Executive Management
General Manager
Anthony R. Franco, JD
Anthony Franco is a seasoned Operations and Strategy Executive with over 20 years of experience across the Legal, Technical and Biotech industries. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Management from Southern Connecticut State University and a Juris Doctorate from Western New England School of Law. He has an established track record helping organizations define their ways of working, develop their strategy and achieve their corporate goals. Prior to joining ReST, Anthony served as the Chief Operating Officer for a Microbiome Startup where he was responsible for transforming their consumer division and establishing the pharmaceutical development program focusing on Rare Pediatric Diseases. While at Alexion for the decade prior he held numerous positions of increasing leadership in Product Development, Global Operations, Corporate Real Estate and IT, until its $39B acquisition by AstraZeneca. Early in his career, he also managed a successful legal practice focused on corporate real estate and business law. He resides in Guilford, Connecticut with his wife and two sons.
Chief Innovation Officer
Founder & Chairman of the Board
Gilles Rubinstenn, PhD, MBA
After completing a PhD in medicinal chemistry and quantum physics at Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, Gilles Rubinstenn joined L’OREAL R&D in 1998 where he learned scientific management and innovation (becoming inventor in 34 patents, including the formulation supporting the $2B Lancôme Absolue® franchise). After leading the innovation team of EUROTAB and establishing the Pierre-Gilles de Gennes Foundation, he has chaired the SATT idfinnov (now erganeo) a private tech-transfer office and seed investment agency operating over the largest biomedical cluster of the Paris area.
In 2013, together with 3 partners he co-founded M2i Life Sciences, which became within 6 years a world leader for biocontrol, replacing pesticides with insects’ pheromones, and closed one of the largest 2019 French Tech Investment round. In M2i, Gilles has held various positions, first restructuring the marketing teams, them leading the Pharma business unit and finally acting as CFO supporting the successful conclusion of the M2i round B and post-closing operations. Since 2018 he has been working at building the foundation of ReST while advising the President of AFM TELETHON on Bioproduction. Gilles Rubinstenn holds an EMBA from INSEAD and teaches entrepreneurship in various business Schools.
Chief Medical officer
Reina Benabou, MD, PhD
Dr. Benabou is a neuropsychiatrist, neuroscientist, and biopharmaceutical executive with more than 25 years of experience driving neuroscience innovation, expanding clinical development pipelines into global regulatory approvals, and building strategic collaborations across the healthcare ecosystem.
She has held senior leadership roles at leading biopharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, including Pfizer (Head of Global Medical Product Evaluation), Novartis (Vice President and Worldwide Medical Head, Neuroscience Franchise), Cognivue (Chief Medical Officer), BioXcel Therapeutics (Chief Development Officer), and most recently at Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine as Vice President and Head of Medical Affairs, Neurosciences.
Throughout her career, Dr. Benabou has built and led high-performing global teams spanning medical, development, regulatory, and safety functions, contributing to the approval and commercialization of multiple neuroscience therapies, including SUBOXONE®, GEODON®, LYRICA®, PRISTIQ®, GILENYA®, SPRAVATO®, and the INVEGA® portfolio (SUSTENNA®, TRINZA®, HAFYERA®).
In addition to her industry leadership, Dr. Benabou has held academic appointments in the Neurology Departments of Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Columbia University in New York. She earned her M.D. from the Universidade de São Paulo and her Ph.D. in Neurological Sciences from the University of Montreal.
Board of Directors
Founder, Astorg
Thierry Timsit
In 1998, Thierry co-founded Astorg and currently leads the organisation. He is a Member of the Group Executive Committee and of the Investment Committee. Prior to this, Thierry spent 4 years with the private equity team at Suez. He began his career in 1989 at Banque Indosuez where he held several positions in London and Paris, particularly in the project finance division.
Thierry graduated from ESCP Europe.
CEO, M2i
Philippe Guerret
If we had to summarize in a few words Philippe Guerret’s atypical career path until the creation of M2i Group in 2012, we could talk about experimentation and quick responsibilities: development of PepsiCo in France, management of audiovisual rights at UGC Cinema Corp at the time of the takeover by the TV channel Canal+, IPO of Vinci and launch of airport concessions of the group, everything even before its 30th anniversary. Philippe Guerret surfed between Miami and Switzerland, exceled in the repositioning of companies in difficulty, and then specialized in </span><i>duty free</i><span>. With a head start, he imagined what could become his next playgroundand fell in love at first sight with the industry through the management of an industrial group producing active pharmaceutical ingredients. Finally, convinced that innovation and industry must go hand in hand, he created M2i Group with 3 partners, including Gilles Rubinstenn. The company, expert in complex molecules historically used for human health, diversified under Philippe Guerret’s leadership towards the production of innovative finished products with high added value for the biological crop treatment as an alternative to pesticides. In 10 years, after €60 millions raised, M2i hires 200 employees and has become the European leader in its sector by protecting more than 100,000 hectares worldwide. Philippe is graduated from EDHEC and is a member of the school’s ETHICS BOARD
Scientific Advisory Board
Yale university
John Krystal, MD
Dr. Krystal is McNeil Professor and Chair of Psychiatry at Yale and Yale-New Haven Hospital. He studies the neurobiology and treatment of psychiatric disorders. His laboratory discovered the rapid antidepressant effects of ketamine. He directs the Yale Center for Clinical Investigation, Center for the Translational Neuroscience of Alcohol, and Neuroscience Division of the National Center for PTSD. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine; Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; co-director of the Neuroscience Forum of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; editor of Biological Psychiatry and co-founder of Freedom Biosciences.
Harvard Medical School
Kerry J. Ressler, MD, PhD
Kerry J. Ressler, MD, PhD, is Chief Scientific Officer and James and Patricia Poitras Chair in Psychiatry at McLean Hospital, after serving at Emory University for 18 years. He is also a professor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and president-elect for the Society for Biological Psychiatry. Dr. Ressler was previously an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and is a member of the National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine). Dr. Ressler’s lab focuses on translational research bridging molecular neurobiology in animal models with human genetic research on emotion, particularly fear and anxiety disorders. He has published over 225 manuscripts ranging from basic molecular mechanisms of fear processing to understanding how emotion is encoded in a region of the brain called the amygdala, in both animal models and human patients
Emory University
Barbara Rothbaum, PhD
Barbara Olasov Rothbaum, PhD is Director of the Emory Healthcare Veterans Program. She is a professor and Associate Vice Chair of Clinical Research at Emory School of Medicine in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Director of the Trauma and Anxiety Recovery Program and holds the Paul A. Janssen Chair in Neuropsychopharmcology. She specializes in research on the treatment of anxiety disorders, particularly PTSD. Dr. Rothbaum has been studying PTSD treatments since 1986, served on the DSM-IV PTSD subcommittee, and has developed, tested, and disseminated some of the most innovative and effective treatments available for PTSD. She is an inventor of virtual reality exposure therapy. She was a pioneer in applying it in the treatment of PTSD in combat veterans. Dr. Rothbaum has been conducting translational research on MDMA for almost a decade. She has authored over 400 scientific papers and chapters, has published 11 books on the treatment of PTSD and edited 4 others on anxiety, and received the Diplomate in Behavioral Psychology from the American Board of Professional Psychology. She is a past president of the International Society of Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS). She is a fellow of the ACNP, the National Academy of Inventors, the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, and American Psychological Association’s Division 56 and was awarded the 2010 “Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Practice of Trauma Psychology” for APA Division 56 and the Robert S. Laufer Award for Outstanding Scientific Achievement from the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS). Dr. Rothbaum received the 2021 ISTSS the Lifetime Achievement Award. Her recent books on PTSD for the general public:PTSD: What Everyone Needs to Know and Making Meaning of Difficult
ReST Therapeutics
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