Michael Schmertzler

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

Since 2001, he 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; and a director of AgNovos, a company undertaking pivotal trials of medical devices for the treatment of osteoporosis of the hip and spine. He is also a Charter Trustee of Phillips Academy Andover.

Since 1987, Mr. Schmertzler 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. From 2008-2012, he was the CEO of a Yale-sponsored company developing monoclonal antibody therapeutics, one of which is now in clinical trials. It was there that he met and first worked with the other founders of SHY.

In 2020, Mr. Schmertzler completed his role as the court-appointed independent director of the largest subsidiary in liquidation of Lehman Brothers. He has also been a director or the senior investor for companies including Cain Chemical, Colt Industries, Cytokinetics, Idenix, and Segway.

From 1978-1984, Mr. Schmertzler 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. He joined Morgan Stanley in 1986 and served as the President of the Morgan Stanley Leveraged Capital Funds, during his tenure, the second largest such fund in the United States. He also founded Morgan Stanley’s biotechnology industry practice, ran other industry groups, and was a Managing Director in its M&A department.

Mr. Schmertzler 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.