Our Leadership Team
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Peter G. Milner, MD, FACC
Co-founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer Peter is a physician scientist and serial entrepreneur in the biotechnology industry who has developed multiple drugs, founded several successful public biotechnology companies and helped raise significant amounts of capital to operate them. Peter is the founder and managing member of Renexxion, Inc., and CEO of its wholly owned operating subsidiary Renexxion Ireland Ltd, which is developing its novel GI prokinetic, naronapride, for multiple GI indications globally. In 2018 the drug was partnered with Roivant Sciences and its Chinese subsidiary Sinovant and then in 2021 it was partnered with Dr Falk of Germany for gastroparesis and functional motility disorder in select ex-US territories. Since 2015 Peter has served as CMO of Retrotope a biotechnology company where he has hired and manages, a capable team to develop the company’s novel drug, RT001, for the treatment of range of orphan neurodegenerative diseases. The team under his direction have conducted 7 global Phase 2/3 clinical trials in infantile neuraxonal dystrophy (INAD), Friedreich’s Ataxia (FA), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), progressive supra-nuclear palsy (PSP) and Huntington’s Disease (HD) and hopes to file multiple NDAs.
From 2011 till 2015 as CEO of Heart Metabolics Peter raised capital for and organized the late stage development of an orphan treatment for a rare genetic heart disease, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). At both Heart Metabolics and Espero, with the aid of development teams he obtained SPAs (Special Protocol Assessments) from the FDA for 300 and 1,000 patient pivotal trials for approval, respectively. In 2007 Peter co-founded Optivia Biotechnology a leading and profitable transporter biology company that was sold in 2018 to a private equity fund Arsenal Capital. In 1997 Peter co-founded ARYx Therapeutics (ARYX) where as CEO, then as president from 2005 to 2010, he co-invented and developed 4 novel drugs and conducted 12 different Phase 1, 2 and 3 global clinical trials. In 1990 Peter co-founded CV Therapeutics (CVTX), where as a member of senior management from 1992-1996 he in-licensed and invented several successful pharmaceuticals. CV Therapeutics was acquired by Gilead for $1.5B in cash in 2009. Prior to 1992, Peter was as an assistant professor of medicine at Washington University in St. Louis where his research led to the discovery of pleiotrophin (PTN), a novel growth factor that regulates the epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT). He received his medical degree from University of Liverpool in 1980 and undertook post-graduate training at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore and The University of Virginia in Charlottesville VA. Peter is a board-certified cardiologist, a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology (FACC), co-inventor on 51 issued patents and author of 37 original scientific articles in Science, Biochemistry, Circulation, Cancer, JCI, and JBC. From 1992 till 2010 he served as adjunct clinical faculty at Stanford University Palo Alto VA and served on the cardiology service. He was a board member of the California Healthcare Institute (CHI) from 2007 till 2017 where he was responsible for championing various pieces of federal legislation, in particular the 2011 Leahy-Smith Patent Reform Act and the 2012 GAIN (Generate Antibiotic Incentives Now) Act. |