Team
Leadership, board and scientific advisors advancing RTN-001.
Officers responsible for the company and the RTN-001 program.
Chief Executive Officer, Co-Founder & Chairman
Eric is a proven business and legal executive with nearly 30 years of experience in life sciences-based companies. In addition to his role as Co-Founder and CEO of Retension Pharmaceuticals, he is the Founder and CEO of Redux Therapeutics, a therapeutic asset acquisition and development company, and of Retension’s sister company, Response Pharmaceuticals.
Harvard College; Boston College Law School.
Chief Scientific Officer & Co-Founder
Paul has over 25 years of experience in senior scientific and management roles in pharmaceuticals and biotechnology. He led the discovery and early development of RTN-001 and Rezurock at Surface Logix, Inc. and contributed to transitioning eight candidate molecules into clinical development at Bayer Healthcare, including Nexavar.
Paul is a classically trained neurobiologist with a PhD from Georgetown University and post-doctoral training at Yale.
Chief Medical Officer
Alison is a physician-scientist with over 25 years of experience in inflammation and cardiometabolic diseases. She most recently served as SVP and Head of Clinical Development at Mineralys Therapeutics, overseeing trials for resistant hypertension. She previously held leadership positions at Molecules to Medicine Advisory Group, Axcella Health, Selecta Biosciences, Sanofi-Genzyme and Baxalta.
Internal medicine, Johns Hopkins; cardiology fellowship, Massachusetts General Hospital. Board certified in Internal Medicine and Cardiology.
Chief Financial Officer
Alex brings over 15 years of financial expertise in the corporate and Wall Street sectors as a biotechnology equity research analyst and finance executive. He has provided strategic guidance to biotech firms from preclinical through commercial stages and has raised over $500 million in capital. He was instrumental in the $1.2 billion acquisition of Ventyx Biosciences by Eli Lilly.
B.S. in Finance, Indiana University; M.B.A., Boston College Carroll School of Management.
Chief Operating Officer
Sabine has held key positions in small and growing biotech companies, overseeing development and partnership activities across the R&D lifecycle. With nearly 20 years of strategic and operational leadership, she was instrumental in the development of several therapeutics, including the CV metabolism drug Praluent® and the immuno-oncology agent Libtayo®.
Ph.D. earned in Canada; postdoctoral training as a Howard Hughes Scholar at UCSF.
Executive Vice President, Clinical Development and Operations
LeAnne brings 28 years of leadership in clinical programs and deep experience developing safe, effective compounds for patients with unmet needs, particularly in cardiovascular disease, metabolic disorders, and rare disease. Over the course of her career, she has been instrumental in developing three groundbreaking medications approved across the US, Europe, and beyond.
M.S. in Nutrition, Case Western Reserve University; B.S. in Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Vice President, Regulatory Affairs
Kevin is a regulatory affairs leader with more than 20 years of experience, with particular expertise in cardiology and cardiometabolic disease and in start-up and small companies. Before joining Retension he led regulatory efforts at Corxel and CinCor Pharma, including baxdrostat’s End-of-Phase 2 meeting and Phase 3 preparation prior to AstraZeneca’s acquisition of CinCor in 2023.
PharmD, University of the Sciences in Philadelphia.
Senior Medical Advisor
After conducting doctoral research on the cellular mechanisms of the role of lipid accumulation in the progression of atherosclerosis, Bill entered the pharmaceutical/biotech industry over 25 years ago with an emphasis on developing cardiovascular and metabolic drugs.
Ph.D. in biomedical sciences, University of South Carolina School of Medicine.
Governance as listed on the current company board page.
Board Chair
Dr. Berendt is a life-sciences executive who has served on multiple private and public company boards, including Waters Corporation. He has been a Managing Director with Research Corporation Technologies and AEA Investors, Senior Vice President of the Pharmaceutical Division of Bayer Corporation, and Group Director of Drug Discovery at Pfizer.
B.S., Ohio Dominican College; M.S., Miami University; Ph.D. in Medical Microbiology and Immunology, Hahnemann Medical College.
Director
Co-Founder and CEO of Retension. Also Founder and CEO of Redux Therapeutics and Response Pharmaceuticals.
Harvard College; Boston College Law School.
Director
Donald is an executive and director with operational experience in research and clinical development and in raising public and private capital. He previously served as President and CEO of NEOMED Institute.
B.Sc., University of British Columbia; M.Sc. and M.B.A., McGill University.
Director
Franklin has over 25 years of experience in capital markets and financial analysis. He was a founder of the NEMO Fund at Sectoral Asset Management and previously served as Managing Director, Equity Research and Senior Biotechnology Analyst at J.P. Morgan Securities.
B.A. and M.A., Johns Hopkins University; M.B.A., Harvard University.
Director
Dr. Cheruvu has served as Chief Executive Officer of Amanat Acquisition Corp. since May 2026 and serves on the board of directors of Imbria Pharmaceuticals. He was previously President and Chief Executive Officer of Bitterroot Bio and of Sio Gene Therapies, and earlier held roles at Roivant Sciences and McKinsey & Company.
B.S. in Biomedical Engineering and Electrical Engineering, Duke University; M.Sc. in Computer Science, University of Oxford; M.D., Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Inaugural members announced 14 September 2026. External advisors to the RTN-001 program. Not company employees. Full SAB page.
Member
Director, American Heart Association Comprehensive Hypertension Center, Mount Sinai Fuster Heart Hospital; Assistant Professor of Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Member
Adolph Hutter Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Massachusetts General Hospital Cardiology Division; Chief Scientific Officer and C. Michael Gibson Chair, Baim Institute for Clinical Research.
Member; Chair of the Steering Committee, Phase 2b trial
Preventive Cardiology & Rehabilitation, Cleveland Clinic; Medical Director, C5Research; Associate Professor of Medicine, Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine.
Member
Professor of Therapeutics, University of Cambridge; Director, Cambridge Clinical Trials Unit; President, British and Irish Hypertension Society.
Member
Director, Division of Hypertension, Massachusetts General Hospital Heart Center; Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.