Senior Management
Daniel L. Flynn, Ph.D. is President and CEO of Deciphera Pharmaceuticals. Before founding Deciphera in 2003, he was Senior Director of Chemistry with Millennium Pharmaceuticals. In a ten year period with Searle Pharmaceuticals, he brought over five compounds into preclinical development, and advanced three drugs into clinical trials. He invented and developed a major platform in combinatorial chemistry now known as "phase-trafficking" synthesis. Dan is Adjunct Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Kansas-Lawrence and has served as the national Chair for the Division of Medicinal Chemistry of the American Chemical Society. He received his Ph.D. in medicinal chemistry at the University of Kansas.
Mark S. Berger, MD is Chief Medical Officer. He is a hematologist/oncologist with 15 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry working on the clinical development of new agents for oncology. Mark previously worked at Gemin X Pharmaceuticals on the development of the BCL-2 antagonist obatoclax, leading to the acquisition of that biotech company. He played a major role in the successful development at GlaxoSmithKline of lapatinib (Tykerb) for patients with breast cancer. Prior to that experience he worked at Wyeth Research where he was the lead clinician on the gemtuzumab ozogamicin (Mylotarg) program, leading to accelerated approval. Mark received training in Hematology/Oncology at the University of Pennsylvania, and was a Medicine Resident and Chief Medical Resident at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.
Rajesh V. Devraj, Ph.D. is Sr. Vice President, Strategic Planning & Business Development. Rajesh has over 16 years of pharmaceutical industry experience. Most recently, he was Sr. Vice President, Head of Scientific & Portfolio Strategy at Jubilant Biosys, Jubilant Life Sciences Company. Prior to this position, Rajesh was at Pfizer Global R&D, St. Louis for fourteen years where he held key leadership roles including Senior Director and Research Fellow in Medicinal Chemistry and Discovery Research. He has led multiple discovery & early development teams that have advanced six candidates to clinical trials. Rajesh received his Ph.D. in Medicinal & Organic Chemistry at Duquesne University and completed a National Cancer Institute post-doctoral fellowship at Purdue University.
Michael F. Rafferty, Ph.D. is Vice President of Preclinical Development. He previously worked for Pfizer in Ann Arbor as the Executive Director of the Discovery Technologies department. Michael has been involved in several early stage development programs during his career, including serving as Chair of the Pregabalin (LyricaTM) early development team. He is an inventor on 42 issued U.S. patents and co-author on 56 peer-reviewed papers. Michael is Co-founder of the Medicinal and Bioorganic Chemistry Foundation and the Winter Conference Series on Medicinal and Bioorganic Chemistry. He also serves as Adjunct Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Kansas, and was elected AAAS Fellow in 2000.
Usha M. Rafferty, M.S. is the Vice President of Regulatory Affairs and Clinical Operations. Prior to this position, she held key leadership roles at Parke-Davis/Pfizer in Regulatory Affairs and Clinical Operations departments where she directed up to 50 professionals from Pre-IND to post-NDA submission activities (e.g. INDs, NDA, sNDA, 120 day safety update and FDA Advisory Committee meetings). Her Regulatory Strategy experience comprises the area of Inflammation and Dermatology therapy. Her Clinical Operations experience is in the area of Oncology & Anti-Infectives. In addition, she had responsibility for CelebrexTM in both Regulatory Strategy and Clinical Operations departments. Usha holds a Masters degree in Microbiology from University of Kansas Medical Center and a Leadership Development certificate from University of Michigan, Ross School of Business.
Tom Fredrick heads legal affairs for Deciphera. He is co-founder of Life Science Legal LLP, a boutique firm with a niche in pharmaceuticals and biotechnology. Earlier, for Marion Laboratories and successor companies, he completed major research, development, manufacturing, commercial, and financial transactions throughout North America, Europe, and Japan while serving in various positions of increasing responsibility. His general-counsel roles ranged from the pharmaceutical joint-venture partner in a Massachusetts-based genomics center to a Puerto-Rico-based manufacturing company. Tom holds degrees in business administration/economics (Kansas) and law (Iowa). He serves on KU’s business school faculty, teaching courses in management and business law.
Michael D. Kaufman, Ph.D. is Director of Chemistry. He has 13 years of medicinal chemistry experience, primarily in the area of kinase inhibitors. Prior to joining Deciphera Pharmaceuticals in 2005, he was a Senior Principal Scientist at Pfizer Global Research & Development (Ann Arbor, Michigan) where he played key roles in both Oncology and Cardiovascular projects. He is the co-inventor of two kinase inhibitors that have advanced into clinical trials and a co-author of 19 peer-reviewed papers. Mike earned degrees from the University of Kansas (BA) and Indiana University (Ph.D.) and completed a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania.
John W. Lord is Director of Information Technology. He has over 11 years experience as a network administrator and 5 years as an analytical chemist. Before joining in 2004, John was the manager of Information Technology for the Medicinal Chemistry Department and the School of Pharmacy at the University of Kansas. Previous positions include Information Specialist for the University of Kansas Center for Research and Manager of Information Technology for Oread Inc. John has received multiple IT certifications and training, including Cisco’s CCNA, Oracle Administration, CompTIA’s Network+ and A+. John received his Bachelors of Science in Chemistry from the University of Kansas.
Susan E. McElwain, CPA is Director of Finances. Prior to joining Deciphera, Susan was the Business Director at the Lawrence Arts Center. She was the Director of Operations and a Partner of Kornitzer Capital Management, Inc in Shawnee Mission, KS for seventeen years. She worked as a Supervising Audit Senior at KPMG, (formerly, Peat Marwick) in Wichita, KS and a Staff Accountant at Ernst & Young, (formerly, Ernst & Whinney) in San Antonio, TX. Susan received her CPA and a Bachelor of Science in Accounting at Kansas State University. Susan currently serves on the Lawrence School Foundation and is on the Planned Giving Committee of Lawrence Memorial Hospital.
Scott C. Wise, M.S. is Director of Biology at Deciphera Pharmaceuticals. He has over 16 years of drug discovery experience ranging from target identification and assay development to in vivo pharmacology and biomarkers. Prior to joining Deciphera he was a Senior Scientist at Pfizer where he worked on numerous discovery projects and played a key role in the implementation of a fully automated miniaturized screening platform capable of processing 500,000 wells/day. Scott also spent time at the National Cancer Institute where he focused on molecular mechanisms of breast and ovarian cancers. He received his Masters degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University of Toledo.