Peter Hecht, PhD
Chief Executive Officer
Our Team
We are led by an accomplished team with an exceptional track record of discovering, developing, and commercializing meaningful therapies for patients while creating value for stockholders. Our founding team has deep knowledge and significant experience in cGMP pathway research and development.
Our Chief Executive Officer, Peter Hecht, PhD, served as the co-founder and chief executive officer of Ironwood Pharmaceuticals from 1998 to 2019. Under his leadership, Ironwood grew from nine Ph.D. scientists to a commercial biotechnology company that discovered, developed and is now commercializing LINZESS® – the branded prescription market leader in its class. Additionally, during his tenure the company pioneered new areas of science, delivered a promising development portfolio with multiple innovative drug candidates and established a valuable network of global partnerships. Through a combination of private and public equity, structured debt and partnerships, Dr. Hecht and his team raised over one billion dollars to fund these efforts. He also served on the Ironwood board from 1998 to 2019, and currently serves on the board of Kallyope Inc., a privately held biotechnology company. Prior to founding Ironwood, Dr. Hecht was a research fellow at Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. Dr. Hecht earned a B.S. in mathematics and an M.S. in biology from Stanford University, and a Ph.D. in molecular biology from the University of California at Berkeley.
Our Chief Operating Officer, Cheryl Gault, has nearly 20 years of biopharma industry experience. Ms. Gault is currently responsible for corporate and business development, program management, portfolio strategy, new product planning, and corporate strategy functions. Her experience includes marketing, sales, new product planning, launch and commercial strategy in various therapeutic areas including gastroenterology, rheumatology, and orthopedics. Ms. Gault played a central role while at Ironwood in the successful launch of LINZESS®, the $800M market leader in IBS. Prior to that, Ms. Gault was at Genzyme Corporation in a variety of sales and marketing roles in the biosurgery division, including a leadership role in the launch of Synvisc-ONE, an injectable for the treatment of osteoarthritis. Ms. Gault brings a unique commercial perspective to our drug development team.
Our Chief Scientific Officer, Andy Busch, PhD, has extensive R&D and portfolio leadership experience across a broad range of therapeutic categories, including significant expertise in rare and orphan diseases and in the discovery and development of sGC stimulators. Dr. Busch leads Cyclerion’s Innovation Center, the company’s novel leadership model that gathers research, development, customer insights and external innovation together in one team. In this role, Dr. Busch is primarily focused on delivering the greatest possible patient impact and shareholder value creation from Cyclerion’s current pipeline. Before joining Cyclerion, Dr. Busch led R&D at Shire Plc as executive vice president, head of R&D, chief scientific officer and a member of the executive committee. Previously, Dr. Busch spent 13 years at Bayer, where he was most recently executive vice president, head of drug discovery and a member of the executive committee. Prior to Bayer, Dr. Busch served as global head of cardiovascular research at Hoechst and Sanofi-Aventis, where he started his work with sGC modulators and brought the first sGC activator to the clinic.
Our Chief Financial Officer, Anjeza Gjino, played a pivotal role in executing the Cyclerion spin-off and in building the company’s systems and management processes. Ms. Gjino oversees the finance, IT, and human resources teams and activities, including strategic funding and capital allocation efforts. Ms. Gjino also serves as Corporate Secretary. Prior to joining Cyclerion, Ms. Gjino served as head of Financial Planning and Analysis at Ironwood Pharmaceuticals where she built the financial infrastructure to help the company launch its first product, LINZESS®, and to transition from a research organization to a commercial one. Previously, Ms. Gjino held various finance roles at PerkinElmer leading and supporting capital allocation and business transformation initiatives. During her 13 years at Ironwood and PerkinElmer, Ms. Gjino provided financial advice and business partnering to all functions across the organization, including strategic planning, portfolio optimization, business development valuations and commercial execution. Ms. Gjino holds an M.B.A from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.S in Corporate Finance from Bentley University.
Our Vice President of Corporate Development, Todd Milne, PhD, brings more than 20 years of experience in the biopharma industry. Prior to Cyclerion, Dr. Milne was a co-founder of Ironwood Pharmaceuticals where he held a number of scientific program and functional leadership roles, including leading sGC stimulator discovery and early development efforts at Ironwood. He is also one of the inventors of LINZESS®, a market-leading treatment for irritable bowel syndrome with constipation and chronic idiopathic constipation. Prior to founding Ironwood, Dr. Milne was a postdoctoral research fellow at Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. Dr. Milne earned a B.S. in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale University and a Ph.D. in microbiology and molecular genetics from Harvard University.
Our Scientific Advisors
The women and men on our advisory boards bring diverse, global perspectives from basic science, clinical practice and industry to help us create better medicines for CNS disorders.
Andrew E. Budson, MD
Chief of Cognitive & Behavioral Neurology and Director of the Center for Translational Cognitive Neuroscience at the Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System, Associate Director and Education Leader of the Boston University Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, Professor of Neurology at Boston University School of Medicine, and Lecturer in Neurology at Harvard Medical School
Mark Currie, PhD
Chair of Scientific Advisory Board at Cyclerion Therapeutics; Director, Board of Directors at Ironwood Pharmaceuticals; and Director, Board of Directors at Science Exchange
Marni J. Falk, MD
Executive Director, Mitochondrial Medicine Frontier Program, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Professor, Division of Human Genetics, Department of Pediatrics, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
Michael Heneka, MD, PhD
Unit Leader of Neuroinflammation at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Disease, Professor of Neurodegenerative Disease and Geronto-Psychiatry-Neurology at the University of Bonn, and Adjunct Professor, Department of Infectious Diseases and Immunology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School
Robert C. Malenka, MD, PhD
Pritzker Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Director of the Nancy Pritzker Laboratory, and Deputy Director of the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford University
David H. Salat, PhD
Director, Brain Aging and Dementia (BAnD) Laboratory, Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital; Associate Professor in Radiology at Harvard Medical School; and Director, Neuroimaging Research for Veterans (NeRVe) Center, Veterans Affairs (VA) Boston Healthcare System.
Daniela Salvemini, PhD
Professor of Pharmacology and Physiology and Director of the Henry and Amelia Nasrallah Center for Neuroscience at St. Louis University
Harald H.H.W. Schmidt, MD, PhD, PharmD
Professor of Pharmacology and Chairman of the Department of Pharmacology and Personalized Medicine at Maastricht University
Eric Smith, MD
Professor of Neurology and the Katthy Taylor Chair in Vascular Dementia at the University of Calgary, Calgary Stroke Program
M Brandon Westover, MD, PhD
Physician Investigator in Neurology at Mass General Research Institute, Associate Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, Associate Neurologist in Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital, and Co-Founder, Beacon Biosignals
Chris Wright, MD, PhD
Chief Medical Officer at AavantiBio, Advisory Board Member at Clora, Inc., and Affiliate Member, Department of Pharmacology & Therapeutics at McGill University
