A company committed

to change

Sanjay Kakkar, MD, MSc, MPH is a biotech entrepreneur and executive with over 25 years of experience in multinational, early-stage and high growth enterprises. He has a track record of building innovative companies in the life sciences industries in Europe, Asia and the US and advancing novel technologies for the improvement of human health. Prior to Tranquis, he served as CEO at Peptilogics, Armetheon, and Trigen (which he also co-founded), and was the founder and chairman of Jai Medica. Before becoming a serial entrepreneur, he held R&D roles at Pharmacia (now Pfizer) and Novartis. Sanjay received his medical degree from King’s College, University of London, holds a Master’s degree in healthcare management from Harvard University and a Master’s degree in preventive cardiology from Imperial College.

Frederic Godderis, MSc is a biopharmaceutical R&D leader and entrepreneur with extensive strategic and operational drug development experience. Throughout his career, he has contributed to the development of numerous drugs and established operating models, capabilities, and leadership structures in a variety of large and startup organizational settings. Before joining Tranquis, Frederic served as co-founder and CEO of LARRK Bio Inc. and led R&D Operations, Program Leadership, and Program & Portfolio Management functions at Janssen (Johnson & Johnson), Jazz Pharmaceuticals and Prothena Biosciences. Frederic began his career at Janssen and worked for several J&J entities across Europe and the US. Frederic received his MS from K.U. Leuven, Belgium.

Jonas Hannestad, M.D., Ph.D., has more than 20 years of translational and early clinical development experience. His academic work focused on immuno-neurology, particularly on the effect of systemic inflammation on myeloid cells in the brain. His expertise spans multiple disease areas, including Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and ALS. Previously, he served as SVP of Clinical Development at Alkahest, Medical Director at Denali Therapeutics, and Director of Neuroscience Discovery Medicine at UCB Pharma. Prior to his industry work, Dr. Hannestad led the Clinical Neuroscience Research Unit at Yale School of Medicine. He did postdoctoral work and residency training at Bristol-Myers Squibb, Duke School of Medicine and UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute. He received his PhD in Cell Biology from the University of Messina, Italy, and his MD from the University of Oviedo, Spain.

Faisal Shawwa, MBA has over 25 years of experience building and leading Finance, Accounting, Administration, IT, Facilities, External Reporting and Compliance functions. Throughout his career, he has led and supported the successful completion of fundraising to advance R&D programs, acquisitions, partnerships, and commercial launches. Most recently he was VP of Finance for Catalyst Biosciences, a publicly traded biopharmaceutical R&D company. Prior to his role at Catalyst, he held Finance leadership positions of Corporate Controller and Principal Accounting Officer for Preferred Financial Group and the Head of Finance and Accounting for Provident Funding.

Faisal holds a MBA, from Notre Dame University, Graduate School of Business.

Janet Hurt, BS, MPH has 30 years of early and late-stage clinical development experience. Most recently, she served as Vice President of Clinical Operations at Jasper Therapeutics where she established and led the Clinical Operations function, which included Clinical Data Management and Clinical Outsourcing. Prior to Jasper, Janet has led Clinical Operations, Clinical Data Management and Clinical Outsourcing at a number of biopharmaceutical companies including Denali Therapeutics, Onyx, Bavarian Nordic, XenoPort, and Amgen. Janet received her MPH and BS from San Jose State University.