Dr. Ismail Kola joined Forepont in 2019 as a General Partner in charge of all scientific decisions. He is Chairman of the Board of Directors of Athersys Inc. (ATHX, Nasdaq) and a Director of GPN vaccines (Australia).

Before Forepont, Ismail held several senior executive positions in the pharmaceutical industry. He has published 159 papers in top scientific journals (17,000 citations). His teams have brought numerous major medicines to the market.

Through 2018 Ismail was the CSO of UCB. Previous positions include SVP, Discovery Research & Early Clinical Research, and CSO, Schering Plough; SVP Basic Research and chairman WW Antibacterial Business Strategy, Merck; and VP Research, Genomics at Pharmacia Corporation.

Before his move to Industry, Ismail was a Professor of Human Molecular Genetics, at Monash University Medical School and Director of Research for 15 years.

He holds a Ph.D. (Med) in Medicine, the University of Cape Town, South Africa.