Michael D. Taylor, Ph.D. – President and Chief Executive Officer
Mike joined Ensemble Discovery as President and CEO in July of 2007 with more than 20 years experience in the pharmaceutical industry.  Prior to joining Ensemble, Mike was Senior Vice President for Pfizer’s Global R&D division responsible for global project and portfolio management.  In other positions with Pfizer (and previously Warner-Lambert/Parke-Davis), Mike led early and late-stage development projects across multiple therapeutic areas, including Lipitor® and Neurontin®.  His career includes extensive experience in drug discovery, licensing and business development, and managing R&D alliances with pharmaceutical and biotech partners.  In addition to his R&D experience he is active in investor development, government affairs and public policy affecting the pharmaceutical industry. Until 2003 he was Adjunct Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the College of Pharmacy at the University of Michigan, where he was active in teaching medicinal chemistry and biopharmaceutics. Mike has authored or coauthored 65 manuscripts and published abstracts and holds 6 patents. Mike currently is a Director on the Board of Cequent Pharmaceuticals.

Mike holds a Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry from the State University of New York at Buffalo and was awarded an NIH postdoctoral fellowship in natural products synthesis and structure elucidation at the University of Pennsylvania.

Laurence E. Reid, Ph.D. - Chief Business Officer
Laurence joined Ensemble Discovery as Chief Business Officer in January of 2006.  Laurence’s role at Ensemble encompasses strategic planning, product strategy and corporate development.

During 2004-2005, Laurence worked as a founder of two start-up companies in the fields of stem cell therapeutics and inflammation. Laurence previously spent ten years at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, where he had worked since 1993 in a range of general management and business development positions. From 2001-2003, Laurence served as General Manager of Millennium UK with responsibility for Millennium’s European operations and as spokesperson to the European investor and media communities. Previously (1998-2001), he had been the vice president of business development and strategic planning for the company's predictive medicine efforts. Prior to 1998, he held various roles at Millennium in pharmaceutical business development and technology acquisition.  Before joining Millennium, he was an assistant editor of the journal Cell. 

Laurence has a B.A. from Cambridge University and a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from London University.

Nick K. Terrett, Ph.D. - Chief Scientific Officer
Nick joined Ensemble Discovery as the Chief Scientific Officer in May of 2006. In his role as CSO, Nick heads up our drug discovery program investigating the rapid synthesis of macrocycles using DNA-Programmed Chemistry, as drug candidates for disease relevant protein-protein and protease targets.

After working as a medicinal chemist for Glaxo, Nick joined Pfizer in Sandwich, England in 1984. He worked initially in cardiovascular disease, and is an inventor on patents for the neutral endopeptidase inhibitor candoxatrilat. Later he led the chemistry team on cGMP PDE inhibitors for angina and erectile dysfunction, and is an inventor on patents for Viagra®. Subsequently, Nick established Pfizer’s combinatorial chemistry group and authored several related papers and a textbook. He also managed the high throughput screening group and materials management, and played a key role in the global integration of the Pfizer, Warner-Lambert and Pharmacia compound collections. In 2003 Nick moved to the Pfizer Research Technology Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to lead the Chemical Sciences group investigating new targets for drug discovery and new chemistry technologies.

Nick has a B.A. and Ph.D. in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University.

David J. Livingston, Ph.D. - Senior Vice President, Biology
David joined Ensemble Discovery in 2007 as Senior Vice President, Biology, with 20 years of experience in drug discovery research and development. He is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at Brown University in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology, Physiology and Biotechnology. Prior to joining Ensemble, David was President of Biomedical Strategies Consulting, where he advised biotechnology clients on new therapeutic targets and technologies for drug development.  Prior to consulting, David was President and CEO of Spherics, Inc., a drug delivery company, and of Praelux Inc. (now part of G.E. Healthcare), which invented a rapid confocal imaging platform for high-content cell-based assays for drug discovery.  David also spent three years at Integrated Genetics, and nine years at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, where he was Vice President and Program Executive for the company’s inflammation program.  He is an inventor on more than 20 US patents.

David holds a Ph.D. from the University of California at Davis, an MBA from Northeastern University in Boston, and a B.S. from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He was an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and at The Johns Hopkins University Medical School.

Stephen P. Hale, Ph.D. - Vice President, Screening & Biochemistry
Stephen joined Ensemble Discovery in 2006 as Senior Director, Biology. Prior to Ensemble, Dr. Hale was at Praecis Pharmaceuticals for four years as Senior Director of Lead Discovery responsible for all biological aspects of the preclinical drug discovery program. He was a key inventor, leader in the implementation, and involved in business development of the Direct Select drug discovery platform.  The value of the platform subsequently led to the acquisition of Praecis by GlaxoSmithKline plc. In his prior experience, he was a founding scientist at Phylos Inc. and held positions of increasing responsibility in both the microarray and therapeutic areas over his 5 year tenure. At Phylos Inc., Dr. Hale was a leader in the development of diagnostic protein arrays and the concurrent development of a preclinical pipeline of protein therapeutics, namely antibodies and antibody-mimic molecules. He led the team at Phylos Inc. responsible for the identification of a human fibronectin-based VEGF/KDR antagonist that was acquired by Adnexus Therapeutics Inc. and is currently in clinical trials. Dr. Hale was also a consultant to Cubist Pharmaceuticals and involved in early work at Genex Inc. on the design and engineering of single-chain antibodies as commercial alternatives to full-length antibodies.

He received his Ph.D in biochemistry from the University of Maryland, College Park, and was a National Institutes of Health post-doctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under the direction of Professor Paul Schimmel.

Edward D. Freedman, Esq. - General Counsel; Vice President, Operations & Finance
Ed joined Ensemble as General Counsel and Vice President, Operations and Finance, in March of 2005.  Prior to joining Ensemble, Ed was General Counsel of Flagship Ventures, where he was involved with the formation of Ensemble.

Ed started his legal career as a corporate associate at Testa, Hurwitz & Thibeault, LLP, during which time he represented a number of private equity firms as well as operating companies at all stages of development. In addition, he represented buyers and sellers in mergers and acquisitions, as well as underwriters in numerous public offerings. Before going to law school, Ed was an accountant at Arthur Andersen & Co.

Ed holds a J.D. from Boston College Law School and a B.S./B.A. in Accounting from Boston University. He is a member of the Massachusetts Bar.

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