MapLight Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company working to develop targeted novel therapeutics to improve the lives of patients suffering from debilitating central nervous system (CNS) disorders, today announced the appointment of Maria Walker to its Board of Directors and audit committee. Ms. Walker brings more than 30 years of experience working with public and private companies across a variety of sectors, including healthcare, technology, venture capital and private equity.
“We are thrilled to welcome Maria to MapLight’s board,” said Christopher Kroeger, M.D., MBA, MapLight’s Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder. “Maria’s deep financial background and wealth of experience as a strategic advisor to growing biotech companies make her a pivotal addition to our board as we grow the organization and move our second pipeline asset, ML-007/PAC, into Phase 2 clinical trials later this year.”
Ms. Walker’s extensive experience includes her most recent role as Founding Partner and Chief Financial Officer at Patient Square Capital, an investment firm dedicated to healthcare. Prior to that, Ms. Walker held various roles of increasing responsibility at KPMG across nearly two decades, including as a global lead partner of private equity, partner in charge of KPMG’s Bay Area Asset Management practice, and as Senior Director of the Venture Capital Practice. In addition to her experience with KPMG, she held several senior roles in the venture capital industry, including Administrative Partner, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer of Forward Ventures, and Chief Financial Officer of Lightspeed Venture Partners. Ms. Walker also served as Audit Committee Chairman of ForgeRock and as Chief Financial Officer of Montes Archimedes Acquisition Corp.
“This is an exciting time for MapLight and neuropsychiatry,” said Ms. Walker. “I am honored to join the board. MapLight’s neuroscience expertise, pipeline, and the rapidity with which it has progressed assets from discovery to clinical development is impressive. I am inspired by the leadership team’s passion and dedication to MapLight’s mission to improve the lives of patients and families living with some of the most difficult to treat CNS conditions. I look forward to contributing to those efforts as a member of the board.”
Ms. Walker holds a degree in Economics from the University of California, San Diego.
About ML-007/PAC
ML-007/PAC, also referred to as ML-007C-MA, is an extended-release fixed-dose combination of the investigational M1/M4 muscarinic agonist, ML-007, co-formulated with a peripherally acting anticholinergic (PAC). ML-007/PAC was specifically designed to unlock the full potential of ML-007 by pairing it with a precision-matched anticholinergic and to optimize pharmacokinetic synchronization of its agonist and antagonist components, without sacrificing activation of both M1 and M4 receptors.
About MapLight Therapeutics
MapLight is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on improving the lives of patients suffering from debilitating central nervous system, or CNS, disorders. MapLight was founded by globally-recognized leaders in psychiatry and neuroscience research to address the lack of circuit-specific pharmacotherapies available for patients. MapLight’s discovery platform holds the potential to fill this void by identifying neural circuits causally linked to disease and targeting those circuits for therapeutic modulation. Learn more at www.maplightrx.com.
