Team

Mr. Bill Meury is the President and Chief Executive Officer at Karuna Therapeutics and is also a member of the company’s Board of Directors. He is a distinguished pharmaceutical leader with more than 25 years of operational and commercial experience delivering transformative medicines to patients.

Mr. Meury joined Karuna from Hildred Capital Management, a private equity firm focusing on the healthcare industry, where he served as a partner. Prior to Hildred Capital Management, he was Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer at Allergan, where he had responsibility for over 50 products with $16 billion in revenue and over $3 billion in marketing investment. In this role, he led multiple global divisions totaling over 7,500 employees, including marketing, sales, business analytics, marketing operations, managed care, pricing, and customer service. Mr. Meury has extensive experience in business development & licensing, R&D partnerships, and new product launches. In his prior roles he served as Allergan’s President, Branded Pharma, and Executive Vice President, Commercial, North American Brands. He also previously served as Executive Vice President, Sales and Marketing, at Forest Laboratories prior to its acquisition by Allergan. He currently serves on the board of directors of Syndax Pharmaceuticals and The Jed Foundation.

Mr. Meury received his bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Maryland.

Ms. Denice Torres is the CEO of The Ignited Company change management firm and Founder of The Mentoring Place, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping women advance in their careers. She has over 30 years of P&L, commercial, and strategy experience in pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and consumer healthcare. She served as president for several multi-billion-dollar Johnson & Johnson companies including Janssen Pharmaceuticals (CNS), and J&J Consumer Healthcare. Ms. Torres was also chief strategy and transformation officer for the medical device sector. She is credited for successfully leading and transforming the Tylenol company through an unprecedented time period marked by product recalls, manufacturing challenges, and a consent decree. She was named the Healthcare Businesswoman of the Year in 2015.

Prior to joining J&J, Ms. Torres had a highly successful 14-year career at Lilly where she served in leadership roles of increasing responsibility, including executive director for women health and head of global marketing for a multi-billion CNS portfolio.

Ms. Torres has served on multiple boards and is currently a director of bluebird bio (BLUE) and Resilience. She received an M.B.A. from the University of Michigan, a J.D. from Indiana University School of Law and a B.S. in Psychology from Ball State. She is a member of the Michigan Bar Association.

Dr. David Wheadon is a former senior executive of AstraZeneca plc, having recently retired as Senior Vice President (SVP), global regulatory affairs, patient safety and quality assurance. Dr. Wheadon has held many leadership roles in the healthcare sector, including: Executive Vice President, research and advocacy at the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation; Senior Vice President, scientific and regulatory affairs at PhRMA; Senior Vice President of global pharmaceutical regulatory and medical sciences at Abbott Laboratories; Senior Vice President of U.S. regulatory affairs at GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals; Vice President and Director CNS/GI Clinical Research at SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals; and Clinical Research Physician at Eli Lilly and Company. Dr. Wheadon has been integral to the successful development and approval of several important drugs for central nervous system diseases, diabetes, gastrointestinal disorders and diseases in other therapeutic areas. Dr. Wheadon currently serves on the board of directors of PSKW, LLC (formerly ConnectiveRx), Vaxart, Inc. (NASDAQ: VXRT) and Sotera Health (NASDAQ: SHC).

Dr. Wheadon received his M.D. from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and an A.B. in Biology from Harvard University. He completed his postdoctoral training in Psychiatry at Tufts/New England Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts.

Ms. Laurie Olson is a seasoned pharmaceutical executive with more than 30 years of experience in commercial and corporate strategy. As a former Corporate Officer and Executive Leadership Team member at Pfizer Inc, Ms. Olson advanced from Marketing and Commercial development roles to serving as Executive Vice President of Strategy and Commercial Operations, leading approximately 2,000 colleagues in more than 100 countries at the time of her retirement from Pfizer in 2018.

During her role as Director of Corporate Strategy, she supported the organization in its achievement of greater strategic focus and renewed growth. Her pharmaceutical career has included a keen focus on the interface between R&D and commercial organizations, fueled by a philosophy that the needs of patients are best realized via deep customer insights, data-driven decisions, and the seamless integration of scientific and marketing disciplines. She is a recognized champion of innovation balanced with pragmatism to deliver results, a culture-builder of engaged colleagues, and a strong advocate for workplace diversity, equity, and inclusion. She also serves on the board of Quanterix Corporation (NASDAQ: QTRX) and as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, Connecticut.

Ms. Olson received a B.A in Economics from SUNY Stony Brook and an M.B.A. in Marketing from Hofstra University.

Mr. Christopher Coughlin joined the board at Karuna Therapeutics in April 2020 and serves as the Company’s Chairman of the Board as well as the chair of its audit committee. He served as advisor to the chairman and CEO of Tyco International Ltd., a global provider of diversified products, services and industries, from 2010 to 2012, and as executive vice president and chief financial officer of Tyco from 2005 to 2010 and during a period of significant international growth and restructuring, playing a central role in the separation of Tyco into five independent, public companies. Mr. Coughlin previously served at the Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc. as executive vice president, chief operating officer from 2003 to 2004. From 1998 to 2003, he served as executive vice president and chief financial officer of Pharmacia Corporation. From 1997 to 1998 he was president, international at Nabisco Group Holdings and from 1996 to 1997 was executive vice president and chief financial officer of Nabisco. From 1981 to 1996, Mr. Coughlin held various positions with Sterling Winthrop Incorporated, including chief financial officer. Mr. Coughlin currently serves on the board of directors of Prestige Consumer Healthcare Inc. (NYSE: PBH) and Centene Corporation (NYSE: CNC). He previously served on the boards of directors of Covidien (acquired by Medtronic), Actavis (which acquired Allergan), Dun & Bradstreet, Forest Laboratories (acquired by Actavis plc), Hologic, Inc., Dipexium Pharmaceuticals, Inc., The Interpublic Group of Companies, Monsanto Company, and Perrigo Company.

Mr. Coughlin received a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Boston College.

Dr. Atul Pande is a physician who qualified in medicine, and specialized in psychiatry, at the University of Lucknow in India. He obtained additional specialty training at Western University in Canada, and subsequently served on the faculty of the University of Michigan Medical School. Over nearly thirty years of his academic and industry career, Dr. Pande has been involved in the development of important central nervous system drugs while holding various senior roles in GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Parke-Davis/Warner-Lambert, and Lilly Research Laboratories. His experience includes drug development, registration, launch and lifecycle management in the areas of anxiety, depression, epilepsy, neuropathic pain, schizophrenia, traumatic brain injury, and Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, and others.

Dr. Pande is also a non-executive board member of Autifony Therapeutics Limited, a biotechnology company, Immunovant Sciences Ltd. (NASDAQ: IMVT), Sio Gene Therapies (NASDAQ: SIOX) (formerly Axovant Sciences Ltd.), and Perception Neurosciences. Dr. Pande is a fellow of several professional societies, including the American Psychiatric Association. He has published over 50 peer-reviewed scientific papers and over 100 abstracts, book chapters, and book reviews.

Dr. Jeff Jonas applies his 25+ years of well-recognized expertise in neuroscience, drug development, and pipeline expansion to his role as Chief Executive Officer at ABio-X. He most recently served as Chief Innovation Officer (CInO) and chair of Sage’s Science & Technology Forum of the Board. Prior to that he served as CEO at Sage from 2013 – 2020, providing his creative, innovative thinking to building one of the industry’s leading brain health product pipelines. Dr. Jonas is well-known for encouraging a pursuit of new opportunities by taking smart risks and challenging conventional wisdom. His approach is shaped by a career that encompasses one-on-one patient care, rapid advancement through corporate structures, academic accomplishments, and entrepreneurial endeavors. Before joining the Sage team, Dr. Jonas served as President of the Regenerative Medicine Division of Shire Plc and previously as Senior Vice President of Research and Development, Pharmaceuticals at Shire. Prior to Shire, he served as the Executive Vice President of ISIS Pharmaceuticals, as the Chief Medical Officer and Executive Vice President of Forest Laboratories, Inc. and in senior-level positions at Upjohn Laboratories. He is a member of the board for Generation Bio and Karuna Therapeutics. He has published more than 190 scientific papers and articles, chapters, abstracts and books, and has received numerous awards.

Dr. Jonas received his B.A. from Amherst College and M.D. from Harvard Medical School. He completed a residency in psychiatry at Harvard and then served as Chief Resident in psychopharmacology at McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School.