Niall O'donnell
Managing Director at RiverVest Venture Partners
Encinitas, California
Overview
Work Experience
Managing Director
2006 - Current
Dr. O’Donnell focuses on our biopharmaceutical opportunities, building, and operating RiverVest portfolio companies. Niall is board member of Reneo Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: RPHM), Engrail Therapeutics, Glycomine, Inc., Sparrow Pharmaceuticals, and Spruce Biosciences ( NASDAQ: SPRB), and board chair of Avalyn Pharmaceuticals. He was interim CEO of Reneo Pharmaceuticals, and was interim chief medical officer at Lumena Pharmaceuticals, prior to the company’s acquisition by Shire Plc (now part of Takeda America Holdings) in 2014. In 2018, Niall helped spin the Lumena assets out of Takeda Pharmaceutical, after Takeda’s acquisition of Shire, and drove the creation of Mirum Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: MIRM). In 2021, the FDA approved Mirum’s LIVMARLI for the treatment of Alagille Syndrome. Niall also helped co-found and seed Excaliard Pharmaceuticals, Inc., developing the company’s clinical strategy. The company was subsequently acquired by Pfizer, Inc. Prior to joining RiverVest, Niall spent five years as an immunologist at Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research and Development in San Diego.
Interim Chief Medical Officer
2011 - 2013
Lumena Pharmaceuticals is developing oral therapeutics for rare liver diseases to improve liver function, relieve disease symptoms and dramatically impact patient health. Lumena was acquired by Shire in June 2014.
Post Doctoral Fellow and Researcher
2002 - 2006
Part of a successful cross-disciplinary team of chemists and biologists that drove small molecule anti-inflammatory drugs into clinical trials. Co-authored the first paper validating the newly discovered histamine H4 receptor as a key regulator of immune pathologies, especially those driven by IL-17.
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