Executive Team

Dr. Lichter currently serves as the company’s President and CEO. Dr. Lichter, a biotechnology and pharmaceutical business executive has over 20 years experience in management, scientific research and business development. Dr. Lichter has participated in licensing or M&A deals valued in excess of $1 billion. He is currently a Managing Director at Avalon Ventures and in that capacity is on the Board of Directors of aFRAXis, Carolus, Zacharon, Incode and Akesis. He is an observer at Syndax Board meetings. Until November 2008, Dr. Lichter served as President and CEO of Akesis Pharmaceuticals, a developer of patent protected diabetes drugs. He remains on the board of directors as Executive Chairman. In 2004, Dr. Lichter co-founded Sytera, Inc., and served as Vice President of Operations and Business Development which was acquired by Sirion Therapeutics, Inc. in July 2006.

Early in his career, Dr. Lichter was a co-founder of Sequana Therapeutics, a genomics-base drug discovery company. Dr. Lichter led negotiations in the development and management of collaborations with numerous pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies across many therapeutic areas. In 2000, Dr. Lichter co-founded and was CEO of Xenopharm, a drug safety company where he drove the development of the company and its ultimate acquisition by Deltagen. He served in management positions at Sequenom, Pfizer and Genset. Upon completing his PhD in 1990, Dr. Lichter held a postdoctoral position in Human Genetics at Yale University, where he received broad training in areas of classical human genetics, clinical genetics & bioinformatics. During his 2 year tenure at Yale, Dr. Lichter continued his postdoctoral work at DuPont Merck Pharmaceutical Co., where he focused on pharmacogenetics. Dr. Lichter received a BS and PhD from the University of Illinois.

Mr. Cayer has more than 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical, medical device, and healthcare technology field. Before joining Otonomy, Mr. Cayer served as Senior Vice President, Corporate Development for Verus Pharmaceuticals, a venture-backed specialty pharmaceutical company focused on the treatment of allergic and respiratory disorders in children. Verus raised over $150M from top-tier venture and private capital groups to build a national field sales force and fund the development of innovative products for this underserved patient segment. In support of this mission, Mr. Cayer was responsible for numerous corporate partnering and new product assessment projects. During his tenure, Verus completed three out-licensing/divestiture transactions with total potential consideration exceeding $350M.

Mr. Cayer joined Verus from Targeted Molecules Corporation where he served as the Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President, Business Development. TMC was a venture-backed biopharmaceutical company formed to exploit a proprietary drug discovery platform developed at The Burnham Institute. As the company’s only business executive, responsibilities encompassed all facets of daily operations including management of financial, legal and administrative matters, strategic planning, fund-raising, budgeting and forecasting, corporate promotion, and partnering. TMC was acquired in 2005.

Previously, Mr. Cayer worked in various commercial roles at Gensia Pharmaceuticals, product development marketing at Acuson, business planning and development with Castle & Cooke, and management consulting with Booz-Allen & Hamilton. Mr. Cayer received his BA in Biomechanical Engineering and MBA from Harvard University.

Dr. LeBel is Chief Scientific Officer at Otonomy, Inc. He was most recently President and CEO at Akesis Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a virtual metabolic disease firm, and held numerous R&D management positions during a14-year tenure at Amgen, Inc. Dr. LeBel has extensive product development and commercialization experience in a number of disease settings, including metabolism, oncology, infectious disease, and neurodegenerative disorders. He also held preclinical development positions at Arthur D. Little, Inc. and Alkermes, Inc.

Dr. LeBel holds a BS in Chemistry from the University of Detroit, a PhD in Biomedical Sciences/Toxicology from Northeastern University, and he was a NIEHS postdoctoral fellow in Community and Environmental Medicine at the University of California, Irvine. Dr. LeBel is currently Executive Chairman of NuRx Pharmaceuticals, Inc, a publicly held firm focused on the discovery and development of targeted, highly selective retinoid and rexinoid therapeutics for application in oncology and metabolic disorders, as well as Director at Ash Stevens, Inc., a privately held pharmaceutical contract manufacturer.