Rob Hopfner, RPh, PhD, MBA joined Pivotal in 2017 and brings a long track record of working successfully with entrepreneurs to get novel, important medicines through development and onto the market. Rob brings a broad range of venture investing experience, from early / seed stage company building work through later stage investing. Past and current investments include Aciex Therapeutics (sold to Nicox S.A.), Arcutis Therapeutics (NASDAQ: ARQT), Civitas Therapeutics (sold to Acorda Therapeutics), Dermira (sold to Lilly), Exscientia (sold to Recursion), Gracell (Sold to AZ), Hyperion Therapeutics (sold to Horizon Pharma), Karuna Therapeutics (sold to BMS), Madrigal Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: MDGL), Merus BV (NASDAQ: MRUS), NextWave Pharmaceuticals (sold to Pfizer), Oculis (NASDAQ: OCS), Protez Pharmaceuticals (sold to Novartis), Vaxcyte (NASDAQ: PCVX), and Vtesse (sold to Sucampo Pharmaceuticals). Rob is currently a member of the Board of Directors of Evommune, Inozyme Pharma (NASDAQ: INZY), Plexium, and Rallybio (NASDAQ: RLYB), and was previously on the Board of Vaxcyte and Oculis. Rob was previously a Managing Director at Bay City Capital and prior to that worked in DuPont / Merck Pharmaceuticals’ Business Development & Strategy group. Rob holds an RPh in Pharmacy and PhD in Pharmacology from the University of Saskatchewan and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He completed his post–doctoral work at Harvard Medical School. Rob won numerous awards during his research career, including the Governor General of Canada Gold Medal Award, and he published several articles in top scientific and medical journals based on his work. Rob started his career as a pharmacist.
