Paul Brennan, President & CEO of NervGen: Alzheimer’s Breakthrough: A Disruptive Systemic Approach Is Poised To Demonstrate Value

Paul Brennan has over 30 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries working in leadership roles in general management, corporate strategy, commercial planning, business development, and regulatory affairs in Canada, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Most recently Mr. Brennan’s experiences include senior business development and management positions in various biotech companies, including Aquinox Pharmaceuticals, Arbutus Biopharma, Aspreva Pharmaceuticals, and AnorMED Inc.

Mr. Brennan has a comprehensive list of business development and licensing transactions, totaling over $3 billion in value: he played key roles in the merger of Tekmira Pharmaceuticals and OnCore BioPharma to create Arbutus Biopharma, in the sale of Aspreva Pharmaceuticals to Vifor Pharma for $915 million and in the sale of AnorMED to Genzyme for $580 million.

On this episode of the Grit Daily Startup Show, Paul says prior to working in biotech he held senior roles in Business Development and Regulatory Affairs at AstraZeneca. He also holds a MSc in Physiology, and a BSc (Hons) in Life Sciences from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.

In March 2016, Codi, the daughter-in-law of Dr. Harold Punnett, one of NervGen’s co-founders, fell and became a complete T-11 paraplegic. She has no sensation or function below the level of her belly button and the devastating injury changed the lives of Codi and the rest of the family. In response to this terrible injury, Dr. Punnett began a personal quest to learn about spinal cord injury.

Through his research, he discovered a revolutionary nerve regeneration technology of deep biological logic in Dr. Jerry Silver’s work at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU). Dr. Silver and Dr. Punnett began a conversation that resulted in the formation of NervGen Pharma Corp. in 2018. Dr. Punnett’s hope is that the work performed by NervGen will be able to help Codi and others suffering from paralysis; he is also very excited that the technology may also lead to novel new treatments for other serious neurological conditions such as neurodegenerative diseases.