Experts Abound

What brings a biotech firm to OC? A key number of Gaba Therapeutics’ executive team have roots here.

• Chief Financial Officer Richard Farrell co-founded SunMilk Dairy, an organic milk provider based in Laguna Beach. He has more than 23 years of experience in M&A and capital raises in the biotech industry. 

• It’s not Chief Scientific Officer David Putman’s first time around the block. Putnam is the co-founder and chief operating officer of Anvyl LLC, another Irvine-based biotech firm creating a pipeline of drugs for Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia and more. 

• Vice President of Chemistry Olivier Dasse is the co-founder of Anvyl and served as lead for a program at Kadmus Pharmaceuticals in Irvine, which sold to Organon for $270 million in 2007. 

• Kelvin Gee, a scientific advisor and professor of pharmacy at the University of California-Irvine, has ties to Kadmus Pharmaceuticals, Xytis Inc. and Anvyl. Gee is a longtime entrepreneur who founded his first company as a junior faculty member at University of Southern California. 

• Scientific Adviser Vassilios Papadopoulos, the dean of the school of pharmacy at University of Southern California, is considered a leading authority on translocator protein (TSPO). 

—Jessie Yount