Meet the Team

Dr. Monahan is the site leader of Confluence Discovery Technologies, headquartered at the CORTEX bioscience district adjacent to Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri.  Formerly an Executive Director in the Pfizer Inflammation Research Unit, Dr. Monahan brings over 30 years of biochemical pharmacology and drug discovery experience to his leadership role.  He has held many management and leadership positions and has directed several drug discovery programs into Phase 1 and 2 stages of clinical development.  As a demonstrated scientific leader he has over 75 peer reviewed publications and 12 patents.

Jon Jacobsen, Ph.D., serves as Confluence Discovery Technologies’ Vice President, Chemistry and has more than 30 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry.

Prior to joining Confluence, Jon served as Director of Chemistry at Confluence Life Sciences, Inc. since 2011.  He has also held multiple science and leadership positions at Pfizer and legacy companies including that of a senior fellow, chemistry director, as well as in project and chemistry team leadership roles for drug discovery projects.  Over his career, Jon worked on multiple projects within CNS, cancer, cardiovascular and inflammation disease areas.   He successfully led teams that advanced a number of compounds from discovery to clinical development and worked closely with development teams to advance candidates. During the last twelve years, his research has focused on the inhibition of multiple kinase targets involved in cancer and inflammation pathways.  He has co-authored more than 50 peer-reviewed publications and is listed as a co-inventor on more than 50 patents.

Jon received his Bachelor of Science in chemistry from Harvey Mudd College and Doctor of Philosophy in synthetic chemistry from the University of California, Irvine.  He also carried out post-doctoral studies at the University of Geneva in Switzerland.

Paul Changelian is an immunologist and research leader with over 25 years experience in drug discovery. His work has focused on several areas, including renal transplantation, autoimmune disease, mitochondrial metabolism and oncology. He has experience in both large pharma (Pfizer) and small biotechnology companies (Lycera Corp. and Infinity Pharmaceutical). During his 18 years at Pfizer, his laboratory was responsible for the preclinical candidate delivery and development of tofacitinib in rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, IBD and renal transplant. This drug was approved in 2012 as the first new oral drug for RA in over ten years (Xeljanz). Paul obtained his degrees from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor (BS chemistry), Harvard University in Cambridge (Ph.D. in Immunology) and Washington University in St. Louis (postdoctoral fellowship in neurobiology).