The Next-Generation of GPCR-Targeted Drugs
Orion Biotechnology is unlocking the therapeutic potential of previously undruggable G Protein-Coupled Receptors (GPCRs) with a novel drug modality, proven discovery platform and best-in-class molecules.
The company is advancing a diversified pipeline of potential first-in-class/best-in-class antagonist and agonist therapies against high-value GPCR targets in obesity and metabolic diseases.
Orion is led by a highly experienced team with world leading expertise in GPCR pharmacology and peptide/protein engineering.
Leadership Team
Orion has assembled a team of world-renowned experts in their respective fields. Our team’s expertise in GPCR pharmacology, protein engineering and drug development is complimented by our experience in corporate management, biotech financing, and strategic operations.
Management
Praveen Tyle, PhD
CEO
Prior to assuming the role of CEO at Orion Biotechnology, Praveen was the founder of Potens Pharmaceuticals and has over 40 years of pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry experience . Until April 2023, Dr. Tyle was the President, CEO and Board member of Invectys, Inc, an immuno-oncology company spun out of the world-renowned Pasteur Institute, Paris. Prior to joining Invectys, Inc in 2021, he was Executive Vice President of Research & Development at Lexicon Pharmaceuticals. Until February 2016, Dr. Tyle was President, Chief Executive Officer and Member of the Board of Directors of Osmotica Pharmaceutical Corp. He led the merger of Osmotica with two other companies in 2016. He previously served as global Executive Vice President, Chief Scientific Officer and Managing Director of Osmotica Pharmaceutical Corp.’s Marietta, Georgia site. Prior to joining Osmotica, Dr. Tyle served as Executive Vice President and Chief Science Officer for the United States Pharmacopeia (USP). Prior to joining USP, Dr. Tyle served as Senior Vice President and Global Head of Business Development and Licensing at Novartis OTC, as well as Senior Vice President and Global Head of Research and Development. Previously he served in a variety of senior pharmaceutical executive roles around the globe. Dr. Tyle holds a doctorate in pharmaceutics and pharmaceutical chemistry from the Ohio State University and a Bachelor in Pharmacy (honors) from the Indian Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University in India.
Anatole Klepatsky, MBA
Chief Business Officer
Mr. Klepatsky is the Chief Business Officer and a member of the Orion Biotechnology Board of Directors. A senior executive with over 25 years of corporate management experience, Mr. Klepatsky has established success in corporate management, operations, and international business. Prior to joining Orion Biotechnology, he was a co-founder and Managing Partner of Altius, a leading Eastern European M&A firm with strong track record in healthcare, biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. He has also served as Director of several private and public corporations in Eastern Europe and Canada.
Jarret Engstrom, MBA/PMP
Executive Director, Project & Portfolio Management
Mr. Engstrom is the Executive Director, Project & Portfolio Management at Orion Biotechnology responsible for design and implementation of the company’s early clinical development platform. Mr. Engstrom has extensive experience spanning preclinical strategy and operations, CRO/CMO oversight, translational research and FDA regulated Investigational New Drug (IND) programs. Mr. Engstrom started his career as a Clinical Research Assistant and quickly advanced through increasingly senior positions to Director of Clinical Operations. He has worked with a variety of health organizations including the University of Pittsburgh Magee Women’s Research Institute, NASORCAP Medical, and ARGEN Health. In his previous roles, Mr. Engstrom was principally responsible for operational oversight, management, and delivery of complex translational research protocols as well as managing the critical relationship between laboratories and clinical research centers. In his role at Orion, he provides leadership and operational management for preclinical & clinical activities, with the goal of rapidly bringing our novel therapies to market.
Oliver Hartley, PhD
Vice President, Drug Discovery
Oliver Hartley is VP for Drug Discovery at Orion. He is the inventor of OB-002 as well as the key technology underlying Orion’s discovery platform. Trained as a biochemist, he completed a PhD in protein engineering (Cambridge, UK) with Sir Gregory Winter (Nobel Prize for Chemistry, 2018). Since then Oliver has worked at the University of Geneva, where his research on peptide engineering and GPCR pharmacology has led to a series of high-profile publications and new intellectual property, and at the Mintaka Foundation for Medical Research with a role as co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer.
Erik Heegard, MD/PhD
Medical Director
Erik Heegaard is a medical specialist, PhD, DMSc, and holds experience as Chief Medical Officer (CMO) at multiple leading pharmaceutical companies. As CMO of the oral GLP-1 project at Novo Nordisk, he successfully completed phase I and II trials, and served as chief architect of the global phase III clinical development program. Similarly, in his role as CMO at Evaxion, he was responsible for strategic development and tactical implementation of the clinical studies for the company's research programs. This required Erik to provide direct medical/physician oversight for phase I/II and proof of concept clinical trials, and clinical input into all aspects of discovery and preclinical development, from target selection to preclinical and regulatory strategy, and tactics. Furthermore, Erik's expertise in late-stage clinical development and commercialization supported his position in oncology medical affairs at Novartis and Seagen.
Jim McGuire, PhD
Director of Pharmacology
Jim has two decades of extensive experience in pharma and biotech across Europe and the US, with a notable 15-year tenure at Novo Nordisk specializing in biotherapeutics for cardiometabolic conditions. He contributed to 13 projects that went into development including work on semaglutide for diabetes and obesity treatment. Additional work included a variety of approaches to facilitate weight loss through central and peripheral manipulation of additive mechanisms together with GLP-1R agonism. He led early discovery programs at Catalyst Biosciences that resulted in asset sales to Vertex Pharmaceuticals.
Board of Directors
Jean Forcione
Chairman of the Board
Mr. Forcione’s 33 year career has been devoted to the healthcare industry, including prescription pharmaceuticals, consumer healthcare, diagnostics and medical devices. Jean has held senior executive and board positions at both privately held and publicly traded organizations, which has included Aventis, Pharmacia, Pfizer, Johnson&Johnson, Phadia, ThermoFisher Scientific and BBI Group. Jean is recognized for his general management, commercialization and M&A expertise in the life sciences sector. Mr. Forcione has worked in, and been responsible for businesses around the globe and most recently has been focused on private equity backed businesses, first as an investor / executive and in the last 6 years as an investor, non-executive director and chairman. During this period, Jean has been closely involved with exits totaling 2.9B €, delivering outstanding value creation for shareholders.
Praveen Tyle, PhD
CEO
Prior to assuming the role of CEO at Orion Biotechnology, Praveen was the founder of Potens Pharmaceuticals and has over 40 years of pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry experience . Until April 2023, Dr. Tyle was the President, CEO and Board member of Invectys, Inc, an immuno-oncology company spun out of the world-renowned Pasteur Institute, Paris. Prior to joining Invectys, Inc in 2021, he was Executive Vice President of Research & Development at Lexicon Pharmaceuticals. Until February 2016, Dr. Tyle was President, Chief Executive Officer and Member of the Board of Directors of Osmotica Pharmaceutical Corp. He led the merger of Osmotica with two other companies in 2016. He previously served as global Executive Vice President, Chief Scientific Officer and Managing Director of Osmotica Pharmaceutical Corp.’s Marietta, Georgia site. Prior to joining Osmotica, Dr. Tyle served as Executive Vice President and Chief Science Officer for the United States Pharmacopeia (USP). Prior to joining USP, Dr. Tyle served as Senior Vice President and Global Head of Business Development and Licensing at Novartis OTC, as well as Senior Vice President and Global Head of Research and Development. Previously he served in a variety of senior pharmaceutical executive roles around the globe. Dr. Tyle holds a doctorate in pharmaceutics and pharmaceutical chemistry from the Ohio State University and a Bachelor in Pharmacy (honors) from the Indian Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University in India.
Anatole Klepatsky, MBA
Chief Business Officer
Mr. Klepatsky is the Chief Business Officer and a member of the Orion Biotechnology Board of Directors. A senior executive with over 25 years of corporate management experience, Mr. Klepatsky has established success in corporate management, operations, and international business. Prior to joining Orion Biotechnology, he was a co-founder and Managing Partner of Altius, a leading Eastern European M&A firm with strong track record in healthcare, biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. He has also served as Director of several private and public corporations in Eastern Europe and Canada.
Mark Groper
Board Member
Mr. Groper was the founding Chief Executive Officer and is a member of the Orion Biotechnology Board of Directors. He has more than 30 years of business and entrepreneurial experience in the Health Industry including founder and senior executive positions at both private and public sector organizations. Mr. Groper is a health industry expert with a proven track record of successfully building companies from start-up through to large scale commercial operations. He has held senior positions with Accenture, Telus Health, Emergis and DINMAR – a health care business he founded, operated, and grew to become a highly successful international business. Known as a results-oriented entrepreneur, with a demonstrated track record of success, Mr Groper provides leadership in strategic planning, and business development, while maintaining a keen focus on operational management. Mark has also built a strong reputation for innovation leadership, judgement and integrity, and understands what it takes to drive health care technologies into successful products.
Brad Smith, MBA
Board Member
Mr. Smith has more than 30 years of experience leading business and financial operations for public & private companies in the biotech and medtech industry. He was the CFO of Homology Medicines from April 2017 to February 2022 and was the CFO and CBO from February 2022 through November 2023 and a consultant from November 2023 through March 2024 with the closing of a merger with Q32 Bio. During his career, Brad has been instrumental in raising over $1 billion in private and public financing, has played a key role in business development and strategic planning, and has successfully guided four companies through the IPO process. Mr. Smith was on a team that led the merger with Q32 Bio in March 2024. He led Homology’s IPO in 2018 with $166 million in gross proceeds and a follow-on financing with $144 million in gross proceeds one year after the IPO. Mr. Smith also negotiated a $60 million equity investment with Pfizer in 2020. More recently, Mr. Smith played a key role in closing a JV with Oxford Biomedica with $130 million in up-front non-dilutive capital and an ownership position in a newly established company focused on AAV manufacturing and process development services to biotech and pharma companies. Homology recently closed a merger with Q32 Bio in which Mr. Smith played a key role in the strategic process leading to this transaction. Prior to joining Homology, Mr. Smith served as Chief Financial Officer of Ocular Therapeutix where he led the company’s strategic financings, including an IPO and subsequent follow-on offerings, and completed a strategic partnership with a major biopharmaceutical company. Previously, Mr. Smith, served as CFO of several other life sciences companies including OmniGuide Surgical, a commercial stage MIT spin-out company, NeuroMetrix, a commercial stage company in neuro therapeutics and diagnostics, SYNARC, a CRO which was acquired by a private equity firm, and PatientKeeper, which was acquired by HCA. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Lyra Therapeutics, and eGenesis.
Lonnel Coats
Board Member
From 2014 until his retirement in 2024, Mr. Coats served as Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors of Lexicon Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company pioneering medicines for a range of diseases including neuropathic pain, heart failure, diabetes and metabolism. Prior to joining Lexicon, from 1996 to June 2014, Mr. Coats served in a series of leadership positions at Eisai, Inc. and Eisai Corporation of North America, both of which are U.S. subsidiaries of Tokyo-based Eisai Co., Ltd., including as Chief Executive Officer of Eisai, Inc. from 2010 to June 2014 and as President and Chief Operating Officer of Eisai, Inc. from 2004 to 2010. Mr. Coats also previously held a variety of sales and management positions at Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a division of Johnson & Johnson, from 1988 to 1996. Mr. Coats previously served as a board member of Blueprint Medicines (recently acquired by Sanofi). He also recently served as board member for Verve Therapeutics until its recent acquisition by Eli Lilly. Mr. Coats has a broad experience and skillset in growing companies from clinical stage to commercialization, coupled with a broad background in business development, including mergers and acquisitions. Mr. Coats received a B.S. in public administration from Oakland University.
Katie Hewitt
Board Member
Katie Hewitt serves as a Member of the Board of Directors for Orion Biotechnology, bringing extensive leadership experience from over 25 years of pharmaceutical and biotech leadership roles. Katie has built her career at Eli Lilly and Company, where she most recently served as Global Head of Business Development for Lilly Catalyze. Throughout her tenure, she established herself as a strategic leader capable of driving complex transactions and fostering innovation across emerging therapeutic areas. In addition to her board seat at Orion Biotechnology, Katie is a currently partner at BlueYard Capital and is a board director for DUB Therapeutics, and CEO of BioVenture Advisors.
Scientific Advisory Board
Sir Gregory Winter, FRS/FMedSci
Advisory Board Chair
Advisory Board Chair, 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Successful biotech entrepreneur who developed the technology leading to the creation of Humira Sir Gregory Winter is a molecular biologist best known for his work on protein engineering and developing technologies to make therapeutic monoclonal antibodies (mAbs). Winter was awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing the technology that led to the creation of Humira, the 1rst fully human mAb to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and is now the world’s top-selling pharmaceutical drug. He founded three start-up companies to develop therapeutic drugs based on his inventions: Cambridge Antibody Technology, Domantis, and, more recently, Bicycle Therapeutics. His research career has been based almost entirely at the UK Medical Research Council MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology and the MRC Centre for Protein Engineering in Cambridge, England. He is a Fellow of Trinity College Cambridge and was Master of the College from 2012-2019.
Michael Cowley, PhD
SAB Member
Michael Cowley is Professor and Head of the Department of Physiology at Monash University, and adjunct Professor of Comparative Medicine at Yale University. His research is focused on obesity, diabetes, and metabolic disorders, with an emphasis on drug development. Michael received his Bachelor of Science from the University of Melbourne, did Honours in Science at Monash University and a PhD at Prince Henry’s Institute of Medical Research. He did a post-doctoral fellowship at The Vollum Institute at Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland, Oregon, USA He was later an Assistant then Associate Scientist at Oregon National Primate Research Center, where he pioneered the use of obese monkeys as a model for pre-clinical assessment of metabolic drugs. In 2003 he founded and was Chief Scientific Officer of Orexigen Therapeutics, which led to the approval of his invention Contrave or Mysimba for weight loss in many countries including the USA and Australia. In 2007 Orexigen listed on the NASDAQ. A year later, the family returned to Australia where he joined the Department of Physiology at Monash University. Michael has received several prestigious awards Including the Science Ministers Prize for Life Scientist of the Year and the inaugural Jacques Miller Medal for Experimental Biomedicine from the Australian Academy of Science. Michael was elected to the Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering in 2011. He has published over 130 papers and chapters and is inventor of over 180 patents and PCT’s. He has established several companies and works closely with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.
Hashem B. El-Serag, MD, MPH
SAB Member
Dr. El-Serag obtained his medical degree from Al-Arab Medical University in Libya, completed his internship and residency in internal medicine (1995) at Greenwich Hospital, Yale University, Connecticut, and completed a fellowship in gastroenterology (1997) at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he also earned a master’s degree in public health (1998). In 1999, Dr. El-Serag joined the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center and Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) in Houston, where he later became Chief of the Section of Gastroenterology & Hepatology (2007-2016). In 2017, he was appointed as Chair of the Department of Medicine at BCM, and in 2022 as Vice President for Learning Health System. Dr. El-Serag’s research focuses on the clinical epidemiology and outcomes of several digestive disorders, including chronic liver diseases and hepatocellular carcinoma. He has obtained >70 funded research grants including current funding from NIH, VA and Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT). He has close to 700 published papers (H-index 163) to his credit including those published in New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Annals of Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology. He has been named in the world’s top 1% cited clinical researchers every year between 2014 and 2024. His national leadership roles included Editor-in-Chief for Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology (2012-2017) and President of American Gastroenterological Association (2019). Dr. El- Serag’s has been selected into both the American Society for Clinical Investigators (ASCI) and American Association of Physicians (AAP).
Kenneth Carson, PhD
SAB Member
Trained as a medicinal chemist, Dr. Carson has spent a 30-year career in biotech drug discovery, spanning the range from hit finding all the way into early development. His past drug-discovery programs have progressed multiple candidates into clinical trials, in several different therapeutic areas, including immunology, cancer, metabolic disease, and pain. Since 2024, Ken has been the founder and principal consultant for KGCBiotech LLC, where he advises multiple clients and sits on multiple Scientific Advisory Boards. Prior to his consulting company, Ken served as EVP of Chemistry at HotSpot therapeutics. Ken was the founder and CEO of Macroceutics, Inc., a biotechnology company that harnessed DNA-Encoded Libraries to make new innovative drugs for high-value targets. Before that, Ken served in leadership roles at Lexicon Pharmaceuticals, Millennium and LeukoSite. Ken earned his Ph.D. from Cornell University.
Advisors
Christian Heinis, PhD
Scientific co-founder of Bicycle Therapeutics, Associate Professor at EPFL
Laurent Jespers, PhD
Former Head of Discovery Research, Cell & Gene Therapy Platform GSK