Michael Schmertzler

Michael is a co-founder and is Executive Chairman of SHY Therapeutics.

Since 2001, Michael has served as the Chairman of the Board of PTC Therapeutics, a publicly traded biotechnology company that during his tenure has discovered, developed, and now sells products globally for rare genetic disorders. He is also currently Chairman of Dispel, which develops and deploys software-based IoT networks and Berryville Holdings, a cyber communications software company serving United States government customers; and a director of AgNovos, a company undertaking pivotal trials of medical devices for the treatment of osteoporosis of the hip and spine. Since 1987, he has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in private equity and corporate finance at Yale University in the Department of Economics, the School of Management, and Yale-NUS College in Singapore. He is also a Charter Trustee of Phillips Academy Andover.

Michael’s prior healthcare experience includes founding Morgan Stanley’s biotechnology industry practice in the 1980s; serving as a director of Cytokinetics and Idenix; and serving from 2008-2012 as the CEO of a Yale-sponsored company developing monoclonal antibody therapeutics. It was there that he met and first worked with Dr. Hadari and Mr. Choy, other founders of SHY.

Michael’s prior investment and corporate finance experience includes serving, until its final liquidation in 2020, as the court-appointed independent director of the largest subsidiary in liquidation of Lehman Brothers. Prior to then, he was President of the Morgan Stanley Leveraged Capital Funds, during his tenure, the second largest such fund in the United States. During that time he was a director or the senior investor for companies including Cain Chemical, Colt Industries, Cytokinetics, Idenix, and Segway. While at Morgan Stanley, he was also a Managing Director in the firm’s Mergers and Acquisitions and Corporate Finance Departments. Prior to Morgan Stanley, from 1978-1984, Michael was CFO, COO, and an investment banker at Lehman Brothers. After American Express’s acquisition of Lehman in 1984, he headed the combined firm’s international investment banking and sales and trading businesses.

Michael holds a B.A. from Yale College in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, History, and City Planning, and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.