Dr. Birnberg is the President & CEO and a co-founder of Mercury Therapeutics. Dr. Birnberg received his B.S. in Chemistry in 1976 from Tufts University and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Oregon in 1981. Prior to entering the private sector, Dr. Birnberg led a research team at Yale Medical School where he was a professor in the Department of Pharmacology from 1986 to 1992. In 1993 Dr. Birnberg joined the biotech startup Creagen, Inc. as Scientific Director and was part of the management team that successfully engineered a merger with Neurex, Inc. resulting in a substantial gain for Creagen's shareholder. Following the Neurex merger in 1994, Dr. Birnberg joined the biotech startup Cystar, Inc. as the Director of Research and Development. In 1996, Dr. Birnberg and a team of academic colleagues founded Mercury Therapeutics.
Mr. Yakatan is an experienced CEO, entrepreneur and operational manager with C-level executive experience at leading health science companies including New England Nuclear, EI Dupont, ICN Pharma, New Brunswick Scientific, and Biosearch. Mr. Yakatan has founded or co-founded in excess of 15 companies in the U.S., Canada, Israel, France, and Germany. He has advised several of the world's leading venture capital firms including TVM, Ventana, MSP, and Biocapital. In addition to serving as the Chairman of MTI, Mr. Yakatan currently serves as the chairman of Grant Life Sciences, Inc, and serves on the board of directors of Biophan and of Phenomenome Discoveries, Inc. Mr. Yakatan is the Executive Director and Chairman of Biocomm, a Melbourne, Australia business development and early stage capital pool, and is a senior advisor to XL TechGroup, Inc.