Dr. Peter Heifetz is President and CEO of OrPro Therapeutics Inc., a Johnson & Johnson San Diego JLABS alumni company developing a novel biologic drug platform based on human thioredoxin for the treatment of multiple indications associated with inflammatory and oxidative stress. Dr. Heifetz has over 30 years of academic and industry experience in drug discovery and development with a primary focus on gene, protein and metabolic engineering technologies. Prior to founding OrPro, Dr. Heifetz held positions as a senior scientist and group leader at Novartis (NYSE: NVS), research director at the Novartis Research Foundation, head of biopharma and consumer health R&D at Syngenta (NYSE:SYT), fellow at Diversa Corporation (NASDAQ:DVSA), and was chief scientific officer at private biotechnology companies ERA Biotechnology (Barcelona) and Rincon Pharmaceuticals (San Diego). Dr. Heifetz studied at Duke University with degrees in genetics (PhD), mechanical/biochemical engineering (MS) and biology (BS) and was a National Institutes of Health graduate research trainee with interdisciplinary research support from the Department of Energy. Dr. Heifetz also earned an executive certificate in innovation management from the Kenan-Flagler School of Business at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
