of Sanofi’s specialty care therapeutic areas, including immunology, neurology, oncology, rare diseases and rare blood disorders. Adam was also head of R&D strategy and chair of the internal governance body that oversaw the review, prioritization and execution of all external R&D investments at Sanofi. Prior to Sanofi, Adam held roles of increasing responsibility at Johnson & Johnson, including as site head of the company’s California Innovation Center, where he catalyzed early stage innovation across J&J’s pharmaceuticals businesses. Adam began his career as a research scientist at H. Lundbeck A/S. He holds a Ph.D. in neuropharmacology from the University of Nottingham, UK.
Henrijette Richter, Ph.D.
Director
Henrijette is managing partner at Sofinnova Partners. She joined Sofinnova in 2014 from Novo Seeds (part of Novo A/S), which she helped to establish in 2007. While at Novo Seeds, Henrijette played a key role in the creation, financing and building of companies including Cytoguide, Orphazyme, Avilex Pharma, EpiTherapeutics (acquired by Gilead) and Lysogene. A scientist by training, Henrijette was a postdoctoral fellow at the MIT Center for Cancer Research and began her career at Novo Nordisk, conducting her Ph.D. in the area of obesity and GH signaling. She has invested in and is a current or former board member of Asceneuron (CH), Delinia (acquired by Celgene), iOmx Therapeutics, Comet Therapeutics and Twentyeight-Seven Therapeutics.
Scott Rocklage, Ph.D.
Director
Scott joined 5AM Ventures in 2003 as a venture partner, became a managing partner in 2004 and transitioned to founding partner in 2017. He has over three decades of healthcare management experience with strategic leadership responsibilities that led to the FDA approval of three U.S. New Drug Applications (Omniscan™, Teslascan® and Cubicin®). His previous roles include serving as chairman and CEO of Cubist Pharmaceuticals and as president and CEO of Nycomed Salutar. Scott also formerly served as board chairman of Relypsa (acquired by Vifor Pharma) and Novira Therapeutics (acquired by J&J), and as executive chairman of Ilypsa (acquired by Amgen), Miikana Therapeutics (acquired by EntreMed) and Semprus BioSciences (acquired by Teleflex). He currently serves as board chairman of Aprea Therapeutics, Expansion Therapeutics, Kinestral Technologies and Cidara Therapeutics, and is a board member at Nouscom. Scott received his Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley and his Ph.D. in chemistry from MIT, where he conducted research in the laboratory of Richard R. Schrock, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2005. Scott is an inventor or co-inventor of over 30 U.S. patents and has produced more than 100 peer-reviewed publications.
Liz Roper, Ph.D.
Director
Liz is a partner at Epidarex Capital. She has more than 15 years of experience in venture capital fund management and industry, executing transactions both as a direct investor and as a business development executive. Prior to joining Epidarex in 2013, Liz was the head of business development at Chroma Therapeutics, an Oxford-based venture-backed drug discovery and development company focused on inflammatory disorders and oncology. She was involved in all key company strategic decisions and successfully established a number of major company-building alliances. She is a former executive with the life science venture capital team at the Investments Division of The Wellcome Trust, where she provided direct, early-stage equity financing to private companies in the U.S. and Europe. She is also a former member of the life science team at Atlas Venture in London. Liz currently serves on the board of directors of Caldan Therapeutics, EM Imaging and Enterprise Therapeutics. She holds a B.Sc. in biochemistry from the University College Cork and a Ph.D. from the Imperial Cancer Research Fund.
Kevin Lee, Ph.D.
Independent Director
Kevin is chief executive officer of Bicycle Therapeutics. At Bicycle, Kevin has successfully transitioned the company from an early-stage platform company to a clinical-stage company with the honor of being the first Cambridge, U.K. biotech to be publicly listed on the NASDAQ. Kevin joined Bicycle from Pfizer, where he served as senior vice president and chief scientific officer of the Rare Disease Research Unit. In that role, he held responsibility for more than 20 novel programs across the full spectrum of research and development, established Pfizer’s rare disease strategy, conceptualized and implemented the company’s gene therapy strategy with the creation of the Genetic Medicine Institute, and founded the Rare Disease Research Consortium. Prior to joining Pfizer, Kevin worked at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and, in addition to leading the formation of multiple strategic commercial and academic partnerships, led epigenetics research and was responsible for the creation of the EpiNova Discovery Performance Unit. Before joining GSK, he lectured at Warwick University Medical School and founded Cambridge Biotechnology (acquired by Biovitrum) and Neurosolutions. Kevin studied pharmaceutical sciences at Nottingham University, followed by a Ph.D. in pharmacology at Cambridge University. He undertook postdoctoral training as a Wellcome Trust International Prize Fellow before joining the Parke Davis Research Unit in Cambridge, U.K. Kevin is an author on over 100 peer-reviewed scientific publications, has an MBA from Warwick Business School and has been awarded an honorary Chair in Molecular Pharmacology from the University of Warwick.