Board of Directors
Robert (Bob) Coates, Ph.D.
President & CEO
Robert Coates, Ph.D., assumed the role of President and CEO of Memgen in 2009. He gained his previous biotech experience by managing a $70 million portfolio focused primarily on publicly traded biotech companies. He also invests in biotech and webapp startups.
In 1980, Dr. Coates started Dallas-based Management Insights, Inc., building it into a multi-million-dollar financial services business with Fortune 500 clients. In December 2005, Management Insights was sold to TALX, a publicly traded company recently acquired by Equifax, for $24 million.
Dr. Coates began his career as an associate professor of finance at Southern Methodist University, where he taught graduate and undergraduate classes at the Cox School of Business. He was awarded an Outstanding Professor of the Year award in his second year of teaching, and he authored a textbook, Investment Strategy (published by McGraw-Hill), that was used at universities nationwide.
Dr. Coates earned a B.A. degree in economics, with distinction, in three years at the University of Virginia. He received both his MBA and Ph.D. in economics, finance, and accounting from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, where he studied under several Nobel Prize winners, including Milton Friedman. He has served on the boards of trustees of the College Foundation of the University of Virginia; Dallas Junior Achievement; and the Greenhill School.
Thomas G. Capetan
Former Vice President, Alcon Laboratories
Memgen Board of Directors
Thomas G. Capetan brings to Memgen's Board of Directors his diverse knowledge and broad base of experience in pharmaceutical technologies, business development, and technology licensing.
During his 20 years at Alcon Laboratories Inc., most recently as Vice President of Licensing and Business Development, Mr. Capetan was instrumental in the development and licensing of more than 50 new surgical and pharmaceutical products and technologies, as well as in creating a participative, multidisciplinary process to rapidly evaluate, license, and acquire new products. He established and maintained relationships on behalf of Alcon with key corporations, industry leaders, physicians, and inventors, resulting in a consistent flow of more than 1,000 new-product licensing and acquisition opportunities per year. He also participated in Alcon’s acquisition and integration of 10 companies, including the $900 million acquisition of Summit.
Before Alcon, Mr. Capetan served as Director of Marketing for CooperVision, helping to elevate the company to the top of its market. He began his career as a market research analyst with Allergan Pharmaceuticals.
Mr. Capetan earned a B.S. degree in business administration from the University of Rhode Island and an MBA from Pepperdine University. He is the sole or co-inventor of ten patents, and holds professional affiliations with the Licensing Executives Society, the Association of University Technology Managers, the North Texas Regional Center for Innovation and Commercialization, and the University of North Texas Health Science Center.
Randall K. Johnson, Ph.D.
Former Department Director, GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals
Former Section Head, National Cancer Institute, NIH
Memgen Board of Directors
As a Board of Directors member, Randall K. Johnson, Ph.D., provides Memgen with the benefits of his illustrious career as a pharmaceutical researcher, research manager, and director of successful drug discovery projects. He was responsible for the discovery and initial development of topotecan (trade name Hycamtin®), a drug approved for the treatment of ovarian, cervical, and lung cancers.
Dr. Johnson currently is an independent consultant for oncology drug discovery and development, having worked with more than 110 clients, including venture capital firms, biomedical start-ups, established biotech companies, and major pharmaceutical firms. He has served or is serving on two Boards of Directors and 14 Scientific Advisory Boards (SABs).
He began consulting after 20 years directing the oncology discovery efforts at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Pharmaceuticals and at SmithKline Beecham (SB) prior to its merger with Glaxo. In roles such as Associate Director of the departments of Natural Products Pharmacology and Molecular Pharmacology; Director of the departments of Biomolecular Discovery and Oncology Research; and Group Director of the department of Oncology Research, Dr. Johnson played a key role in identifying, evaluating, licensing, and developing six cancer therapeutics, which established an oncology pipeline at SB/GSK. These drugs include Bexxar®, a radio-labeled anti-CD20 antibody approved for treatment of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Before GSK, Dr. Johnson spent five years as Manager, Experimental Therapeutics Section, Biological Research and Technology Department for the consulting firm Arthur D. Little, Inc., directing a laboratory involved in characterizing the mechanism and activity of novel anti-tumor agents. He started his career at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), serving as a Section Head in two laboratories involved in anti-cancer drug discovery.
Dr. Johnson received a B.Sc. degree in biochemistry from the University of Minnesota and a Ph.D. in pharmacology from George Washington University, and he completed a post-doctoral fellowship in experimental oncology at the NCI’s Laboratory of Experimental Chemotherapy. He has authored more than 200 papers in the fields of experimental and clinical oncology and is an inventor on 14 issued patents.