Veteran Perspectives to Pivoting as a CMO

Patrick Burnett, MD, PhD, FAAD, is the chief medical officer and a senior vice president at Arcutis Biotherapeutics, a publicly held medical dermatology company developing novel treatments for patients with immune-mediated skin diseases. In the past five years, Arcutis’ team has grown from three to more than 140 and its market capitalization has expanded from $150,000 to well in excess of $1 billion. The company is rapidly advancing a pipeline of potential therapies, with its first New Drug Application for a plaque psoriasis treatment currently under review with the FDA and multiple clinical trials underway for conditions including atopic dermatitis, seborrheic dermatitis, and scalp and body psoriasis. Prior to joining Arcutis in 2020, Dr Burnett served as Chief Medical Officer at Verrica Pharmaceuticals, and previously as Associate Vice President of Clinical Development at Sun Pharmaceuticals, where he oversaw the dermatology and rheumatology pipeline. Earlier, Dr Burnett served at Novartis in roles that included Global Program Medical Director. He is a board-certified dermatologist and was a member of the medical faculty at Vanderbilt University Medical Center as an assistant professor of dermatology from 2004 to 2010. Dr Burnett holds an MD and PhD in neuroscience from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and a BS in biology and biochemistry from the University of Iowa. Arcutis is based in Westlake Village, California.

Elliot Ehrich, MD, is Chief Medical Officer at LifeMine Therapeutics. Over the course of 25+ years in pharma and biotech, he has led or directly contributed to the discovery, development, and successful registration of 8 medicines across a spectrum of therapeutic areas.Dr Ehrich joined LifeMine from Skyhawk Therapeutics, where he served as President and led research, drug discovery, and drug development activities. Prior to Skyhawk, Dr Ehrich was a Venture Partner at 5AM Ventures.Dr Ehrich had previously spent 18 years at Alkermes, Inc, where he served as Executive Vice President of Research & Development and Chief Medical Officer. During his tenure, Dr Ehrich led the discovery, development, and, ultimately, the FDA registration of a series of medicines for multiple therapeutic indications, including schizophrenia, alcohol and opioid dependence and multiple sclerosis.Dr Ehrich began his industry career in the clinical pharmacology and pulmonary-immunology groups at Merck Research Labs Elliot received a BA in Biochemistry from Princeton University. He was then a pre-doctoral fellow in molecular genetics at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany. He subsequently received an MD from Columbia University and completed an internship and residency in internal medicine at Stanford University. After residency, Dr Ehrich continued at Stanford and completed a clinical fellowship in immunology and rheumatology followed by a Cancer Research Institute-sponsored postdoctoral fellowship in T Cell biology.

Dr Anna Frostegård is a globally educated, board-certified physician holding MD summa cum laude. She obtained her PhD in Experimental Medicine at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. Dr Frostegård served as Assistant Professor at the Unit of Immunology and Chronic Disease at Karolinska Institutet. She has an active career in both medical science and biotech. She is the co-founder and currently the Chief Scientific and Medical Officer in Annexin Pharmaceuticals AB (publ), a First North/Nasdaq listed biotech company. Dr Frostegård has over 15 years of “first-hand” leadership experience in discoveries of biologic drug candidates and transition of academic inventions into a drug development process, biotech startups, IPO, financing, pre-clinical and early clinical development of biologic drug candidates as well as in strategic work related to building asset and intellectual property portfolios, in- and out licensing. Therapeutic areas of expertise are inflammation & immunology, autoimmunity and cardiovascular disease. She is the co-inventor on several granted patents and patent applications related to therapeutic use of Annexin A5 in human disease. She has co-founded 5 companies within EU. She is a board member in 4 companies. She consults academic researchers and investors on effective interactions between academic inventors and biotechnology industry. She advises on early stage investments in biotechnology. Dr Frostegård holds several awards for scientific communication. She is a professional member of the American Heart Association.