Christopher Aker

Christopher Aker is currently the SVP & General Counsel at Regulus Therapeutics. Prior to this, they were with Phenomix Corp from January 2005 to February 2011 where they were the Corporate Counsel & Senior Director of Administration. As the sole in-house legal professional, they were responsible for establishing controls and procedures for contract implementation and management; negotiating agreements typical to biotech operations including confidentiality, consulting, services agreements, work orders, clinical trial agreements, licenses; and managing intellectual property strategy for patents and trademarks. Christopher also directed outside intellectual property counsel; interfaced with potential corporate partners on patents and other corporate legal issues; and managed the Patent Strategy Committee. Other duties included preparing corporate and legal materials for due diligence with potential investors and corporate partners; interfacing with Forest Laboratories and Chiesi Farmaceutici on all corporate legal, IP and operational matters concerning co-development of Phenomix’ proprietary compound, dutogliptin tartrate; participating in corporate management committee to represent legal and operational functions; and managing legal issues concerning corporate operations including HR, facilities, corporate governance and regulatory. Christopher also directed the sale of intellectual property assets including contact with leads, due diligence, negotiation of term sheets and sales agreements and all other facets of transaction.

In addition to their legal responsibilities, they also supervised individuals managing facilities, EH&S, IT, & HR functions; performed HR role including recruiting, terminations, benefit administration, annual performance evaluations, corporate events; composed press releases and coordinated internal review; interfaced with public relations firm; coordinated corporate image makeover; maintained website content; managed renovation of 10,000 square foot of office space for expansion; managed reduction-in-force of 20 employees; and managed company wind-down including reduction-in-force of entire staff.

Christopher Aker received their Juris Doctor from Santa Clara University School of Law and their Bachelor of Arts in International Relations from the University of California, Davis.

Their manager is Jay Hagan, President & CEO. They are on a team with Denis Drygin - Chief Scientific Officer, Brian Campion - VP, Business Development, and Firuz Shakoori - Head, CMC.