Management Team

Laura A. Brege

Laura Brege

President and Chief Executive Officer

Ms. Brege has over 20 years of executive management experience in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and venture capital industries. Prior to joining Nodality, Ms. Brege held several senior-level positions at Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Inc., including Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. While at Onyx, she led multiple functions, including commercialization, strategic planning, corporate development, and medical, scientific and government affairs. Prior to Onyx, Ms. Brege was a General Partner at Red Rock Capital Management, a venture capital firm specializing in early stage financing for technology companies.

Previously Ms. Brege was SVP and Chief Financial Officer at COR Therapeutics, helping build the company from an early stage R&D company through commercial launch of a successful cardiovascular product. Earlier in her career, she served as Chief Financial Officer at Flextronics, Inc. and Treasurer of The Cooper Companies. She serves on the Board of Directors of Acadia Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Delcath Systems, Inc. and Pacira Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Ms. Brege earned her undergraduate degrees from Ohio University (Honors Tutorial College) and her MBA degree from the University of Chicago.

Kathleen LaPorte

Kathleen LaPorte

Chief Business Officer

Ms. LaPorte has a 25-year successful track record of guiding the growth of leading biopharmaceutical, diagnostic and digital health companies with breakthrough technologies. She was a Founding Partner of New Leaf Venture Partners from its inception as a spin-out of the Sprout Group, where she served as General Partner. In addition, Ms. LaPorte was co-founder of angel investing group Health Tech Capital in the digital health arena. Prior to this, she was a Principal at venture capital firm Asset Management Company. Ms. LaPorte received her B.S. degree in biology from Yale University and her MBA degree from Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

David Spellmeyer

David Spellmeyer

Chief Technology Officer

Dr. Spellmeyer joined Nodality in 2006. Prior to Nodality, he held positions as a research staff member in the IBM Almaden Services Research group, as chief scientific officer and vice president of drug discovery at Signature BioSciences, as executive director at DuPont Pharmaceuticals, as vice president at CombiChem, and a principal scientist at Chiron. Dr. Spellmeyer received his Ph.D. in 1987 from UCLA, and completed his post-doctoral work in pharmaceutical chemistry at UCSF. He continues his interaction with the UCSF research groups through his adjunct assistant professorship. He has authored more than 35 scientific publications and two modeling packages, and frequently makes presentations at scientific seminars.

Rachael Hawtin, PhD

Rachael Hawtin, PhD

Vice President, Research

Rachael Hawtin has over 17 years of experience in drug development, encompassing small molecules and biologics for oncology and autoimmune indications. She has held leadership positions in drug development programs spanning discovery biology through to clinical development in the context of both international companies and small biotechnology organizations. Prior to joining Nodality, she held various positions at Sunesis Pharmaceuticals, progressing to the lead role in the translational science component of two clinical stage programs. Rachael previously led the small molecule target discovery program at Chiron Corporation. Additionally, she held progressively responsible positions at Sugen Inc., where she served as leader of a protein expression technology group, and as leader of a small molecule oncology drug development program. Rachael completed her BSc at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and her PhD at the Institute of Virology and Environmental Microbiology (IVEM) in Oxford, England.

Barbara Mittleman, MD

Barbara Mittleman, MD

Vice President, Clinical and Head, Immunology

Dr. Barbara Mittleman is a rheumatologist and immunologist who came to Nodality from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). While at NIH she was a clinical and basic researcher in autoimmune disease and its underlying pathobiology, and from 2006-2013 served as the inaugural Director of the NIH's Public-Private Partnership Program, an outgrowth of the NIH Roadmap located in the Office of the NIH Director/Office of Science Policy. She has extensive experience bridging the interests of government, industry, and the advocacy community across such challenging topics as Intellectual Property, Data Sharing, mHealth, and the development of diagnostics and therapeutics.

Santosh Putta, PhD

Santosh Putta, PhD

Vice President, Computational Sciences

Santosh Putta has over 15 years of experience in creating software and data solutions in the life sciences industry. Prior to Nodality, he was involved in designing and implementing several computational algorithms, machine learning methods, and software solutions in the drug design space, including co-authoring an open source cheminformatics and machine learning toolkit. At Nodality he has been responsible for establishing the software and data analysis infrastructure, in addition to leading statistical analysis and design on multiple clinical studies. He holds a Bachelor of Technology degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai and a Ph.D. in Materials Science from the University of California, San Diego.

Mary Sigourney

Mary Sigourney

Vice President, Quality Systems

Mary Sigourney has over 25 years of experience in Quality Management in In vitro diagnostics in both large, multi-national companies and start-up organizations. She has been responsible for regulatory compliance activities including the development of internal and supplier audit programs, design control systems, document control programs and CAPA systems. Ms. Sigourney has successfully implemented ISO 9001/13485 Quality Systems in several companies and has provided ongoing support to both US- and European-based facilities. She has played an active role in product development and risk management programs for reagent, instrumentation and software systems. She is an active member of ASQ, RAPS, AACC and ISPE and served as past section chair for the Golden Gate section of ASQ.