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Epizyme’s leadership team is composed of proven pharma and biotech executives with a passion for drug discovery and development. A highly complementary team, each member is recognized in the industry for their ability to create value based on expertise in drug discovery, biology, IP, business, finance and management.
• Kazumi Shiosaki, Ph.D.
• Robert A. Copeland, Ph.D.
• Victoria M. Richon, Ph.D.
• David Cordo, CPA
• Robert Millman, J.D.
Kazumi Shiosaki, Ph.D.
President and Chief Executive Officer
 Kazumi Shiosaki is the Founding CEO of Epizyme.
She also serves as a Managing Director at MPM Capital. At MPM, she has worked closely with a number of the firm’s portfolio companies to advance their small molecule development programs including Hypnion, Aryx, and Oxagen. She also started Primera Diagnostics in 2004, a molecular diagnostics company focused on infectious disease and oncology products and served as the company’s first CEO.
Prior to MPM, Kazumi was the SVP of Scientific Development as well as SVP of Drug Discovery at Millennium Pharmaceuticals. At Millennium, Kazumi was involved in helping to secure, as well as to manage, a number of the large corporate alliances in genomic targets (Bayer), metabolic diseases (Abbott) and in inflammation (Aventis).
Kazumi began her industrial career at Abbott Laboratories where she worked on drug discovery programs in a number of therapeutic areas including Neuroscience, Cardiovascular, and Infectious Disease.
Kazumi received her Ph.D. in Synthetic Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, and a B.S. from Whitman College. TOP^
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Robert A. Copeland, Ph.D.
Executive Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer
 Robert Copeland joined Epizyme in September, 2008, from GlaxoSmithKline, where he was Vice President, Biology, Oncology Center of Excellence in Drug Discovery.
He is also Adjunct Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics and a Fellow of the Eldridge Reeves Johnson Foundation at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Additionally, he serves on the SAB of Sigma-Aldrich, on the American Chemical Society Committee for Professional Training and on the editorial board of the Journal of Biological Chemistry.
Before joining GSK he held scientific staff positions at Merck Research Laboratories, DuPont Merck and Bristol-Myers Squibb and a faculty position at the University of Chicago, Pritzker School of Medicine.
Bob received his B.S. in chemistry from Seton Hall University , his doctorate in chemistry from Princeton University and did postdoctoral studies as the Chaim Weizmann Fellow at the California Institute of Technology.
His research interest is in elucidating the determinants of drug recognition by their biological targets, and the use of this information in the discovery and design of new medicines. He has contributed to drug discovery and development efforts across a wide range of therapeutic areas leading to numerous drug candidates entering human clinical trials.
Bob has contributed over 145 publications to the scientific literature, holds 8 issued U. S. patents and has authored 4 books in the areas of protein science and enzymology. His latest book, Evaluation of Enzyme Inhibitors in Drug Discovery: A Guide for Medicinal Chemists and Pharmacologists, published in March 2005. TOP^
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Victoria M. Richon, Ph.D.
Vice President, Biological Sciences
 Vicky Richon joined Epizyme in October, 2008, from the Merck Research Laboratories, Boston, where she was Senior Director of Cancer Biology and Therapeutics.
Prior to Merck, Vicky was a leading member of the scientific group at Sloan Kettering that discovered the histone deacetylase inhibitor vorinostat (SAHA). This discovery was the basis of Aton, a company that Vicky co-founded and for which she served as Executive Director of Biology. Aton was acquired by Merck in 2004 and Vicky continued supporting vorinostat through its approval by the U.S. FDA in October 2006 for the treatment of cutaneous manifestations in patients with cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL), a form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Marketed under the name Zolinza™, vorinostat is the first histone deacetylase inhibitor approved for the treatment of cancer.
Vicky has been a participating member of the American Association for Cancer Research since 1993 serving on program committees for the AACR annual meeting, AACR special conferences as well as review committees for AACR fellowships.
Vicky received her B.A. in Chemistry from the University of Vermont and her Ph.D. in Biochemistry at the University of Nebraska. She completed her post-doctoral research at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. TOP^
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David Cordo, CPA
Chief Financial Officer
 Dave is a Certified Public Accountant and holds an M.B.A. degree from Nichols College and a B.S.B.A. degree from Stonehill College.
For over fifteen years he has held senior management positions in leading life science companies including Wolfe Laboratories, Alinea, and Transform. Dave was Treasurer of Millennium Pharmaceuticals and played an integral role in raising over one billion dollars in capital and the acquisition and integration of three companies. He held senior financial management positions at Biogen Idec where he put in place financial infrastructure for the world-wide launch of Avonex.
Dave is an active member of the Executive Committee of the Wake Forest University Parents' Advisory Council and consults for several charitable organizations. TOP^
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Robert Millman, J.D.
Chief IP Counsel
 Robert is currently a Managing Director at MPM Capital. One of his roles is to serve in managment positions at portfolio companies while acting as the Chief Intellectual Property Attorney. Robert brings to Epizyme over 18 years of experience in creating and managing intellectual property and patent estates for biotechnology as well as drug discovery and development companies. He has been the architect of Epizyme's IP strategy since the company was founded and plays a key role in strategic planning and business development for the company.
Before joing MPM Capital, Robert was the Chief IP Counsel for Alnylam Pharmaceuticals where he developed the leading intellectual property portfolio in RNAi therapeutics. Prior to Alnylam, he served as the Chief IP Counsel at Infinity Pharmaceuticals, a company focused on small molecule discovery. From 1999 to 2002, Robert was Chief IP Counsel at Celera Genomics, where he developed and implemented an IP protection plan during the race to sequence the human genome. Robert has previously served as Patent Counsel at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, and earlier in his career he held an associate position at Morrison and Foerster LLP and a patent agent/specialist position at Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox P.L.L.C.
Robert received his J.D. degree from the Washington College of Law at The American University, an M.S. degree in Genetics from Washington State University, and a B.S. degree in Biochemistry from the University of California, Riverside. TOP^
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