Deciphera Pharmaceuticals Senior Management

Daniel L. Flynn is President and CEO of the company. He received his PhD in medicinal chemistry at the University of Kansas in 1981. After completing a post-doctorate in synthetic organic chemistry at Indiana University, he joined Warner-Lambert/Parke Davis Pharmaceuticals in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1983. In 1988, he moved to Searle Pharmaceuticals in Skokie, IL and later St. Louis, MO. In his ten year period with Searle, he brought over five compounds into preclinical development, and advanced 3 drugs into clinical trials, including Xemilofiban and Orbofiban. He invented and developed a major platform in combinatorial chemistry now known as "phase-trafficking" synthesis. In 1998, Dan joined Amgen, Inc in Thousand Oaks, CA, as Director of Medicinal Chemistry. In 2000, he moved to Cambridge, MA, as Senior Director of Chemistry with Millennium Pharmaceuticals. While at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Dan managed the medicinal chemistry that resulted in the delivery of an anti-obesity drug into human clinical trials. Dan is an Adjunct Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Kansas-Lawrence and served as the national Chair-Elect for the Division of Medicinal Chemistry of the American Chemical Society.

Peter A. Petillo is Senior Vice President & Chief Scientific Officer. Peter received his B.S. degree in chemistry from the University of New Hampshire in 1985 and his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1991. He stayed at the University of Wisconsin to pursue postdoctoral studies in the area of high-resolution solution NMR of carbohydrates before moving to the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, MA, where he was a Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Research postdoctoral fellow. In 1994, he moved to the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, and spent seven years directing a group of up to 20 students. During this time, the Petillo group developed new paramagnetic contrast agents for MRI imaging that displayed tissue and pathology specificity, initiated the construction of carbohydrate-based dendrimers for the delivery of drugs and diagnostics to non-vascularized type tumors and developed new, reliable and robust synthetic methods for the assembly of bio-active agents including peptides and carbohydrates. His group was the first to demonstrate that carbohydrates fold in solution. In 2001, he moved to NeoGenesis as a Principal Scientist where he was wholly responsible for the construction of their NMR facility and led efforts in affinity-based screening.

Michael F. Rafferty is Vice President of Preclinical Development. Michael obtained his Ph.D. in medicinal chemistry from the University of Kansas under Professor Gary Grunewald. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the NIH with Dr. Kenner Rice, Michael joined the medicinal chemistry department at Warner-Lambert/Parke-Davis in Ann Arbor, Michigan. After moving briefly to Bristol-Myers in Wallingford, Ct., Michael joined Searle as Director of CNS Diseases research, where he was responsible for directing discovery programs targeting pain management, neurological disorders, and GI diseases. Michael returned to Parke-Davis as Director of CNS medicinal chemistry, with responsibilities over a broad range of neuropsychiatric and neurological diseases research programs. Michael also served as the chair of the exploratory development program for pregabalin (Lyrica) from 1993 through 1997. Shortly after the merger of Warner-Lambert and Pfizer, Michael was named Executive Director of the newly created Discovery Technologies department, a group of over 150 colleagues who provided core technology support for all Ann Arbor discovery programs. Other past affiliations include adjunct professor of medicinal chemistry department at the University of Michigan and coeditor-in-chief, Medicinal Research Reviews. Michael is currently an adjunct professor in medicinal chemistry at the University of Kansas and treasurer of the Medicinal and Bioorganic Chemistry Foundation, which he co-founded in 1995. Michael also serves on the editorial board of Molecular Pharmaceutics and has served as ad hoc reviewer for a number of medicinal chemistry and pharmacology journals. Michael is an inventor on 42 issued US patents and co-author on 56 peer-reviewed papers. Since 2005, Michael has consulted with large and small pharmaceutical organizations on various discovery and early development programs.

Usha M. Rafferty heads the Regulatory Affairs and Clinical Operations efforts at Deciphera Pharmaceuticals LLC. Prior to this position, she held some 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 of Inflammation (including Celebrex) and Dermatology therapy areas and in Clinical Operations, she was responsible for Oncology & Anti-Infectives therapy areas as well as Celebrex. Usha also has Regulatory CMC and biological experience at PD/Pfizer. She held management and technical positions at Hudson Respiratory Care Inc (QA department), Amersham Corporation (Technical support), Bios Corporation (key member in this 5 employee biotech company), Yale University, University of Michigan, Biotech Research Labs ( R&D of HIV detection kits) and Wellcome Animal Health (vaccine research and manufacturing). She 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.

Deciphera Pharmaceuticals, LLC
4950 Research Park Way
Lawrence, KS 66047

785-838-3767 phone
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info@deciphera.com

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