Jacob Spiegel, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist, Deerfield Discovery and Development, and joined the Firm in 2024. Prior to Deerfield, Dr. Spiegel was a Cheminformatic Research Engineer at Exscientia AI for two years. Before Exscientia, he was Vice President of Product Development as well as a Research Informatics Consultant at Workflow Informatics Corp. Dr. Spiegel holds a B.E. in Biomedical Engineering from Stony Brook University and a Ph.D. in Molecular Biophysics and Structural Biology with a Ph.D. Minor in Teaching from the University of Pittsburgh. 

Jakob Loschko, Ph.D., is a Director, Biologics, Deerfield Discovery and Development, and joined the Firm in 2023. Prior to Deerfield, Dr. Loschko spent almost seven years at Pfizer in roles of increasing responsibility, including most recently as Associate Director, Vaccine R&D. Prior to Pfizer, Dr. Loschko spent four years at The Rockefeller University as a Postdoctoral Associate. He holds a Diploma in Biology from the University of Regensburg in Germany and a Ph.D. in Immunology from the Technical University of Munich.

Holly Schachner, M.D., is the Chief Medical Officer, Deerfield Discovery and Development and joined the Firm in 2023. Prior to Deerfield, Dr. Schachner was the Head of Clinical Development at North Sea Therapeutics, B.V. and she was the Chief Medical Officer at Double Rainbow Biosciences. Before these roles, she was the Senior Vice President, Clinical Development and Therapeutic Area and Innovative Trial Design Head for Myokardia-BMS and the Chief Medical Officer, Global Specialty Medicine for Allergan. Dr. Schachner also spent five years at Sanofi in various roles of increasing leadership, six years at Bayer Diabetes Care as Senior Director, Head of Global Medical Affairs, and five years at Pfizer. Prior to industry, Dr. Schachner received her training in pediatric endocrinology at Mount Sinai and led the Pediatric Diabetes program at Columbia University. She holds a B.A. in Psychology from the University Of Michigan and an M.D. from SUNY at Stony Brook School of Medicine.

Raheleh Hatami, Ph.D., is the New York Regional Scientific Collaboration Director, Deerfield Discovery and Development, and joined the Firm in 2023. Prior to Deerfield, Dr. Hatami was a Healthcare Investor at Innovatus Capital Partners. Before Innovatus, she was an Investments Associate at Roivant Sciences, and a Healthcare Associate at RA Capital Management. Dr. Hatami holds a B.A. in Neuroscience & Behavior from Columbia University, and an M.S. in Biomedical Sciences, Microbiology and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences, Cancer Biology from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Chiara Vardabasso, Ph.D., is a Principal Scientist, Preclinical Pharmacology, Deerfield Discovery and Development, and joined the Firm in 2023. Prior to Deerfield, Dr. Vardabasso was a Senior Scientist at Gotham Therapeutics for more than four years. Before Gotham, she was an Instructor in the Department of Oncological Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where she was previously a Postdoctoral Fellow. Dr. Vardabasso holds a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from Scuola Normale Superiore, and an M.Sc. and a B.Sc. in Medical Biotechnology from Universita’ degli Studi di Trieste, both in Italy.

Tiago Vieira, Ph.D., is a Senior Director, Process Chemistry, Deerfield Discovery and Development, and joined the Firm in 2023. Prior to Deerfield, Dr. Vieira spent nearly 15 years at Gilead Sciences in roles of increasing responsibility including most recently as Director, Process Chemistry, Pharmaceutical Development and Manufacturing. Dr. Vieira holds a B.Sc. in Chemistry and a Ph.D. in Synthetic Organic Chemistry from the University of São Paulo in Brazil.

Zhiqiang Yang, Ph.D., is a Senior Director, Medicinal Chemistry, Deerfield Discovery and Development, and joined the Firm in 2023. Prior to Deerfield, Dr. Yang was an Associate Director, Medicinal Chemistry for PTC Therapeutics. Before joining PTC, he co-founded Angex Pharmaceuticals where he was Vice President of Chemistry and the Chief Operating Officer. Dr. Yang began his drug discovery career at Merck where he spent 13 years working on both small molecules and peptides of which several progressed into clinical stages. He holds a B.S. in Chemistry from Peking University in China, and a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Kristin Burns-Huang, Ph.D., is an Associate Director, Project Management, Deerfield Discovery and Development and joined the Firm in 2022. Prior to Deerfield, Dr. Burns-Huang spent 10 years at Weill Cornell Medicine as a Research Assistant Professor, Research Coordinator, and Lab Manager in the lab of Dr. Carl Nathan. Dr. Burns-Huang holds a B.A. in Chemistry from Franklin and Marshall College, and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Cornell University.