Aerie Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biotechnology company, engages in the discovery, development, and commercialization of pharmaceutical products for the treatment of ophthalmic diseases. It focuses on the development of products for the pharmaceutical treatment of glaucoma. The company was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in Bridgewater, New Jersey with research facilities in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. Aerie Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a former subsidiary of Duke University Medical Center.
Vicente Anido, Jr., PhD has served as our Chief Executive Officer since July 2013 and as a Chairman and member of our board of directors since April 2013. Dr. Anido is the former President, Chief Executive Officer and Director of ISTA Pharmaceuticals, Inc., which was acquired by Bausch + Lomb, Inc. in 2012. Prior to joining ISTA Pharmaceuticals, Dr. Anido served as general partner of Windamere Venture Partners from 2000 to 2001. From 1996 to 1999, Dr. Anido served as President and Chief Executive Officer of CombiChem, Inc., a drug discovery company. From 1993 to 1996, Dr. Anido served as President of the Americas Region of Allergan, Inc., where he was responsible for Allergan’s commercial operations for North and South America. Prior to joining Allergan, Dr. Anido spent 17 years at Marion Laboratories and Marion Merrell Dow, Inc., including as Vice President, Business Management of Marion’s U.S. Prescription Products Division. Dr.
President and CEO at Aerie Pharmaceuticals
Prior to joining TPG Biotech in May 2005, Dr. Preston spent two years at JP Morgan Partners where she focused on medical device and biotechnology venture capital investing.
Prior to JP Morgan Partners, Dr. Preston was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence with New Enterprise Associates. She also spent five years at McKinsey & Co. in New York, where she was a leader of their pharmaceutical and medical products consulting practice. She advised large pharmaceutical companies and biotechnology companies on critical strategic issues such as R&D portfolio prioritization, M&A opportunities, new technology acquisitions, new product launches and product growth strategies.
Dr. Preston has an undergraduate degree in biochemistry from the University of London and a medical degree from the University of Oxford.
Dr. Mitchell deLong joined Aerie as a Vice President in 2005. Prior to Aerie, Dr. deLong was a Research Scientist at Procter and Gamble. During his 13 years at P&G, he invented the first class of reversible skin-lightening agents, including GirLite. Dr. deLong won two awards at P&G for his work on prostaglandin and was among the first to recognize the hair-growth stimulating potential of the compounds since commercialized as Latisse. Dr. deLong has been an Adjunct Professor of Chemistry at Duke University since 2006. Prior to that, he held the same position at the University of Cincinnati. He has filed over 43 patent applications, and holds 14 issued patents. Dr. deLong received his PhD in Synthetic Organic and Medicinal Chemistry with a concentration in Cancer Biology from the Department of Chemistry of Stanford University.
Prior to joining TPG in 2004, Dr. Duyk served on the Board of Directors and was President of Research and Development at Exelixis where he led a 550+ person group focused on the discovery and development of small molecule therapeutics. Prior to Exelixis, he was one of the founding scientific staff at Millennium Pharmaceuticals.
As Vice President of Genomics at Millennium, Geoff was responsible for building and leading the informatics, automation, DNA sequencing and genotyping groups as well as the mouse and human genetics group. Prior to his tenure at Millennium, Dr. Duyk was an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School (HMS) in the Department of Genetics, and an Assistant Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). While at HMS, Dr. Duyk was a Co-Principal Investigator in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded Cooperative Human Linkage Center.
Dr. Duyk holds a PhD and MD from Case Western Reserve University.
Dr. Casey C. Kopczynski brings over 20 years of research and management experience to Aerie, including 14 years with early stage life science companies. Prior to Aerie, he was Managing Partner at Biotech Initiative, LLC, a consulting practice dedicated to emerging biotech companies.
Dr. Kopczynski was previously VP of Research at Ercole Biotech, Inc., an early stage company developing novel drugs for the treatment of cancer, inflammation, and orphan genetic diseases.
Prior to Ercole Biotech, Dr. Kopczynski was Director of Research and a founding member of the scientific staff at Exelixis, Inc (EXEL). There he worked with the management team to grow the organization from 10 employees to over 500. His responsibilities included building and managing a team of 95 scientists focused on target discovery and validation and serving on the company-wide Research Operations Committee.