Author: Jay Lichter

Jay B. Lichter, Ph.D., is president & CEO of COI Pharma, and a managing director of San Diego's Avalon Ventures. Lichter is an experienced biotechnology and pharmaceutical business executive research, with over 30 years of experience in management, scientific research, and business development. Throughout his career, he has combined his business acumen and deep technical knowledge to create commercially successful biotech companies, collaborations, and to identify the commercial potential of scientific discoveries at their earliest stages. Lichter is the inventor on 260 patents and patent applications for six Avalon portfolio companies, including 55 issued patents. He has been either directly responsible for or participated in licensing or merger and acquisition deals valued in excess of $1 billion. At Avalon, Lichter led investments in Afraxis, Carolus Therapeutics, Otonomy, Zacharon Pharmaceuticals, RQx Pharmaceuticals, Sova Pharmaceuticals, Aratana Therapeutics, (NASDAQ: [[ticker:PETX]]); AristaMD, Synthorx, Sitari Pharma, Silarus Therapeutics, Cardherx Therapeutics, Thyritope Biosciences, Calporta, Iron Hourse Therapeutics, and Adrenergics. He also led investments in PDI (a GSK company), Fortis, Cellular Approaches, and Ignition. Lichter is CEO of COI Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and on its board of directors Prior to joining Avalon as a member of the firm's eighth fund, Lichter collaborated with Avalon and founding partner Kevin Kinsella on six investments. Kinsella recruited Lichter to serve as the CEO of XenoPharm, a drug safety company that Kinsella co-founded, and that was acquired by Deltagen. Earlier in his career, Lichter was executive vice president of business development at Sequenom (Nasdaq: [[ticker:SQNM]]), where he negotiated strategic transactions with Bristol-Myers Squibb and Proctor & Gamble, and served as the in-licensing manager for genomics and discovery central nervous system (CNS) research at Pfizer. At Pfizer, Lichter led the company’s investments in Incyte and Celera, both involved in studying innovative links between genetics and disease. Lichter participated in seven other Pfizer-biotech collaborations and completed over 50 university licensing deals. Upon completion of his doctorate, Lichter held postdoctoral positions in Human Genetics at Yale University and at the DuPont Merck Pharmaceutical Company. He received his B.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois.