Biography

Dr. Michael Pape has had a long-standing career in both the biotech industry and academia. Mike is Professor of Practice in the Department of Management within the College of Business Administration at the University of Central Florida where he has been teaching entrepreneurship since 2015. As the Dr. Phillips Entrepreneur in Residence, Mike also serves as Director of the Upstarts Venture Incubation Program within the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership, which guides the most ambitious entrepreneurial students at UCF through the entrepreneurial method.

Mike is a serial entrepreneur and biotech executive who has co-founded several influential life science companies, including Esperion Therapeutics, Orchard Venture Partners (a life science venture capital firm), Akebia Therapeutics and Nymirum (now Base4 Biotechnology).  His career, spanning since 1989, includes significant roles in both large pharmaceutical companies and startup ventures.  At Upjohn and Parke-Davis/Warner-Lambert (now Pfizer), he was instrumental in the success of numerous cardiovascular drug discovery and development programs, including Lipitor (atorvastatin). In 1998, he co-founded Esperion Therapeutics which was acquired by Pfizer for $1.3 billion in 2004 and played a pivotal role in the discovery and development of Nexletol (bempedoic acid). In 2007, he co-founded Akebia Therapeutics, which went public in 2014 and later received FDA approval for Vafseo (vadadustat). In 2009, Mike co-founded Nymirum serving as CEO until 2015 and currently serves on its Board of Directors and scientific advisory team.

Mike has held other leadership, consulting, and teaching roles over the years.  From 2017 to 2024, he served as the founding Executive Director of the Michigan Academy for the Development of Entrepreneurs (MADE) an organization with an international mission to support and develop entrepreneurs in emerging economies.  Additionally, he was a Mentor-in-Residence with Innovation Partnerships at the University of Michigan and a consultant for the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.  Mike also taught Biochemistry as an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Chemistry at the University of Michigan Medical School.

Mike’s contributions to entrepreneurship and biotechnology have been recognized in the book “How They Did It: Billion Dollar Insights from the Heart of America.” He has also received Distinguished Alumni Awards from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and the College of Agriculture at Purdue University.

Mike holds a B.S. in Microbiology from the University of Michigan, a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Purdue University, and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Google Scholar link here.

Teaching / Research Interest
Mike’s teaching and consulting efforts focus on educating students and executives in the entrepreneurial method. He has developed the Startup Staircase®, a framework of “common sense steps for starting new ventures and projects”. The Startup Staircase is used to educate, through competency-based learning aspiring entrepreneurs and startup teams. It has also been used by established companies seeking to implement an entrepreneurial and innovation-based approach to solve problems internal and external to their company.

Areas of Expertise
• Entrepreneurship
• Problem Solving
• Technology/Science and Business Interface