about us
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Identifying better medicines to deliver better care
We are a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering novel, active pharmaceutical ingredients to transform the outcomes for animal patients.
Animol is building its own pipeline of breakthrough proprietary veterinary small molecules, led by a team of animal health industry experts with vast experience in drug discovery and development. With our unique and powerful technology platform we deliver innovative medicines that are specifically designed for the needs of veterinary patients. Our pipeline includes small molecules for both companion and farm animals with projects ranging from anti-parasitics to chronic diseases.
Leadership
Douglas E. Hutchens, DVM, M.S., Ph.D.
CSO
Doug has held multiple positions in industry with ascending leadership responsibilities in early research, clinical development, and regulatory affairs at Elanco and Bayer Animal Health.
Douglas E. Hutchens, DVM, M.S., Ph.D.
CSO
Doug has held multiple positions in industry with ascending leadership responsibilities in early research, clinical development, and regulatory affairs at Elanco and Bayer Animal Health. In his recent roles as an Executive Vice President at Bayer and Chief Veterinary Officer, he has been responsible for both drug discovery (research) and product development globally where he led organizations (300+) which achieved a multi-fold increase in the value of a leading global pipeline. This resulted in over 100 new registration and product line extension annually in multiple therapeutic areas over the last decade. Before joining the animal health pharmaceutical industry, he was an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine where he taught veterinary parasitology and focused his research on the development of new anthelmintics, ectoparasiticides and endectocides. There, he conducted studies for most of the major animal health companies and participated in the development of multiple new products in both companion and farm animals. Early in his career, he was a practicing veterinarian in both small animal emergency medicine and large animal practice. He holds a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree and a PhD in pathobiology with an emphasis in immuno-parasitology from the University of Illinois. Most recently Doug served as a member of Animol’s advisory board.
Andrew Calabrese, Ph.D.
Scientific Co-Founder
Andrew, Animol’s scientific co-founder, has developed successful scientific concepts for a number of biotech startups in human health, animal health, and crop protection.
Andrew Calabrese, Ph.D.
Scientific Co-Founder
Andrew, Animol’s scientific co-founder, has developed successful scientific concepts for a number of biotech startups in human health, animal health, and crop protection. He is a creative inventor who loves to solve challenging problems in biotech through the judicious use of science and technology. Andrew is the (co-)inventor of several human health drug candidates currently in late stage clinical trials, including Cligcosiban™, and compounds in early stage field trials for crop protection, including SpinoMetis™. Prior to working in start-ups, Andrew focused on identifying small molecule drugs across therapeutic areas and modalities in Pfizer and Celgene.
In parallel to his role at Animol, Andrew is a co-founder and member of the Board of Directors of Revagenix, Inc and serves on the Scientific Advisory Boards for 2 other biotechs. Andrew is a chemistry graduate of Oxford University, UK and gained his PhD from University College London, UK and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Logan Andrews, Ph.D.
Head of Program Management
As a project leader at Animol, Logan manages and coordinates early-stage research efforts on antiparasitic targets.
Logan Andrews, Ph.D.
Head of Program Management
As a project leader at Animol, Logan manages and coordinates early-stage research efforts on antiparasitic targets. Prior to joining Animol, he was a scientist at 23andMe Therapeutics aiming to validate new small-molecule drug targets that have genetic links to human disease. During this time, Logan also led a team in collaboration with a large Pharma partner to initiate multiple HTS campaigns. Before 23andMe, Logan was a scientist at Achaogen, where he was focused on identifying new antibiotics for resistant Gram-negative bacterial infections. Logan led several interdisciplinary project teams spanning early target validation to pre-clinical development. His work at Achaogen produced 8 publications and 1 patent. Logan completed a Ph.D. in the Chemical and Systems Biology Department at Stanford University and B.A at the College of Wooster. His academic work appears in several publications and focuses on understanding how enzymes enhance reaction rates and select between highly similar substrates. This work laid the foundation for a career spent combining biochemistry, enzymology, and structural biology to guide the discovery of new anti-infectives.
Board of Directors
Michelle Haven
Venture Partner, Anterra Capital
Michelle has been working in the animal health industry for over 25 years including roles at Merck, Pfizer, and Zoetis.
Michelle L. Haven, DVM, Ph.D.
Venture Partner, Anterra Capital
Michelle has been working in the animal health industry for over 25 years including roles at Merck, Pfizer, and Zoetis. She led global discovery research pharmaceuticals and biologicals at Pfizer Animal Health for several years. Research programs progressed under her leadership led to multiple products for livestock and companion animals in the areas of pain/inflammation, anti-infectives, gastric ulceration, nausea, cancer, and allergy. Michelle retired from Zoetis in 2016 as senior VP of global business development, strategy, and external alliances. She played a key role in the establishment of Zoetis as a new public company, and led several large M&A, joint venture, licensing, and divestiture transactions.
While at Pfizer/Zoetis, Michelle championed multiple initiatives focused on open innovation and One Health including an international collaboration to elevate and harmonize veterinary education and standards, international academia/industry research consortia, and multi-site veterinary clinical investigation centers. She also led several initiatives to expand opportunities and diversity in the animal health industry.
Michelle holds a DVM, Ph.D. and is board certified in the American College of Veterinary Surgeons.
Philip Austin
Managing Partner, Anterra Capital
Philip is a Founder and Managing Partner at Anterra Capital, a leading specialist investment fund across agriculture, animal health, and nutritional wellness.
Philip Austin
Managing Partner, Anterra Capital
Philip is a Founder and Managing Partner at Anterra Capital, a leading specialist investment fund across agriculture, animal health, and nutritional wellness. He currently heads up Anterra’s US office and Life Sciences investment team, dedicating most of his investment efforts to furthering life science companies in the food sector and has co-founded several biotechnology companies, including Animol. Phil strongly believes in the potential for leveraging the powerful pharma ecosystem to build leading edge biotech companies for industrial sectors underserved by innovation.
Prior to Anterra, Philip worked in the principal investment team of Rabobank International (Amsterdam, Netherlands), supporting this global leader in agricultural banking to make investments in groundbreaking, early-stage technology companies. Philip started his investment career with Atlas Venture in London, United Kingdom. Prior to this, he was a strategy consultant with McKinsey & Company’s London and Washington, D.C. offices.
Philip holds a dual degree in Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Chemical Engineering.
Marijn Dekkers
Chairman, Novalis
Marijn is the former CEO of Bayer AG in Leverkusen, Germany (2010-2016) and the former CEO of Thermo Fisher Scientific (2002-2009) in Waltham, MA.
Marijn E. Dekkers, Ph.D.
Chairman, Novalis LifeSciences
Marijn is Chairman of Novalis LifeSciences which he founded in 2017. He is also the Chairman of Ginkgo Bioworks, and a board member of several other Novalis portfolio companies. Marijn is the former CEO of Bayer AG in Leverkusen, Germany (2010-2016) and the former CEO of Thermo Fisher Scientific (2002-2009) in Waltham, MA. He started his career as a scientist at General Electric Corporate Research in Niskayuna, NY. Marijn earned a PhD in Chemical Engineering and a BS in Chemistry, both in the Netherlands.
Devin Leake (observer)
Managing Director, Novalis
Devin has held leadership positions in several life sciences companies including CATALOG, Ginkgo Bioworks and Thermo Fisher Scientific.
Devin Leake, PhD (observer)
Managing Director, Novalis
Devin joined Novalis LifeSciences as Managing Director in 2021. Previously, Devin was Chief Scientific Officer at CATALOG, where he led research on its DNA-based data storage and computation platform. Before, Devin served in leadership positions at several Life Science companies including Ginkgo Bioworks and Thermo Fisher Scientific. Devin earned a PhD in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from SUNY Stony Brook, and a BA in Biochemistry from the University of Texas.
Brett Chevalier (observer)
Chief Scientist, Anterra Capital
Entrepreneurial bioscientist focused on company creation and building.
Brett Chevalier, PhD (observer)
Chief Scientist, Anterra Capital
Entrepreneurial bioscientist focused on company creation and building. Primary focus has been human therapeutics and discovery platforms; more recent interest in biotech solutions for crucial needs beyond human — animal health, agriculture and our environment.
Scientific Advisory Board
Pat N. Confalone, Ph.D.
As Vice President, Global R&D, DuPont Crop Protection, Pat led 300 scientists to build a world class pipeline of novel products, including Rynaxypyr™ and Cyazypyr™.
Pat N. Confalone, Ph.D
Scientific Advisory Board
As Vice President, Global R&D, DuPont Crop Protection, Pat led 300 scientists to build a world class pipeline of novel products, including Rynaxypyr™ and Cyazypyr™ with world-wide sales over a billion dollars a year, and the new mode of action fungicide Zorvec™. In Animal Health, his team discovered the chewable flea and tick product NexGard™ with 2019 sales of $ 900M. Prior to his role in Crop Protection, Pat worked with DuPont’s Pharmaceutical Division, where his Medicinal Chemistry department discovered Cozaar™, a major anti-hypertensive based on angiotensin II antagonism. His Chemical Process R&D organization carried out the chemical development of Sustiva™, a major therapeutic for the treatment of AIDS. Together, these life-saving medicines generated cumulative sales of over $ 50 billion. In addition, his Bioorganic Chemistry group developed the fluorescent dye-labeled reagents eventually employed in the human genome project. Pat started his industry career at the Chemical Research Department of Roche Pharmaceuticals under Prof. R.B. Woodward.
A graduate of M.I.T., Pat obtained a Ph.D. at Harvard with Nobel laureate Prof. R.B. Woodward, followed by a post-doctoral stint. He has presented >110 invited or plenary lectures worldwide, published >140 papers, obtained >50 U.S. Patents, and has been an associate editor of ten peer-reviewed scientific journals. He is the recipient of the 2021 ACS National Award for Leadership in Chemical Research Management and the 2021 Gassman Award for Distinguished Service in Chemistry.
Prof. Timothy Geary, Ph.D.
A member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Animol, Geary obtained a BSc in Biology from the University of Notre Dame in 1975 and a PhD in Pharmacology in 1980.
Prof. Timothy Geary, Ph.D.
Scientific Advisory Board
A member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Animol, Geary obtained a BSc in Biology from the University of Notre Dame in 1975 and a PhD in Pharmacology in 1980 from the University of Michigan. After working on tropical parasitology at Michigan State University as a Postdoctoral Fellow and Research Assistant Professor, he joined the parasitology research group at The Upjohn Company (Pharmacia – Pfizer) in 1985. He remained at Pfizer until 2005, then joining the Institute of Parasitology at McGill University as Professor and Tier I Canada Research Chair. He served as Director of the Institute from 2007-2019, when he became Emeritus Professor. He is also a Professor (20 % appointment) in the School of Biological Sciences at Queen’s University – Belfast.
Tim earned national and international funding to support his research and received many awards. He has published > 230 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, is on the editorial boards of 8 scientific journals and serves as a consultant for many pharmaceutical, government and non-government organizations. He is a Past-President of the American Association of Veterinary Parasitologists and is a member of the Executive Committee of the World Association for the Advancement of Veterinary Parasitology and the Advisory Boards of the National Center for Veterinary Parasitology (USA) and the NIH-NIAID Filariasis Research Reagent Resource Center.
His work has focused on chemotherapy of infectious diseases; pharmacology of antiparasitic drugs; mechanisms of antiparasitic drug resistance; and antiparasitic drug discovery and development
Nigel Walshe, Ph.D.
Nigel is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Animol, with a specific focus on Antiparasitics, having responsibilities for screening strategy and compound progression,
Nigel Walshe, Ph.D.
Scientific Advisory Board
Nigel is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Animol, with a specific focus on Antiparasitics, having responsibilities for screening strategy and compound progression, identification of new targets, and seeking novel product profiles that address unmet needs with high commercial value. He worked for 30 years in the laboratories of Pfizer Animal Health (now Zoetis) at Sandwich, UK. A synthetic organic chemist by training, with a background in natural products, in particular semisynthetic modifications of the macrocyclic lactone antiparasitics of the avermectin class, he worked on the discovery and development of the cattle endectocide Dectomax™, and the pet endectocide Revolution™. His team discovered the anticoccidial polyether ionophore Aviax™. He led a global team to develop an endectocide for the Brazil sector, TreoAce™, a product commercialized in less than three years on initiation of the programme. These opportunities have enabled him to acquire a unique breadth of insight into the entire process of R&D, from concept through discovery and full development, to commercialization, as well as an extensive network of contacts, spanning industry, academia and contract research facilities. On exiting Pfizer Animal Health in 2008, he has worked extensively as a consultant in animal health, leading to his current involvement with Animol beginning in 2019.