About Ocera | Board of Directors

Eckard Weber    Karen M. Boezi    Joseph M. Davie    Brian H. Dovey
Linda Grais    Michael F. Powell    Pratik Shah    Laurent Fischer

Michael F. Powell, Ph.D.

Dr. Powell is Managing General Partner at Sofinnova Ventures. Before Sofinnova, he was Group Leader at Genentech, developing novel protein and peptide therapeutics. He was one of the team members that spun out VaxGen, an AIDS vaccine and infectious disease company. Prior to Genentech, he was Director of Product Development for Cytel, a company based on discovering antagonists to the major histocompatibility complex to ameliorate autoimmune disease. Prior to Cytel, he was a Scientist and Project Team Leader at Syntex Research. Dr. Powell is the author of 90 publications and books. He was Adjunct Professor at the University of Kansas, an editorial board member of J. Pharm.Sci. and other scientific journals, is currently the Board President of the Aids Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, and Vaccine Advisor to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and One World Health. He received his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Toronto in 1981, and carried out postdoctoral studies in bio-organic chemistry at the University of California, where he later was a faculty member. He was one of the first individuals in the biotech industry to be named a Fellow of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists.