Board of Directors
Franklin Berger
Franklin Berger joined the Board of Directors in February, 2006. He serves on the Corporate Governance and Compensation Committees. Mr. Berger is an independent biotechnology research analyst. He is currently on the Board of Directors of VaxGen Inc. and Seattle Genetics Inc., each of which is a public company listed on the NASDAQ Stock Market; ViroChem Pharma Inc., a private company, and Thallion Pharmaceuticals, a new public company formed from the merger of the public Canadian company, Ecopia, and private Caprion.
Mr. Berger was Managing Director in the U.S. Equity Research Department of J. P. Morgan Securities Inc., from May 1998 to March 2003, where he was Senior Biotechnology Analyst on the Global Health Care Research team. During his five years at J. P. Morgan Securities Inc. he was involved with the issuance of over $13 billion in biotechology company equity or equity-related securities. The majority of these transactions were book-run and lead-managed by the J. P. Morgan Biotech Team. He was associated with several notable financings in the biotechnology sector including the Genentech IPO, the largest biotechnology financing ever executed. His team covered 26 publicly-traded biotechnology companies.
The "Wall Street Journal" selected Mr. Berger as the No. 1 ranked biotechnology analyst in its All-Star Analyst Survey in 1997, and he was No. 2 ranked in the 2000 Survey. In 2002, "Institutional Investor Magazine" ranked him on J. P. Morgan's third placed All-Star Research Team.
Mr. Berger began his career as a sell-side analyst at Josephthal & Co. in 1991, subsequently moving to Salomon Smith Barney in 1997, serving as Director, Equity Research and Senior Biotechnology Analyst. From 1985 to 1991 he worked at Pantagruel Partners, a seed venture capital company in New York, focusing exclusively on biotechnology investments. Mr. Berger received his MBA degree from Harvard University; Johns Hopkins University conferred both his MA and BA degrees. In 2000, he became a Founding Fellow of the Biotechnology Study Center at New York University School of Medicine.