The General Partners of Celtic Therapeutics are Stephen Evans-Freke and Dr. Peter B. Corr, who draw from a combined total of over 55 years across various sectors of the biomedical enterprise.

Stephen Evans-Freke is Co-Founder and Managing General Partner of Celtic Therapeutics and Co-Founder and Managing Principal of Celtic Pharma, a global private equity firm focused on the pharmaceutical industry. Celtic Pharma is the Manager of the Prior Fund.

Mr. Evans-Freke has been associated with the biotechnology industry for over 24 years, as an investment banker, asset manager, entrepreneur, company CEO, and venture capitalist. During the 1980s, he was lead investment banker to Genentech, AMGEN, Centocor, and a number of other leading biotech companies, structured and placed over $500 million of highly successful R&D partnership financing, and served on the Development Boards of these companies. During this period, Mr. Evans-Freke was President of PaineWebber Development Corporation and later a member of PaineWebber Inc.'s Board of Directors.

In 1990 Mr. Evans-Freke left Wall St. and founded Selectide Corporation, one of the first combinatorial chemistry companies, for which he served as Chairman until its sale to Heochst in 1994. In 1991, Mr. Evans-Freke 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 with Morgan Stanley in 1995 and until its sale to Pharmacia for $720 million in 1999. During this time, Mr. Evans-Freke was also a co-founder of Fibrogen, Inc. and Royalty Pharma AG.

Subsequently, Mr. Evans-Freke served as an advisor to Pharmacia CEO Fred Hassan until 2001 and devoted himself to his personal venture investments until the founding of Celtic Pharma in 2004. He currently serves on the Boards of Cibus Genetics (Chairman), Elbion AG, Montier Asset Management Ltd., and International BioScience Managers, Ltd. Mr. Evans-Freke also serves on the 800-Year Anniversary Appeal Board of Cambridge University, from which he holds a degree in Law; the Cambridge Stem Cell Board; the Board of Governors of the U.S. Priory of the Order of St. John; and the Board of the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation. Mr. Evans-Freke is a citizen of the U.K. and Ireland and has been a resident of the U.S. for 28 years.

Dr. Peter B. Corr is Co-Founder and General Partner of Celtic Therapeutics. Dr. Corr retired from Pfizer Inc in December 2006, where he was Corporate Senior Vice President for Science and Technology, with strategic responsibility for advancing the company’s human health business through licensing and business development, science and technology, and medical external affairs and advocacy, including global medical professional relations and science policy. Prior to assuming that role in 2004, he headed worldwide pharmaceutical research and development for Pfizer and also served as Executive Vice President, Pfizer Global Research & Development; and President, Worldwide Development.

Dr. Corr was a member of the Pfizer Leadership Team; the Pfizer Human Health Leadership Team, an executive body responsible for managing Pfizer’s global human health business; and the Pfizer Leadership Council, which oversaw all of Pfizer’s businesses.

Before joining Pfizer, he held leadership positions in the pharmaceutical industry as Senior Vice President, Discovery Research, at Monsanto/Searle, and then as President of Pharmaceutical Research and Development at Warner Lambert/Parke Davis until its merger with Pfizer in 2000.

Dr. Corr, who received his doctorate from Georgetown University School of Medicine, spent 18 years as a researcher in molecular biology and pharmacology at both the basic science and clinical level at Washington University in St. Louis. When he left Washington University, Dr. Corr was Professor, Department of Medicine (Cardiology) and Professor, Department of Pharmacology and Molecular Biology. His research has been published in more than 160 scientific manuscripts.

Dr. Corr is the recipient of numerous awards, including membership in the Alpha Omega Alpha National Medical Honorary Society, an Established Investigator Award from the American Heart Association, and a Research Career Development Award from the National Institutes of Health. He received the Washington University School of Medicine Teacher of the Year Award on several occasions and, in 1990, the Washington University Distinguished Faculty Award. In 2004, Dr. Corr was named a William Pitt Fellow at Pembroke College, Cambridge University, Cambridge, U.K.

In addition to his work at Pfizer, Dr. Corr was Chairman of the Science & Regulatory Executive Committee of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA); Chairman of the PhRMA Foundation Board of Directors; and Chairman of the Hever Group, representing Chief Scientific Officers (CSOs) across the European and U.S. based pharmaceutical industry. He is a Governor of the New York Academy of Sciences (and immediate past Chairman of the Board of Governors) and a member of the Board of Regents of Georgetown University. Additionally, he serves on the boards of the C-PATH Institute in Tucson, Arizona; the International Partnership for Microbicides; CBio, an Australian biotechnology firm; Global Edit, Inc.; and the African Leadership Congress. He is a Trustee of the Joyce Theatre Foundation in New York City and a member of the National Academies’ Institute of Medicine (IOM) Committee on Conflict of Interest in Medical Research, Education and Practice as well as the IOM Forum on Drug Discovery, Development and Translation.



Reinaldo M. Diaz is a Managing Director of Celtic Therapeutics, overseeing investments and business development, and is also a Managing Director of Celtic Pharma. He has over 25 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. Prior to joining Celtic Pharma, he was a 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, D&A Capital, under the guidance of Mr. Diaz, 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, Mr. Diaz 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. His clients included a range of leading companies such as Centocor, Inc., Wyeth, Inc., Beckman Instruments, and SUGEN, Inc.

From 1981 to 1993, Mr. Diaz was with PaineWebber, Inc., where 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.

Mr. Diaz is currently on the board of directors of Haemacure Corporation, Valentis, Inc., Berkeley HeartLabs, Inc. and Tenex Greenhouse Ventures. He has a BA degree from Harvard College and an MBA degree from Harvard University.

Michael Forer serves as Partner, European Origination for Celtic Therapeutics. Mr. Forer was a co-founder in 2001 of Bioscience Managers Limited (BML), a London-based advisory and private equity firm focused on the life science sector. At BML, Mr. Forer led its secondary investment strategy to acquire portfolios of private equity investments in primarily therapeutics-focused companies in Europe and North America, including backing from leading institutional investors. Mr. Forer was also responsible for the origination and execution of numerous advisory transactions for international private equity backed drug development and medical technology companies.

Prior to co-founding BML, Mr. Forer was a member of the life science private equity investment team at London-based Rothschild Asset Management (Rothschild), where his activities included origination, execution, and management of private equity investments in the global life science sector. During his tenure at Rothschild, the team made numerous investments, achieved more than two hundred million dollars in divestments, and the Rothschild portfolio grew to more than $1 billion in value.

Mr. Forer was called to the Bar for the Law Society of Upper Canada after being at a leading Canadian law firm — now Ogilvy Renault — specializing in the areas of business, transactional, and securities law. He is also a former board member of Medical Devices Canada, the trade and lobby association in Canada.

Mr. Forer has a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Western Ontario, a Diploma in International Business from the University of Copenhagen, and a Bachelor of Laws from the University of British Columbia. He is based in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Dr. Richard Warburg is the Managing Director of Intellectual Property & Licensing for Celtic Therapeutics.

Previously, Dr. Warburg was a partner at the law firms of Foley & Lardner LLP and Lyon & Lyon, and a law clerk with Fish & Richardson. Dr. Warburg has over 25 years experience in intellectual property litigation, strategic counseling, licensing and patent prosecution. Dr. Warburg has significant appellate, litigation, interference and world wide prosecution and opposition experience in most technical areas including biopharmacology, proteomics, antisense, and diagnostic devices.

Dr. Warburg is registered to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark office. He is admitted to practice in California and Massachusetts, and in the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Ninth and Federal Circuits.

Dr. Warburg is a graduate of Birmingham University, England, where he received his Bachelor of Science degree in 1978 and his Ph.D. in molecular biology in 1981. After a post-doctoral fellowship at Brandeis University, acting as an adjunct professor at Wellesley College, and an instructor at University of Massachusetts, he attended Suffolk University law school and graduated valedictorian magna cum laude in 1990.

Dr. Warburg is the inventor on world-wide patents to a micro-centrifuge tube opening device, the inventor of the PATENTIAL board game concerning the biotech business model, and co-author of the book “Working to Improve Lives – An Illustrated Biotech” encyclopedia. He is also an author on numerous legal and scientific papers.



Dr. Tomasz Sablinski is the Head of Clinical Development and a member of the Executive Committee of Celtic Therapeutics Development (CTD). Dr. Sablinski joined CTD with twenty eight years of experience in healthcare, including his last fifteen years in the global pharmaceutical industry. His career includes ten years of clinical practice as a surgeon specializing in renal transplantation and general surgery, and several years of basic research in immunobiology.

Prior to joining CTD, Dr. Sablinski served as Vice President at Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. in charge of US Clinical Development and Medical Affairs. Prior to this, Dr. Sablinski held several leadership positions at Novartis headquarters including Vice President of Clinical Research and Development and Head of Global-Japanese Coordination. He also held multiple leadership positions in Novartis’ Transplantation Business Unit. He participated in, and supervised numerous NDA and IND submissions in the US, Europe and Japan.

Dr. Sablinski began his career in the Pharmaceutical industry as a consultant to several biotechnology companies in the mid-nineties. At this time he was also a Medical Director at Parexel International, a leading global bio/pharmaceutical services organization. Prior to joining pharmaceutical industry he conducted basic research while appointed as Instructor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Fellow at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. His other clinical appointments include Lahey Clinic, Burlington, MA, and Central Clinical Hospital in Warsaw, Poland.

Dr. Sablinski earned his MD and his Ph.D. in transplant immunology at Warsaw Medical School and his bachelor degrees at Copernicus College in Warsaw, Poland.