About Us

Eric Easom

Co-Founder, President & CEO
CHAIR OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Mr. Easom has over 29 years of leadership experience in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry and has spent the last 15 years focused on bringing innovation to address significant unmet needs in infectious diseases, focused on the developing world. In addition to being the Founder, President and CEO of AN2 Therapeutics, Mr. Easom also serves as Chair of the Board of Directors of AN2 Therapeutics. Mr. Easom serves on the Board of Directors for the Chagas Disease Foundation, Resilient Biotics, and is an advisor for the California Life Sciences Institute. Previously, Mr. Easom spent 9 years at Anacor Pharmaceuticals, which was acquired by Pfizer. During his tenure, he led Anacor’s R&D on neglected disease programs that achieved global prominence, working in close partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, The University of Georgia (Tarleton Lab), Medicines for Malaria Venture, Global Alliance for Veterinary Medicine, Drugs for Neglected Disease initiative (DNDi), GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Eli Lilly & Company, the University of California, San Francisco, Colorado State, DTRA, Walter Reed, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, TB Alliance, the global Anti-Wolbachia Consortium, and numerous other partners. The Anacor Neglected Diseases team raised over $80M in funding and discovered over a dozen potentially transformational medicines for diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, river blindness, cryptosporidiosis and trypanosome diseases including Chagas disease, African sleeping sickness, and leishmaniasis. Mr. Easom also served on the Board of Directors for the Infectious Disease Research Institute, from 2007-2014, serving as Chairman from 2009-2013. The majority of his early career was at Eli Lilly and Company, followed by McKesson and other biotechnology companies such as MedImmune and InteKrin Therapeutics. Mr. Easom earned an MBA from Indiana University, Kelley School of Business and a BS and Masters in Electrical Engineering from the University of Louisville.

Michael R.K. (Dickon) Alley, Ph.D.

SVP Research Fellow, Head of Biology

Dr. M.R.K. (Dickon) Alley has over 30 years of experience in microbiology from academia and industry. Dr. Alley led Discovery Biology at Anacor Pharmaceuticals for 15 years, starting from the company’s inception. At Anacor, he and his team elucidated the novel OBORT Leucyl-tRNA synthetase mechanism of action for Kerydin^®, an FDA-approved treatment for onychomycosis. This led to the discovery of two novel phase 2 antibacterials currently in development. He also led several early phase antibacterial drug discovery programs funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Defense Threat Reduction Agency. Dr. Alley has co-authored over 30 publications in peer-reviewed journals, including seminal publications in the journal Science. He earned his PhD in Biological Sciences from the University of Warwick after completing his BSc ARCS in Biochemistry from Imperial College London. He then completed Post-doctoral Fellowships at Columbia University and Stanford University in the lab of Dr. Lucy Shapiro before he was awarded a Royal Society University Research Fellowship.

Sanjay Chanda, Ph.D.

Chief Development Officer

Dr. Sanjay Chanda brings over twenty-five years of experience in drug development, including product development, regulatory affairs, and product registration to AN2 Therapeutics, where he is the Chief Development Officer. Previously, Dr. Chanda served as Chief Development Officer at Tioma Therapeutics, and co-founded Auration, Inc., an early-stage pharmaceutical company focused on treating chronic hearing loss in humans. Prior to his CDO role at Tioma Therapeutics, Dr. Chanda was the Senior Vice President of Drug Development at Anacor Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Pfizer). At Anacor, he was responsible for all aspects of CMC and Preclinical Safety and played key leadership roles in the development and approvals of KERYDIN^® for the treatment of onychomycosis and EUCRISA^® for the treatment of atopic dermatitis (eczema). He has held leadership positions at NeurogesX, Inc., Cerus Corporation, and PPD-Development. Dr. Chanda has over thirty publications in various peer-reviewed journals. He received his Ph.D. in Pharmacology/Toxicology at Northeast Louisiana University and completed postdoctoral fellowships at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina.

Lucy O. Day

Chief Financial Officer

Ms. Day is AN2’s Chief Financial Officer, Secretary and Treasurer, responsible for finance, human capital, and administrative functions. Previously, Ms. Day led a number of finance and administrative functions at Anacor Pharmaceuticals over a 14-year period, initially as CFO, then focusing on legal matters and human resources. While at Anacor, Ms. Day built and led the Finance and Accounting functions, and was instrumental in preparing for and completing private and public financings, drug product launches, and numerous research and development collaborations. In the earlier years, Ms. Day reviewed and oversaw legal matters of the Company, and subsequently led the HR function during commercialization of Eucrisa^®, acquisition by Pfizer, and subsequent transition into Pfizer’s culture. Prior to Anacor, Ms. Day served in a similar capacity as CFO at Centaur Pharmaceuticals, where she helped grow the startup from early research to late-stage clinical development. Ms. Day started her career at Ernst & Young and has previous financial experience at Sohio Petroleum and as a VP at Bank of America. She is a University of California, Berkeley graduate and is a CPA (non-active) in California.

Josh Eizen

Chief Legal Officer and Chief Operating Officer

Mr. Eizen is AN2’s Chief Legal Officer, Chief Operating Officer and Secretary, responsible for managing the company’s legal affairs and compliance functions and overseeing the operational activities of the company. He has been practicing law for over 20 years, with roles spanning industry, government, and private practice. Before joining AN2, Mr. Eizen held senior legal and compliance positions at Jazz Pharmaceuticals, GW Pharmaceuticals, Jansen Pharmaceuticals, and Actelion Pharmaceuticals. As the U.S. General Counsel at GW, he guided the company on corporate, commercialization, regulatory, government affairs, and employment matters. He supported the launch and commercialization of Epidiolex, GW’s $7.2b sale to Jazz Pharmaceuticals, its $350m follow-on offering (2018), and various pre-commercial and regulatory strategies for GW’s neuroscience and orphan-disease pipeline. Earlier in his career, Mr. Eizen was Associate Chief Counsel for Enforcement at the Food and Drug Administration. As a government attorney for FDA, he handled investigations and prosecutions involving off-label promotion, manufacturing violations, product integrity, and public health outbreaks. Mr. Eizen began his legal career in private practice at a corporate tax and litigation firm.

Vince Hernandez

Senior Vice President of Research & Head of Chemistry

Mr. Hernandez has over twenty-five years of experience in the biotech and pharmaceutical industry. He is a former Research Fellow in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry at the University of California, Santa Cruz and a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Antibiotics. Previously, Mr. Hernandez served as Senior Director of Medicinal Chemistry for Anacor Pharmaceuticals for over 11 years, where he was responsible for a portfolio of chemistry programs targeting infectious diseases, and a pioneer in the chemistry of boron-containing therapeutics. He is currently the PI for a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation focused on the discovery of novel leucyl tRNA-synthetase inhibitors targeting tuberculosis and malaria.

Mr. Hernandez is co-inventor of KERYDIN^® for the treatment of onychomycosis, and EUCRISA^® for the treatment of eczema, and directed the chemistry efforts which identified two infectious disease products, epetraborole and ganfeborole, subsequently outlicensed for clinical development. Prior to Anacor, Mr. Hernandez held positions of increasing responsibility at a variety of small pharmaceutical and biotech start-ups, including Aclara Biosciences, where he was the co-inventor of the VeraTag^® system used in the HERmark^® Breast Cancer Assay for personalized medicine. Mr. Hernandez has over twenty publications in various peer-reviewed journals and is a co-inventor on over twenty-five issued US patents and patent applications. He is also the co-founder and President of The Ima Hernandez Foundation, a non-profit charitable organization supporting programs in global health, science education, and animal welfare. Mr. Hernandez earned his BA in chemistry from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Stephen Prior, Ph.D.

Chief Strategy Officer

Stephen Prior is a Ph.D. Microbiologist with over 40 years of research and management in academia and the biotechnology/pharmaceutical industries that has been focused on risk and threat analysis and the development of medical countermeasures and health responses that address man-made and naturally occurring infectious diseases.

His corporate experiences and demonstrated expertise, including founder and CEO (DynPort Vaccine Company) and senior management responsibilities (Porton International, Inc.), have been developed in businesses ranging in size from multi-national corporations to registered small businesses and not-for-profit organizations. He has direct experience in the management of complex, multi-national programs including coordination of international projects and product supply, under licensure and regulatory approval, to government representatives and senior defense leadership in the United States, Canada, Europe, Middle East and Asia. His work includes the focused growth of biotechnology and pharmaceutical projects from initial research to licensed products. He has also led the development and implementation of policies, procedures and legal instruments for defense and public health responses to biological threats in the United States and internationally.

An acknowledged subject matter expert (SME) on national security issues and the health threats that result from novel, emergent or man-made diseases, he has held advisory roles as an SME with the U.S. Departments of Defense (DoD), Health and Human Services (DHHS), Homeland Security (DHS), as well as U.S. Government agencies (Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation), state and local governments (including the National Governors Association) and private-sector companies. He has over 30 years of performance as U.S. Government (USG) contractor managing programs as large as $350M. His contracting experience includes; the development and supply of medical countermeasures; analysis of, and guidance for public health responses; and modeling and simulation of complex and complex adaptive systems. He has contract experience as the Principal Investigator and Project Manager on multiple awards with agencies of the DoD, DHHS, and DHS.

Dr. Prior is a graduate of the University of Kent (Canterbury, UK) and earned a Ph.D. at Warwick University (UK) under the guidance of Sir Howard Dalton FRS.

Eric Easom

Co-Founder, President & CEO
CHAIR OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Mr. Easom has over 29 years of leadership experience in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry and has spent the last 15 years focused on bringing innovation to address significant unmet needs in infectious diseases, focused on the developing world. In addition to being the Founder, President and CEO of AN2 Therapeutics, Mr. Easom also serves as Chair of the Board of Directors of AN2 Therapeutics. Mr. Easom serves on the Board of Directors for the Chagas Disease Foundation, Resilient Biotics, and is an advisor for the California Life Sciences Institute. Previously, Mr. Easom spent 9 years at Anacor Pharmaceuticals, which was acquired by Pfizer. During his tenure, he led Anacor’s R&D on neglected disease programs that achieved global prominence, working in close partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, The University of Georgia (Tarleton Lab), Medicines for Malaria Venture, Global Alliance for Veterinary Medicine, Drugs for Neglected Disease initiative (DNDi), GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Eli Lilly & Company, the University of California, San Francisco, Colorado State, DTRA, Walter Reed, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, TB Alliance, the global Anti-Wolbachia Consortium, and numerous other partners. The Anacor Neglected Diseases team raised over $80M in funding and discovered over a dozen potentially transformational medicines for diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, river blindness, cryptosporidiosis and trypanosome diseases including Chagas disease, African sleeping sickness, and leishmaniasis. Mr. Easom also served on the Board of Directors for the Infectious Disease Research Institute, from 2007-2014, serving as Chairman from 2009-2013. The majority of his early career was at Eli Lilly and Company, followed by McKesson and other biotechnology companies such as MedImmune and InteKrin Therapeutics. Mr. Easom earned an MBA from Indiana University, Kelley School of Business and a BS and Masters in Electrical Engineering from the University of Louisville.

Joseph S. Zakrzewski

Co-Founder
Director

Mr. Zakrzewski has over 25 years of experience as an executive in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of publicly held companies Acceleron Pharmaceuticals, Amarin Pharmaceuticals, and Sangamo Therapeutics. Mr. Zakrzewski also serves on the board of a number of privately held companies, is the founder of a number of biotechnology companies, and is involved in a number of philanthropic activities. He was Chairman and CEO of Amarin Pharmaceuticals, a publicly traded company focused on the development and commercialization of cardiovascular drugs based on Omega 3‘s from 2010 to 2013, successfully developing and launching Vascepa^®. Mr. Zakrzewski served as a Venture Partner with Orbimed, in 2010 and 2011. Prior to this, he was Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer of Xcellerex, a privately held company focusing on commercializing its proprietary next generation manufacturing technology for biotherapeutics and vaccines from 2007 to 2010. Mr. Zakrzewski also served as the Chief Operating Officer of Reliant Pharmaceuticals, a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on cardiovascular drugs from 2005 to 2007. Mr. Zakrzewski had responsibility for the company’s pharmaceutical operations including, R&D, business development, supply chain/manufacturing, quality, IT, and compliance. Prior to this, Mr. Zakrzewski served in a variety of executive level capacities at Eli Lilly & Company for 17 years including R&D, manufacturing, finance and business development. His most recent position, Senior Vice President, had global responsibility for all business and corporate development. Mr. Zakrzewski is an inventor on multiple US patents and has been involved in or led financings amounting to several billion dollars for both private and public companies. Over his career, he has served as a member of the board of directors of over 25 companies. He received a BS in Chemical Engineering from Drexel University in 1986, an MS in Biochemical Engineering from Drexel University in 1988, and an MBA in Finance in 1992 from Indiana University.

George H. Talbot, M.D., FACP, FIDSA

Co-Founder & Senior Clinical Advisor

Dr. Talbot, an infectious diseases physician trained at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center, began his pharmaceutical career in anti-infective drug development at Rhone-Poulenc Rorer, subsequently Aventis. He founded his consultancy firm, Talbot Advisors LLC, in 2000. Dr. Talbot later served as Executive Vice President/Chief Medical Officer of Cerexa Inc. (purchased by Forest Laboratories) and worked closely with the development teams at Calixa Therapeutics (acquired by Cubist Pharmaceuticals) and Durata Therapeutics (purchased by Actavis Plc). He was a founding member of IDSA's Antimicrobial Availability Task Force ("Bad Bugs, No Drugs"), recently sat on IDSA’s Antimicrobial Resistance Committee, was a committee member of the CLSI (previously NCCLS), and is past co-chair of the ABSSSI/CABP and HABP/VABP Clinical Trial Endpoint Development Project Teams at the Biomarkers Consortium of the Foundation of the National Institutes of Health. He has co-authored more than 100 publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Michael R.K. (Dickon) Alley, Ph.D.

CO-FOUNDER, SVP RESEARCH FELLOW, HEAD OF BIOLOGY

Dr. M.R.K. (Dickon) Alley has over 30 years of experience in microbiology from academia and industry. Dr. Alley led Discovery Biology at Anacor Pharmaceuticals for 15 years, starting from the company’s inception. At Anacor, he and his team elucidated the novel OBORT Leucyl-tRNA synthetase mechanism of action for Kerydin^®, an FDA-approved treatment for onychomycosis. This led to the discovery of two novel phase 2 antibacterials currently in development. He also led several early phase antibacterial drug discovery programs funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Defense Threat Reduction Agency. Dr. Alley has co-authored over 30 publications in peer-reviewed journals, including seminal publications in the journal Science. He earned his PhD in Biological Sciences from the University of Warwick after completing his BSc ARCS in Biochemistry from Imperial College London. He then completed Post-doctoral Fellowships at Columbia University and Stanford University in the lab of Dr. Lucy Shapiro before he was awarded a Royal Society University Research Fellowship.