Our Team

The story of FibrosIX started in the lab of company co-founder, Dr. Richard Neubig, with the identification of the company’s anti-fibrotic compounds. With demonstrated efficacy against the MRTF/SRF pathway, the chemical series was optimized in the lab of co-founder Dr. Scott Larsen, to reduce off-target toxicity. The resulting IP became the basis of FibrosIX Inc., founded in 2016. With the award of a Phase I SBIR to develop FibrosIX compounds for treatment-induced lung fibrosis, Dr. Kendell Pawelec was brought into the team in early 2020, to transition the technology into the next phase of development. As a further resource, FibrosIX has access to the business mentorship and backing of the University of Michigan Venture Center and Spartan Innovations (an affiliate of Michigan State University Foundation).

Kendell M. Pawelec, PhD is Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of FibrosIX, Inc., joining the company in January 2020. With a background in biomedical engineering, she has worked to develop biomaterials and understand how therapeutics and microenvironments alter tissue repair. Before joining Spartan Innovations (SI) as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence, Dr. Pawelec led efforts to scale the manufacture of clinical devices for translation, resulting in novel IP generation. In addition to day to day direction of FibrosIX, Dr. Pawelec also identifies new development opportunities.

Richard R. Neubig, MD, PhD is Co-Founder and President of FibrosIX, Inc. is a world-recognized leader in the signaling pathways of fibrotic diseases and is very much engaged in the company’s strategic and scientific direction. With more than 35 years of experience, he was Co-Director of the Center for Chemical Genomics at the University of Michigan (UM) and founding Director of the UM Center for the Discovery of New Medicines. As the Chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at Michigan State University (MSU), Dr. Neubig founded the MSU Drug Discovery core. His lab has been actively engaged in academic drug discovery for the last 12 years and was the first to demonstrate the efficacy of targeting the MRTF/SRF transcription pathway. Dr. Neubig oversees and manages the bulk of the preclinical in vivo work conducted with FBX081 and its analogs.

Scott Larsen, PhD is Co-Founder and Vice President of Chemistry for FibrosIX, Inc. Dr. Larsen retains a part-time appointment at the University of Michigan where he was formerly the Joseph Burckhalter Collegiate Research Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and the Director of the Vahlteich Medicinal Chemistry Core (VMCC). Dr. Larsen has over 35 combined years of experience working as a medicinal chemist in academia and the pharmaceutical industry, where he achieved the ranks of Associate Director of Medicinal Chemistry and Research Fellow prior to joining UM in 2007. He has extensive experience in drug design and organic synthesis, and has led interdisciplinary project teams in the delivery of four drug candidates into clinical development. Dr. Larsen oversees the development and optimization of FibrosIX’s chemical matter and the preclinical scale-up and manufacture of FBX081.