PROVIDENCE – Mnemosyne Pharmaceuticals, a Providence-based neuroscience biotechnology company, has landed a $250,000 investment from the state-backed Slater Technology Fund.
Mnemosyne is developing small molecule therapeutics that treat schizophrenia and other cognitive and neuropsychiatric disorders.
Its aggregate seed funding to date is $700,000, including the Slater funds.
Mnemosyne also appointed James A. Bristol, former senior vice president of worldwide discovery research at Pfizer, to its board of directors, a news release said Monday; nine members are joining the Scientific Advisory Board.
“Since our launch in 2010, it has been Mnemosyne’s goal to recruit the leading basic and clinical researchers in neuroscience and psychiatry to our advisory board for the development of an extremely promising class of small molecules to treat patients with schizophrenia and other diseases of cognitive dysfunction,” said Kollol Pal, president and CEO of Mnemosyne.
“Together with Jim Bristol, who recently joined our board of directors, these individuals bring world-class credentials and experience to bear on the very challenging goals we have set for ourselves, which is to develop a fundamentally new class of molecules for the treatment of major unmet needs in neuropsychiatric disease.”
The nine members of its Scientific Advisory Board are:
- Mark F. Bear – Professor of neuroscience and investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.
- Dr. Michael Brownstein – Former leader of the Brain Molecular Anatomy Project and the Molecular Gene Collection Project of the Chief Laboratory of Genetics at the NIMH-NHGIR, and director of the Functional Genomics Program at the Venter Institute.
- Dr. Donald C. Goff – Director of the Schizophrenia Program at Massachusetts General Hospital and professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School
- Michael F. Green – Professor in residence of psychiatry and bio-behavioral sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
- Dr. John H. Krystal – Professor of clinical pharmacology and deputy chairman for research in the Department of Psychiatry at Yale, and medical director of the Schizophrenia Biological Research Center, VA Connecticut Healthcare System in West Haven, Conn.
- Dr. David A. Lewis – Professor of translational neuroscience and chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the School of Medicine and director of the Translational Neuroscience Program at the University of Pittsburgh.
- Peter J. Snyder – Professor in the Department of Neurology at Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University and vice president for research at Lifespan in Providence.
- Stephen F. Traynelis – Professor in the Department of Pharmacology at Emory University School of Medicine.
- Robert Volkmann – Former senior research fellow at Pfizer. Volkmann is a world-renowned medicinal chemist with 35 years experience in the pharmaceutical industry.
