About Us

Michael Kauffman, M.D., Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer

Michael was a cofounder of Karyopharm since the inception of the Company. Prior to joining Karyopharm, he was the chief medical officer of Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc., which acquired Proteolix Inc., where he lead the development of carfilzomib, a novel proteasome inhibitor expected to be submitted for accelerated approval in refractory myeloma by Onyx as early as mid-2011. Dr. Kauffman was President and Chief Executive Officer of EPIX Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (previously Predix Pharmaceuticals, Inc.) from 2002 to 2008. He was the leader of the Velcade® Development Program at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, and held a number of senior positions at Millennium Predictive Medicine and Biogen. Dr. Kauffman received his M.D. and Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins Medical School and is board certified in internal medicine.
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Sharon Shacham, Ph.D., MBA. Chief Scientific Officer and Head of R&D

Sharon founded Karyopharm at the end of 2008 and has lead its scientific progress since inception. She was former Senior VP of Drug Development, Epix Pharmaceuticals Inc. and was the founding scientist of Predix Pharmaceuticals, a private GPCR company that merged into EPIX in 2006. At Epix/Predix, she led efforts in GPCR modeling, computational chemistry, lead optimization and development of clinical trials. Her Ph.D. thesis on the in silico modeling of GPCRs and other proteins for computer-aided drug discovery at Tel Aviv University served as the basis for Predix Pharmaceuticals. Her software has lead to the rapid identification and optimization of four new chemical entities which entered human clinical trials including Phases I to III.
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Alan Barber, Acting CFO

Alan is an independent consultant serving as Chief Financial Officer to early stage life sciences companies. With over 30 years of public and private finance and business experience, he brings seasoned executive leadership to a broad range of strategic areas including financing, planning and analysis, business development, mergers & acquisitions, and financial reporting. His consulting clients have included Forma Therapeutics, Marinus Pharmaceuticals, Foundation Medicine, Arch Therapeutics, Neruon Systems, Repligen and Gene Network Sciences.

Prior to working as a consultant, Alan was Chief Financial Officer of several public and private technology companies including Ergo Science, Medical Foods, MyWay.com, Omnisonics Medical and BioTrove and before this he was a partner with the international accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers in Dallas and Tokyo. He is a Certified Public Accountant and holds a BS in accounting from the Rovetta School of Business, Florida State University.
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