Management Team
Celtic Pharma was founded by its two Managing General Partners, Stephen Evans-Freke and John Mayo, who have remarkable track-records of building value in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors in the United States and in Europe. They have built a team of talented professionals that bring first-hand experience managing clinical, regulatory, manufacturing, commercial and brand management issues inherent to pharmaceutical development, as well as extensive deal structuring and due diligence, financial management and analysis experience in the industry.
The Management Team includes:Stephen Evans-Freke
Stephen Evans-Freke has been associated with the biotechnology industry for over 25 years, as investment banker, asset manager, entrepreneur, company CEO and venture capitalist. During the eighties, he was lead investment banker to Genentech, AMGEN, Centocor and a number of other leading biotech companies, structured and placed over $600 million of highly successful R&D partnership financings and served on the development boards of these companies. During this period, Stephen was President of PaineWebber Development Corp and later a member of PaineWebber Inc.’s Board of Directors.
In 1990, Stephen left Wall St. and founded Selectide Corporation, one of the first combinatorial chemistry companies, for which he served as Chairman until its sale to Hoechst in 1994. In 1991, he founded SUGEN, a drug discovery company focused on small molecule kinase and phosphatase inhibitors; he served as SUGEN Chairman and Chief Executive Officer through its IPO in 1995 and until its sale to Pharmacia for $720 million in 1999. During this time, he was also a co-founder of Fibrogen, Inc. and Royalty Pharma AG.
From 1999 to 2004 when he started to work on the establishment of Celtic Pharma, Stephen devoted himself to actively managing his personal venture investments while also serving as a director and member of the Executive Committee of Royalty Pharma. Stephen currently serves on the boards of Cibus Genetics (Chairman), Elbion AG, Montier Asset Management and International BioScience Managers, Ltd. He also serves on the board of Cambridge in America, the development arm of Cambridge University, from which he holds a degree in Law. Stephen is a citizen of the UK and Ireland, and has lived in the U.S. for over 25 years.
John Mayo, CBE
John Mayo has built a more than twenty year track-record of initiating, structuring and executing creative business transactions and financings, and of managing the underlying businesses through restructuring, value release and successful exits.
As an investment banker in the eighties and early nineties, John advised UK and international companies on corporate and financial strategy and on the execution of all types of private and public transactions. Some of the more prominent transactions John advised on include: structuring and executing the $9 billion tax free spin-off of Zeneca Group plc by ICI plc; the privatization of Irish Life ($750 million); the IPO of Wellcome plc ($1.5 billion); the sale by auction of Thistle Hotels ($1.0 billion); the public takeover of Pentland Group plc ($500 million) by Bertrams Investment Trust (market capitalization less than $5 million); and the disposal of 32% of Reebok ($500 million) at above market price. During this period he was at Warburgs (now part of UBS), and latterly served as a member of S.G. Warburg & Co. Ltd’s board of directors.
In late 1992, John left the City of London to join ICI in order to complete its spin-off and the IPO of Zeneca Group plc in 1993. He was appointed Finance Director of Zeneca ahead of the spin off and Zeneca raised $2 billion of equity with an initial market capitalization of $9 billion. In a series of projects, he then sold off Zeneca’s specialty chemicals businesses (e.g., Colours to BASF) and invested in pharmaceuticals (e.g., Zomig, a product bought from Wellcome when it was acquired by Glaxo) and biotechnology (e.g., a 20% stake in SUGEN, Inc., and the rights to certain cancer programs). In 1997, he initiated the merger between Zeneca and Astra, and in September 1997 John left to join The General Electric Company plc as Finance Director. By the time he left Zeneca it had a market capitalization of over $30 billion, an increase of $21 billion in 4 years.
In June 1997, GEC had a market capitalization of around $10 billion. The shareholders wanted the group to be restructured and broken up into three separate businesses in a tax efficient way. By the end of 1999, GEC had IPO’d its Power Engineering business for $2 billion (Alstom); demerged/spun-off the Defense Systems business (which was simultaneously merged with BAe Systems, with GEC Shareholders receiving 36 percent of the enlarged group in BAe shares and loan notes worth $10 billion); and listed the remaining Telecommunications Equipment business (as Marconi). The board of Marconi rejected his recommendation in early 2000 that Marconi be sold during 2000 and he left Marconi in July 2001. At its peak (in autumn 2000) these three spin-offs were worth over $45 billion.
Since 2001, John has founded and grown several businesses including The Strategic Financial Advice Company LLP, an investment banking boutique which specializes in advising companies on complex transactions and in structuring and raising capital for growth companies, private equity funds and hedge funds; and Salisbury Associates, Europe’s leading advisor in proxy solicitation and acceptance chasing in major deals.
During the last 10 years John has served as a non-executive director on the boards of the following public companies: Schlumberger, Alstom, Newcastle United, and Pentland. He has also served on the following UK public bodies: The Takeover Panel; The Confederation of British Industry’s Companies Committee; Her Majesty’s Treasury Public Sector Productivity Panel; and the FTSE Policy Committee. In 1999, he was made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE), in recognition of his services to British industry.
John is a UK citizen and is based in London.
Reinaldo M. Diaz
Reinaldo Diaz has over 25 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. Prior to joining Celtic Pharma, he was Managing Member and Co-Founder of D&A Capital Management, LLC (“D&A Capital”), a firm focused on asset management and providing advisory services to companies in the Healthcare sector, particularly biopharmaceutical companies. D&A Capital, through affiliated entities, managed the Delta Opportunity Funds (“Delta”), a group of hedge funds with over $100 million in assets under management.
Founded in 1996, Delta pursued a flexible investment strategy focused on providing attractive returns from investments in the biopharmaceutical sector while mitigating volatility. In addition, from 1996 to 2001, D&A Capital structured and acted as private placement agent for transactions that provided over $250 million for leading companies in the biopharmaceutical sector, including Cephalon, Inc., Sugen, Inc. and Creative Biomolecules, Inc.
From 1993 to 1996, Reinaldo was Managing Director and Head of the Healthcare group at Schroder Wertheim & Co., Inc. In that capacity, he was responsible for establishing and expanding Schroder Wertheim’s investment banking presence in the healthcare industry. During his tenure at Schroder Wertheim, his clients included a range of leading companies including, Centocor, Inc., Wyeth, Inc., Beckman Instruments, and SUGEN, Inc.
From 1981 to 1993, Reinaldo was with PaineWebber, Inc. During his tenure at PaineWebber, he was a key member of the PaineWebber Healthcare Investment Banking Group and of PaineWebber Development Corporation. He became President of PaineWebber Development Corporation in 1990, having been a managing director prior to that time.
Reinaldo is currently on the board of directors of Valentis, Inc., Berkeley HeartLabs, Inc. and Tenex Greenhouse Ventures. He has a BA degree from Harvard College and an MBA degree from Harvard University.
Dr. Stephen B. Parker
Stephen Parker has twenty years of working with and within the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. He has experience within the biotechnology sector as Chief Financial Officer of Oxford GlycoSciences (“OGS”) (2000-2002) and through several interim CEO projects. At OGS he played a leading role in the raising of £170m in the largest UK follow-on equity fund raising for a biotechnology company and led the creation of a joint-venture, Confirmant Limited, with Marconi PLC to exploit database applications of the proteomics platform. He is co-Founder of the UK Stem Cell Foundation, which has been created to provide funding to bring stem cell-based therapies against some of the major diseases in the western world to patients in clinical trials in the UK.
Prior to entering the sector, he was a healthcare sector investment banker with experience in both big pharma (clients included Roussel Uclaf, Wellcome and Zeneca) and biotechnology (Celltech, Chiroscience, Corixa, Serono and Triangle Pharmaceuticals). He was a senior banker with Barings, Warburgs and Apax Partners. Stephen also has experience as a strategic consultant with PA Consulting Group. His consulting clients included Boehringer Mannheim, Ciba-Geigy, Gist-brocades, Rhône-Poulenc Rorer, SmithKline Beecham and Warner-Lambert.
Stephen holds a doctorate in biochemistry from Oxford University and an MBA from City University, London and serves on the Finance Committee of the UK BioIndutsry Association.
Averill L. Powers
Averill Powers has over fifteen years experience in mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance and private equity transactions. He has recently returned to New York City from London where he lived for over six years working predominantly for J.P. Morgan’s investment banking and merchant banking divisions.
At J.P. Morgan, Averill served as a permanent member of the firm’s Valuation Committee in Europe and a participant on J.P. Morgan Capital’s Global Investment Committee and acted as legal counsel for the firm throughout the region of Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the former-Soviet republics.
Averill began his career at Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York City where he pursued a broad corporate legal practice that focused on cross-border mergers and acquisition work. Thereafter, he was recruited by Davis Polk and Wardwell to help the firm build its mergers and acquisition practice in Asia with a strong emphasis on private equity investments in China and Southeast Asia for the premier US investment banks in the region.
Averill has a B.A. from Columbia University and a J.D. from New York University School of Law. In addition to New York, London and Hong Kong, he has lived and worked in France, Italy and Austria.
Alexandre L'Heureux, CA, CFA
Prior to joining Celtic Pharma, Alexandre L’Heureux developed an extensive knowledge of the alternative investments industry as Vice President-Operations at BISYS Hedge Fund Services (“BISYS”). Alexandre joined BISYS in 1999 and, while working at this worldwide leading administration firm, he specialized in the administration and operations management of renowned offshore and onshore U.S and European Hedge Funds.
Alexandre’s responsibilities at BISYS included the management of the fund administration, transfer agency, investor relations, accounting and valuation functions of hedge funds totaling US $14 billion in assets under management. Prior to joining Celtic Pharma in 2005, he built a track record of success in assisting with numerous hedge fund launches and the establishment of their operations.
At the beginning of his career, Alexandre worked at Deloitte & Touche in the Certification and Consulting Services Department where he completed several acquisition assignments in various industries.
Alexandre earned a bachelor’s degree in Finance and Accounting with a minor in Economics at the University of Quebec in Montreal. He is a Canadian citizen residing in Bermuda and is a member of the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants and the Chartered Financial Analysts Institute.
George Iliffe
George Iliffe has spent over ten years working in corporate finance with a focus on private equity transactions. Over the last three years, he established an independent consultancy working for a variety of private equity investment firms and investment managers. During this time, he advised on the establishment of two private equity funds, (including one in life sciences) assisted in the creation of a new corporate finance boutique and advised on a number of transactions in the biotechnology sector.
Before this, he spent six years at a London-based investment bank, Oakes Fitzwilliams, where he was responsible for research and due diligence on all transactions. He began his financial career in Paris in the fund management department of Banque Finindus.
George has an MBA from INSEAD in France and a BA from Oxford University.
Sandip Agarwala
Sandip Agarwala is an Senior Associate at Celtic Pharma, serving on the investment team. Previously, he was a Consultant with The Boston Consulting Group, where he focused on the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Prior to that, he worked for Paul Capital Healthcare, a private equity firm specializing in pharmaceutical royalty-based investments, and The Frankel Group, a life sciences strategy consulting firm. Sandip holds an MBA in Health Care Management and Finance from the Wharton School, and a BSE in Systems Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.
Kathy Armstrong
Kathy Armstrong holds a BA in English from the University of Texas. Her career in finance began on the trading floor of the Paris stock exchange. Kathy then went on to represent Harbor Capital Management Company as a marketer of investment management services to public pension plans. Most recently, she worked on a marketing team at Pfizer, Inc. to co-promote with Serono, Inc. the Multiple Sclerosis therapy, Rebif. Kathy joined Celtic Pharma as its Investor Relations Manager, with responsibility for planning and day-to-day interactions with current and prospective investors.