Team

Dr. Brian Harvey has extensive industry, regulatory and clinical expertise in gastrointestinal and liver diseases. He previously was Vice President of U.S. Regulatory Strategy at Pfizer (2012-2015) and Vice President of U.S. Regulatory Policy at Sanofi Aventis (2007-2012). Prior to joining industry, Dr. Harvey worked at the U.S. Food & Drug Administration, most recently as director of FDA’s Division of Gastroenterology Products. Dr. Harvey led the regulatory review for NDA and BLA submissions of major breakthrough drugs for the treatment of IBD in adults and children, including adalimumab (Humira®), infliximab (Remicade®), and mesalamine (Lialda®). He is currently Senior Vice President of Regulatory and Scientific Affairs at the Global Liver Institute, a non-profit organization focused on improving the lives of patients with liver diseases.

Dr. Harvey graduated with honors from Middlebury College in Vermont. He earned his Ph.D. in lipid biochemistry and M.D. degree at the University of Connecticut. Prior to joining the FDA, he conducted post-doctoral research at Harvard Medical School, followed by his internal medicine internship and residency at Boston’s Beth Israel Hospital and a three-year gastroenterology fellowship at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD. Throughout his FDA career, Dr. Harvey remained a practicing clinician at the Anne Arundel Medical Center in Maryland.

Dr. Van Zandt is an accomplished synthetic organic and medicinal chemist with more than 20 years of experience in large and small pharmaceutical company environments. Before founding New England Discovery Partners through which he supports Thetis, Michael was a department head for The Institute for Pharmaceutical Discovery (IPD), where he co-led the aldose reductase project team which ultimately resulted in the identification and clinical development of lidorestat for treatment of diabetic complications (Phase II). Before joining IPD, Michael was a medicinal chemist at the pharmaceutical division of Bayer, where he played a prominent role in the discovery of tanomastat, a first-in-class MMP inhibitor for treatment of osteoarthritis and cancer that progressed through Phase III clinical development. Michael is an inventor on more than 30 issued patents and author on more than 20 publications in peer-reviewed journals. He is a frequent reviewer for the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry and Bioorganic Medicinal Chemistry Letters. Michael received his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry with a minor in Biochemistry while working with Professor Carl R. Johnson at Wayne State University.

Aaron Mathias has been working at Thetis since 2016. Prior to joining, he was a life science strategy consultant at the Monitor Group (Deloitte Consulting), where he focused on R&D strategy, project management and analytics in the pharmaceutical industry. He is currently a master’s student in biomedical engineering at Yale University.