John Freshley | Advisor

Based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, John Prista Freshley is a high-energy entrepreneur, company builder and leader with 20+ years of experience co-founding, developing and/or leading 10+ early-stage bioscience companies. He has worked alongside world-class scientists, expert product development teams, and global key opinion leaders to make breakthrough impacts on human health and society.

He also serves as Co-Founder & Chairman of Bioscience Navigators, Chairman of Curio Genomics, Co-Founder & Executive Chairman of Akeila Bio, and Head of Corporate Development for Cantilever portfolio company Peptinovo.

Previously, John served as President & CEO of ONL Therapeutics, an emerging ophthalmology company, through pre-IND and early clinical enabling studies. John is a co-inventor of ONL-1204, now in clinical development for retinal detachment, glaucoma, and dry AMD. Before ONL, Mr. Freshley led the launch of Compendia Bioscience, an early big-data cancer genomics company, as its Start-Up CEO and continued to serve the company, through its acquisition by Life Technologies (now Thermo Fisher) in 2012, as its Chief Business Officer.

Mr. Freshley’s strengths include partnering with scientific founders to understand and enhance the company’s vision and mission; product and business strategy development to drive both revenue and investment growth; raising early-stage capital (both investment and non-dilutive funding); assembling multi-disciplinary and globally recognized leadership and advisory teams; and, strategic partnership development, growth, and management.

Mr. Freshley is learning Portuguese and is fluent in football/soccer/futbol, which he finds widely spoken around the world. He enjoys good food, mostly local and inexpensive, that is shared with family, friends, and strangers the world over.