Max Wallace

Mr. Max Wallace recently retired as CEO of Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure (ABC²), a venture philanthropy organization that develops new treatments for brain cancer.  He previously served as CEO of TheraLogics, an anti-cancer company based on technology from the University of North Carolina.  He also co-founded and served as President of Trimeris, a public company that developed the world’s first viral entry inhibitor, establishing a whole new class of drugs for HIV/AIDS and other viral diseases.  Wallace founded and developed several other notable biopharmaceutical companies, including Cogent Neuroscience, Sphinx Pharmaceuticals (now part of Eli Lilly & Co); and SARCO (now part of PPD/Pharmaco).  He helped build and serves on the board of Humacyte, a tissue engineering company named one of the country’s ten most innovative biotech companies by Fast Company magazine.  Wallace previously held positions at Duke University, including as a founding director of Duke Management Company, the university’s asset management company.  There he developed novel approaches to technology development, commercialization and new business creation.  He has served as Chair of the National Cancer Institute’s Council of Research Advocates, as President of North Carolina’s Council for Entrepreneurial Development (CED) and as President of the North Carolina Bioscience Organization (NCBIO), the biotechnology trade organization in North Carolina.  He co-founded Duke’s Program in Non-Profit Management and taught course in non-profit management at Duke’s School of Public Policy.  He received his Bachelor’s degree from Duke in 1974 and his JD degree from the University of Florida in 1977.