James Shanahan is Co-Founder, Chief Business Officer and Director at SynDevRx which is developing pharmaceutical interventions for cancer patients that also have background metabolic dysfunction such as obesity, diabetes, high blood glucose/HbA1c, or insulin resistance. He oversees the development of the company’s business plans, budgets, strategic direction and industry outreach, operations, IP and funding to pursue the Company’s research and development objectives.
Previously, Jim co-founded JAM Technologies, a company that created specialty semiconductors serving the high-end consumer electronics and specialty electronics markets, where he served as vice president of corporate development and on the board of directors. There, he focused on fundraising, executing licensing transactions and forming strategic co-development partnerships, including with AKM, Intel and Apple. Previously, he worked at and later served as a consultant to Ariana Pharmaceuticals, a Paris-based company that provides advanced healthcare data analytics to the pharmaceutical and biotech industry. Jim has numerous issued patents, studied engineering and French at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and studied French at L’Universite Catholique de L’Ouest (Angers, France).
Jim is an active member in the Cambridge biotech and technology communities. He is a member of the BIO trade organization’s Tax and Finance Committee, a mentor at MassBio’s MassConnect, founding member of the French-American Biotech Springboard (FABS), a professional association working under the auspices of the French-American Chamber of Commerce. He is also an active coach and mentor to numerous startups in the Boston/Cambridge area.
With a global epidemic of obesity and diabetes and their known relationship to cancer, researchers and oncologists are turning their attention to metabolic hormones as promising new targets for cancer treatment.