Darlene Horton
Non-Executive Director
Dr. Horton completed a fellowship and residency in Pediatric Cardiology at the Cardiovascular Research Institute at the University of California San Francisco. She obtained a BS and her MD from the University of Florida. She presently serves as clinical faculty at UCSF as a pediatric cardiologist. Darlene was CEO of Nile Therapeutics, Inc., when as a listed company (NASDAQ:NLTX) it merged with the cardiovascular stem cell company, Capricor Therapeutics, Inc. Nile focused on a peptide to treat heart failure. She held several positions at Scios, Inc. and was a member of senior management that completed the $2.6B acquisition of Scios by Johnson and Johnson. At J&J, she provided oversight of cardiovascular clinical development but most relevant led the clinical development of BNP, neseritide, Natrecor®, the only peptide registered in the U.S. for the treatment of acute heart failure. Darlene is CMO at SMC Biotechnology, Inc. Additionally she was co‑founder and CMO of Itero Biopharmaceuticals, Inc., which raised $17M in venture capital and in 2010 completed a worldwide licensing deal for their lead product for infertility to Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (now Actavis, Inc.). Darlene brings core expertise to Madeleine including process development, manufacturing, quality, regulatory, project management, and preclinical and clinical development with a focus on biologicals and peptide therapeutics.