Management Team
Gerald E. Commissiong
President & CEO
Mr. Commissiong was appointed President & CEO of Amarantus BioSciences in October 2011. In March 2011, Mr. Commissiong was promoted to Chief Operating Officer of Amarantus, where his duties included strategic transactions, licensing, research collaborations, mergers & acquisitions, fund raising and investor relations. From August 2009 until March 2011, he served as Chief Business Officer where he was responsible for business development and corporate development. In 2008, Mr. Commissiong co-founded Amarantus with Dr. John Commissiong PhD and served as its President & CEO until August 2009. In that timeframe, Mr. Commissiong attracted seed capital, acquired the intellectual property rights to MANF and recruited scientific and executive talent to Amarantus to allow for the further development of the technologies. Mr. Commissiong has served as a Director of Amarantus since 2008. Prior to co-founding Amarantus, Mr. Commissiong played professional football for the Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League. Mr. Commissiong received a B.Sc. in Management Science and Engineering with a focus Financial Decisions from Stanford University.
John W. Commissiong, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer
Dr. Commissiong has served as the Chief Scientific Officer and a Director of Amarantus since co-founding the company in 2009. From 2000 through 2008 Dr. Commissiong served as the CSO of Neurotrophics Inc & Prescient Neuropharma Inc. Dr. Commissiong has been focused on the discovery of novel neurotrophic factors for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases as well as understanding the fundamental underlying biology of protoplasmic type-1 astrocytes that secrete neurotrophic factors. He was Chief of the Neural Transplantation Unit, NINDS-NIH, from 1989-94 where his research focused on identifying therapeutic approaches to spinal cord injury. Dr. Commissiong was Head of the Neurotrophic Factors Group, NINDS-NIH, from 1994-97 where he focused on developing technologies to systematically identify novel neurotrophic factors with applications for specific Central Nervous System disorders. He co-founded Prescient Neuropharma in 1999, and discovered MANF in 2003. MANF is currently in preclinical development for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease. The work pioneered by Dr. Commissiong has led to significant advancements in the field of astrocyte-neuron biology. Dr. Commissiong believes that a fundamental understanding of astrocyte-neuron interactions in the Central Nervous System will lead to a new generation of therapies to treat brain-related disorders.
Dr. Commissiong did his Postdoctoral work in the Lab Preclin Pharmac, NIMH-NIH, concentrating on the application of quadrupole mass spectrometry in the analysis of neurotransmitters. He holds a Ph.D. in Neurophysiology from the University of Southampton, an M.Sc. in Biochemical Pharmacology from the University of Southampton, and a B.S. in Biology and Chemistry from the University of the West Indies.
Marc E. Faerber
Chief Financial Officer
Mr. Faerber has over thirty years of experience and over nineteen of those in life sciences. His experience has spanned Fortune 500 companies to start-ups, and everything in between. During the past ten years Mr. Faerber has been providing financial, business and advisory services to a broad base of start-up companies primarily in the fields of cardiology, gastroenterology, orthopedics, diagnostics and biotechnology.
Mr. Faerber has extensive transactional experience, including considerable experience in establishing international organizations throughout Europe and parts of Asia, international technology licensing and distribution transactions, mergers and acquisitions, and numerous funding transactions, including an initial public offering as well as other international business structural issues. During Mr. Faerber’s career he has held various positions in finance and corporate management including CFO, CEO and Director. Mr. Faerber started his career working for KPMG, is a certified public accountant, and has a Bachelor of Sciences in Business Administration from Providence College.