Founded on a clinical observation
Manistee began with four friends fishing the Manistee River in Michigan: a serial biotech entrepreneur and three physician-leaders. Two of them, both ophthalmologists, recognized that a well-established class of eye-care medicines could be applied to migraine. That insight became MTX-101.
Initial clinical trials were funded by Morningside Venture Partners.
Leadership
Frederick Ryckman, MD
Co-founder, President and CEO
Professor of Surgery Emeritus at the University of Cincinnati. Practiced for 35 years as a pediatric and transplant surgeon and served as Senior Vice President for Medical Operations and interim COO of Cincinnati Children's Hospital. Author of more than 135 publications and 45 book chapters.
Robert Bratzler, PhD
Co-founder, EVP and COO
Helped build four healthcare companies from inception to NASDAQ IPO: Sepracor, Coley Pharmaceuticals, ChiRex and Selecta Biosciences. Co-founded Sepracor, later acquired by Sumitomo Pharma. PhD in chemical engineering from MIT.
Mahan Chehrenama, DO
Chief Medical Officer and Head of R&D
Neurologist, headache sub-specialist and Fellow of the American Headache Society, with more than 20 years in patient care and research. Spent eight years in industry, mostly in migraine, at Amgen, Revance Therapeutics and Avanir Pharmaceuticals before joining Manistee in 2022.
Co-founders
Bradford Shingleton, MD
Retired associate clinical professor at Harvard Medical School and past President of the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery. More than 100 scientific publications.
Martin Wand, MD
Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology Emeritus at the University of Connecticut and past chair of the American Board of Ophthalmology. Life Achievement Honor Award, American Academy of Ophthalmology.
Science advisors
Leading clinical researchers in headache medicine and ophthalmology.
Richard Lipton, MD
Edwin S. Lowe Professor and Vice Chair of Neurology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where he directs the Montefiore Headache Center. Six-time winner of the H.G. Wolff Award and past president of the American Headache Society.
Marcelo Bigal, MD, PhD
President and CEO of Ventus Therapeutics. As CMO and CSO of Teva, led the team that developed the migraine antibody fremanezumab (Ajovy) and Austedo. More than 330 peer-reviewed papers.
Egilius Spierings, MD, PhD
Medical director of the Greater Boston Headache Center and former clinical professor of neurology at Tufts. A principal investigator in migraine trials since 1980, with more than 300 scientific works.
Jeffrey Heier, MD
Director of the Retina Service and Retina Research at Ophthalmic Consultants of Boston and Chief Scientific Officer at Ocular Therapeutix. Past President of the Retina Society.
Bradford Shingleton, MD
Co-founder; also serves as a scientific advisor.
Business advisors
Nicholas Cravalho
Founder and Managing Partner of SMB Climate, a private investment firm that acquires profitable middle-market companies, most recently Synapse and EdgePower. Previously an investor and portfolio manager for Amazon’s $2B Climate Pledge Fund, where he invested in companies including Redwood Materials and CarbonCure. Also led Amazon Renewed as global general manager and was a vice president at two venture-backed startups. Master’s in Management from MIT and Bachelor’s in Engineering from UC Berkeley.
Kevin Koslosky
Alex Ewing
Executive and attorney who has commercialized technology and built companies across material science, AI and marketing. Most recently CEO of Onescreen.ai, a venture-backed marketing technology company he led to 10X revenue growth and profitability in three years. Previously COO of LiquiGlide, an MIT spin-out, where he oversaw licensing and prosecution of a portfolio of over 100 patents. Earlier practiced intellectual property law at WilmerHale and Wolf Greenfield. Graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School.
Talk to the team
We welcome inquiries from potential acquirers, licensees and their advisors.