Nicholas Galakatos is the Global Head of Life Sciences and is the Chairman of its Investment Committee, having joined Blackstone as part of its acquisition of Clarus in December 2018.

Prior to joining Blackstone, Dr. Galakatos was a co-Founder and Managing Director of Clarus since the firm’s inception in 2005. Dr. Galakatos has over 30 years of industry and investment experience in the healthcare sector and has led investments in biotechnology, pharmaceutical company partnerships, and diagnostics, from startups to commercial-stage companies. Before Clarus, Dr. Galakatos was a General Partner at MPM Capital, a healthcare venture capital firm. From 1997 to 2000 he was Vice President of New Business at Millennium Pharmaceuticals (presently Takeda) and a member of the Management Team. He is a founder of Millennium Predictive Medicine and TransForm Pharmaceuticals, where he was the Chairman and founding CEO. Dr. Galakatos is the Chairman of Anthos Therapeutics and a member of the Board of Directors of Talaris, Inc (NASDAQ: TALS) and BioMed Realty. He is a member of the Director’s Council of the Koch Institute at MIT and a member of the Board of Trustees at Reed College.

Dr. Galakatos earned his PhD in Organic Chemistry from MIT and performed his post-doctoral studies at Harvard Medical School. He earned his undergraduate degree at Reed College. Listen to thoughts from Nicholas Galakatos on the potential of Anthos Therapeutics:
“Big Bets on Biotech – CNBC Healthy Returns Summit with Nicholas Galakatos”

Paris Panayiotopoulos is a Senior Managing Director in the Blackstone Life Sciences group and a member of its Investment Committee, having joined Blackstone as part of its acquisition of Clarus in December 2018.

Mr. Panayiotopoulos has over 20 years of biopharmaceutical operating and investing experience having served as Operating Partner at Clarus, as CEO and President of Ariad Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ARIA), as member of the Board of Directors of The Medicines Company (NASDAQ: MDCO), as President of the US and Japan biopharmaceutical businesses of Merck KGaA (FWB: MRK), and as President of the Serono Research and Development Institute.

Mr. Panayiotopoulos is currently a founder and board member of Anthos Therapeutics and AvenCell Therapeutics, and previously served as founding Chairman of Genevant Sciences and FerGene. He is also on the Board of Advisors of the non-profit Life Science Cares.

He holds a combined BS in Chemistry and Management Studies from University College London and an MS from Cranfield Business School in the United Kingdom.

Ari Brettman is a Senior Managing Director in the Blackstone Life Sciences group, having joined Blackstone as part of its acquisition of Clarus in December 2018. Mr. Brettman joined Clarus in September 2014.

Dr. Brettman is focused on investments across the firm’s portfolio, including startups and partnerships with pharmaceutical companies. Prior to Clarus, Dr. Brettman completed a residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in cardiology at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Brettman was also an NIH-sponsored post-doctoral fellow at the MGH Center for Systems Biology, where he studied the autophagy of lipid droplets and used electronic medical record-based big data analytics at Partners Healthcare to conduct clinical research and improve disease management. Dr. Brettman is a member of the Board of Directors of Praxis Precision Medicines, a startup in genetically defined neuropsychiatric disorders.

Dr. Brettman received his M.D. from Duke University and his AB in History and Science from Harvard College. While a medical student, he was a Sarnoff Cardiovascular Research Foundation Fellow at Stanford University, where he studied angiogenesis.