Mike Derkacz leads Braeburn with passion and clarity, bringing 25 years of pharmaceutical industry experience to his role. Mike is an accomplished and highly successful leader, with deep expertise in building market-leading brands, conducting award-winning product launches, creating highly effective teams and developing sound commercial strategies to sustain market leadership. Prior to Braeburn, he was Senior Vice President and Head of Global CNS for Teva’s Global Specialty Medicines business. During his tenure at Teva, he led the launch of Copaxone 40mg, considered one of the most successful product introductions in the multiple sclerosis category and named pharma industry “Brand of the Year”. He joined Teva through the acquisition of Cephalon, where he served as Vice President, CNS Business unit. He spent the first 15 years of his career at GlaxoSmithKline — where he assumed positions of increasing leadership and commercial responsibility for major CNS and Cardiovascular brands.

Dr. Sonnie Kim offers 20 years of leadership experience driving medical affairs and scientific programs. At Braeburn, Sonnie oversees clinical trial design and execution and leads all medical affairs activities. Prior to joining Braeburn, she was with Otsuka America Pharmaceutical, Inc., as the Director of Medical Affairs/Hospital Medicine. She was integral in the pre and post-launch medical affairs activities and programs for SAMSCA (tolvaptan). Previously with WebMD, she developed and deployed analytical tools to shape the Medscape Education strategy. Sonnie’s previous experience also includes roles as VP and board member of Columbia Medcom Group, and its subsidiary, Medicalliance.

Paul Johnson has more than 25 years of commercial experience in the life-sciences industry launching healthcare brands, leading healthcare advertising campaigns, driving business development, and managing teams of sales and marketing professionals. In his role at Braeburn, Paul leads the commercial functions, including marketing, sales, sales operations and market access. Prior to joining Braeburn, Paul created and led a start-up healthcare consulting and advertising agency focused on providing product launch and commercialization services to wide variety of multinational and start-up life science companies. Previously Paul was the Executive Vice President and Managing Director of Client Services at Palio + Ignite. He also worked for more than 15 years in a variety of sales and marketing roles at Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline where he gained therapeutic area experience in CNS disorders, addiction medicine, schizophrenia, neurologic disorders, and pain management.

Susan Franks brings over 30 years of Regulatory and Project Management experience in the pharmaceutical industry from Wyeth, Premier Research Group, Cephalon and Teva Pharmaceuticals. At Braeburn, Susan heads the Regulatory Affairs function, driving regulatory strategies to optimize outcomes for Braeburn’s portfolio of drug products, as well as ensuring full adherence with FDA regulations for products in IND stage through NDA filing and beyond. Most recently, Susan led a large Global Regulatory organization for Teva’s Specialty portfolio of over 40 drug projects in global markets across multiple therapeutic areas, and previously focused in the areas of Pain and Infectious Disease. In the Pain/Opioid space, Susan led the successful registration of Exalgo® (hydromorphone extended release) and Vantrela® ER (hydrocodone), as well as managed FDA negotiations for a complex post-approval REMS program for Fentora® and Actiq (immediate release fentanyl products).

Ted Buckley has been engaged in policy development and government relations for over 15 years. At Braeburn Ted heads up Government Affairs and Public Policy. Prior to joining Braeburn, Ted led Global Policy at Shire Pharmaceuticals after previously leading its US Government Relations and Public Policy team.  While at Shire he engaged on issues ranging from regulations surrounding the exporting of controlled substances to laws enhancing incentives for the development of treatments for rare diseases. Previous experience includes serving as the chief economist at Bloomberg Government where he built and led a team of over 30 analysts that studied the impact of government actions on business. Also, as the economist for the Biotechnology Industry Organization, he researched, wrote on and developed policy proposals on topics including intellectual property, comparative effectiveness and biosimilars.