Mark G. P. Saifer

Dr. Saifer is a member of Silicom Ventures advisory board, and has been the Scientific Director and a Vice President of Mountain View Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (MVP) since 1996.
Dr. Saifer began to develop improved technology for coupling polymers such as poly (ethylene glycol) (PEG) to drugs, together with Dr. L.
David Williams.
Their discovery of the negative impact of conventional PEGylation on the activity of one enzyme, superoxide dismutase, led to their recognition of the advantages of using higher molecular weight polymers for enhancing the pharmaceutical properties of a wide variety of therapeutic proteins.
Prior to founding MVP, together with Dr. Williams and Dr. Merry Sherman, Dr. Saifer was the Scientific Director and a Vice President of DDI Pharmaceuticals in Mountain View, CA.
He is an inventor on 16 issued and six pending U.S.
patents, with foreign counterparts, relating to enzymes, cytokines and other therapeutic proteins, viruses, polymers and polymer conjugates.
Dr. Saifer received an AB in Natural Sciences from the University of Pennsylvania and a PhD in Biophysics from the University of California at Berkeley.
Following postdoctoral research in the Department of Bacteriology and Immunology at Berkeley, he did research in the Department of Viral Oncology at Roswell Park Memorial Institute in Buffalo, NY.