Prof. William Denny
Scientific Founder

Bill Denny received his PhD (organic synthesis) and DSc(drug design) degrees from the University of Auckland. He is Director of the Auckland Cancer Society Research Centre at the University of Auckland, and a founding scientist of the company Proacta Therapeutics Ltd. He is a past-President of the NZ Institute of Chemistry and the NZ Society for Oncology. He received the Rutherford Medal of the Royal Society of NZ in 1995, and was appointed an Officer of the NZ Order of Merit in 2003. His interests include all aspects of the design and evaluation of small-molecule chemotherapeutic agents, and he has been involved in the development of eight anticancer drugs to clinical trial, work reported in 530 scientific publications and 70 patent applications.

Prof. Peter Shepherd
Scientific Founder

Peter Shepherd graduated from Massey University and following post doctoral positions at Harvard and Cambridge he became a staff member at University College London where he was promoted to Professor in 2003. There he became involved in biotechnology and was named London Young Biotechnology Entrepreneur of the year in 2002. Since moving back to Auckland in 2004 he has continued to focus on research of the signal transduction pathways in the cell and how defects in these lead to the development of cancer and diabetes. He has also founded the biotechnology company Symansis which is developing novel tools for drug discovery.

Leonard Post, Ph.D.
Scientific Advisor

Dr. Post is a virologist by training. Most recently, he was at Onyx Pharmaceuticals as SVP and was responsible for the co-development (50:50 with Bayer) of Nexavar from IND through FDA approval for renal cell carcinoma. Previously, as VP of Discovery Research at Parke-Davis he led a multi-national drug discovery organization of over 800 people, in cancer, infectious diseases, inflammation, cardiovascular and CNS. Prior to that, he held several positions at the Upjohn Company, including Director of Infectious Disease Research. During his industry career spanning more than 25 years, he has led numerous programs that have resulted in multiple clinical candidates across various therapeutic areas.

JJ (Kim) Wright, Ph.D.
Scientific Advisor

In 1983 Dr. Wright joined Bristol-Myers as head of the cardiovascular chemistry group. He subsequently was given the additional responsibility for biology in this therapeutic area. He became Vice-president of Chemistry when Bristol-Myers merged with Squibb in 1990, where he was responsible for oncology, antibacterial, antifungal, dermatology, CNS and natural product chemistry programs. In 2001 he left Bristol-Myers Squibb to join ChemoCentryx which focused on chemokine function modulators where, as Senior Vice-President for Chemistry and Preclinical Development, he built the chemistry and drug development functions within the company. At ChemoCentryx, Dr. Wright led the team that brought a novel chemokine antagonist into clinical trials, where it is currently in Phase III. Two other programs initiated during his tenure have also advanced to early clinical evaluation. Dr. Wright retired from ChemoCentryx in late 2006 and moved to Australia to live permanently. He consults for and serves on advisory boards for several biotechnology companies.