Theresa L O'Keefe, Ph.D.

After spending the last 15+ years developing potent protein drugs for both biotech and large pharma companies, I decided I wanted to do more for the vast majority of the people around the world who can't afford to pay >$100,000 per year for their life saving drugs (standard list price in USA for new oncology, autoimmune and rare disease drugs). Together with Drs. Larry Fitzgerald and Mahesh Lanchyankar, we founded Mend Therapeutics, a non-profit drug development company with a mission to eliminate complications from diabetes. We believe everyone, irrespective of their economic status should be able to afford live saving medicines. The only way to do that is to develop the drugs in a non-profit model and avoid the demand for "profit-maximization."

December 2013