Dr. Thapar is a Co-Founder of Barricade Therapeutics, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Scientific Officer with over 18 years of drug development expertise spanning early preclinical to late stage clinical. In his previous roles, Dr. Thapar was the Director and Head of Clinical Pharmacology at ESSA Pharmaceuticals. Prior to ESSA, Dr. Thapar founded a consulting company providing drug development guidance and strategy to start-up biotech companies in Texas and also served as VP of Nonclinical Development and DMPK at Claria Biosciences. Before Claria, he held the Director of Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics position at Reata Pharmaceuticals for over 6.5 years where he was instrumental in guiding synthetic triterpenoid molecule (NrF2 activator) selection, advancement and PK/PD evaluation both clinically and non-clinically; two of which are currently in late stage clinical development, bardoxolone methyl and omaveloxolone. Prior to Reata, he held the Clinical Pharmacology Research Specialist position at the Pharmaceutical Development Center at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center where he led a team and instructed post-doctoral fellows focused on development of investigational anthracyclines & clinical therapeutic monitoring of anticancer agents. Dr. Thapar earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from the University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada, his doctorate in Pharmacy from The University of Houston College of Pharmacy followed by a post-doctoral Fellowship in Clinical Pharmacology at The University of Texas at MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Ms. Krauth is an experienced biopharmaceutical executive, investor, and entrepreneur with over 25 years of industry experience. She spent a number of years as a business strategy consultant to large biopharmaceutical companies including J&J, AstraZeneca, Glaxo SmithKline, and Millennium. The focus of this work was primarily drug development strategy and defining/improving key cross-functional company processes. She was a key contributor to the growth of Texas-based Reata Pharmaceuticals, serving in a number of senior management roles including as the cross-functional Project Leader for the company’s lead asset. In recent years, she has focused on building and investing in Texas-based biotech companies. In this capacity, she has taken on several interim CEO roles and served on the Boards of multiple biotech start-ups. She also serves on the Boards of the non-profit incubator Tech Fort Worth and the trade association bioNorthTx. Ms. Krauth holds a B.A. in Biochemistry, cum laude, from Rice University and earned her M.B.A. in Health Care Management and Strategic Management from the Wharton School. She has resided in North Texas for the past 13 years.

Dr. Walling is a highly experienced drug development executive who has held positions of increasing responsibility in research, development and manufacturing operations within a number of pharmaceutical companies, and contract manufacturing organizations. He spent 10 years at Reata Pharmaceuticals, serving as Vice President, Quality Operations. Previous roles have included stints at ILEX Oncology Inc., the Cambrex Corporation, and Abbott Laboratories. At present, he is serving as the part-time VP of CMC at Salarius Pharmaceuticals in addition to his role at Barricade. Dr. Walling received a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Iowa State University with a focus on natural products synthetic chemistry. He is a member of the ACS, AAPS and the Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society (RAPS) and held a RAC certification for several years. He has been a North Texas resident for over 12 years.