our team

Executive Management Team


Thomas J. van Haarlem, MD, President and CEO

Dr. Tom van Haarlem is President and Chief Executive Officer of Aerie Pharmaceuticals and started the company in 2005. He established and expanded the company’s research and development operations in state-of-the-art laboratories in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. In 2007, he added an Aerie corporate office in Bridgewater, New Jersey. Aerie has raised $61 million since its inception to successfully discover and develop its portfolio of novel proprietary ophthalmic drugs.

Dr. van Haarlem has broad leadership experience based on twenty years in commercial, strategic and development positions at leading global pharmaceutical companies. Prior to Aerie, he was Vice-President of the Surgical Ophthalmology business at Pfizer. At Pharmacia, before the acquisition by Pfizer, he successfully expanded and developed their Specialty Care portfolio as Vice-President, Commercial Development. Dr. van Haarlem’s responsibilities included the $1.2 billion global ophthalmic franchise. He served in various management and executive positions at Merck & Co, Inc. both in Europe and in the US.

Dr. van Haarlem earned an MD degree from the University of Amsterdam and completed his business education at the NIMA Institute in the Netherlands.


Casey C. Kopczynski, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer and Co-Founder

Dr. Kopczynski brings over 20 years of research and management experience to Aerie, including 14 years with early stage life science companies. Prior to Aerie, he was Managing Partner at Biotech Initiative, LLC, a consulting practice dedicated to emerging biotech companies.

Dr. Kopczynski was previously VP of Research at Ercole Biotech, Inc., an early stage company developing novel drugs for the treatment of cancer, inflammation, and orphan genetic diseases.

Prior to Ercole Biotech, Dr. Kopczynski was Director of Research and a founding member of the scientific staff at Exelixis, Inc (EXEL). There he worked with the management team to grow the organization from 10 employees to over 500. His responsibilities included building and managing a team of 95 scientists focused on target discovery and validation and serving on the company-wide Research Operations Committee.

Dr. Kopczynski received his PhD in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology from Indiana University and was a Jane Coffin Childs Research Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley.


Scott Reding, Chief Financial Officer

Scott Reding, Chief Financial Officer of Aerie Pharmaceuticals, brings 15 years of broad operating experience at both private and public life science companies to Aerie. He has managed a variety of corporate strategic transactions during his career. Prior to Aerie, he served as the CFO of Biodel, a specialty bio-pharmaceutical company developing therapeutics for endocrine diseases, where he led the most successful life science IPO of 2007. Prior to Biodel, Mr. Reding served as CFO for several other life science companies: Molecular Staging, a molecular diagnostics company; Zonagen, a biotech company focused on therapies for human reproductive disorders; and ImmunoTherapy, an oncology company that was working on a therapeutic cancer vaccine.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Reding was an investment banker at Dean Witter Reynolds and more recently at Nomura Securities International, where he served as the Head of the US Healthcare Group.

Mr. Reding was awarded his MBA from Columbia University Graduate School of Business and earned his AB with Honors from Brown University.


Brian Levy, O.D., M.Sc., Chief Medical Officer

Dr. Levy spent 15 years at Bausch & Lomb as Vice President R&D, Corporate Vice President R&D and Chief Medical Officer. He was responsible for clinical development and research, global product safety and medical affairs. In this role Dr. Levy drove the development and subsequent approval of 3 NDA’s for ophthalmic pharmaceutical products as well as 4 PMA’s and multiple 510K’s for ophthalmic devices.

Prior to joining Bausch & Lomb, Dr. Levy was in private clinical practice in Toronto, Ontario from 1980 to 1989. From 1989 to 1994 Dr. Levy served as Associate Professor in the Department of Ophthalmology at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco.

Dr. Levy currently holds an appointment as Clinical Professor in the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Rochester's School of Medicine. He received a Doctor of Optometry degree from the University of California at Berkeley and did his post-graduate work in comparative anatomy and physiology of the eye at the University of Waterloo in Canada, where he received a Master of Science degree. Dr. Levy has published widely in peer-reviewed journals and has presented nationally and internationally at scientific and educational symposia.

Most recently he served as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Scientific Officer at Danube Pharmaceuticals and Nexis Vision respectively, both small venture backed companies developing products in Ophthalmology.


Mitchell deLong, PhD, Vice-President, Chemistry R&D

Dr. deLong joined Aerie as a Vice President in 2005. Prior to Aerie, Dr. deLong was a Research Scientist at Procter and Gamble. During his 13 years at P&G, he invented the first class of reversible skin-lightening agents, including GirLite™. Dr. deLong won two awards at P&G for his work on prostaglandin and was among the first to recognize the hair-growth stimulating potential of the compounds since commercialized as Latisse™. Dr. deLong has been an Adjunct Professor of Chemistry at Duke University since 2006. Prior to that, he held the same position at the University of Cincinnati. He has filed over 43 patent applications, and holds 14 issued patents. Dr. deLong received his PhD in Synthetic Organic and Medicinal Chemistry with a concentration in Cancer Biology from the Department of Chemistry of Stanford University.

Scientific Founders


David L. Epstein, MD

David L. Epstein, MD, is a Professor and Chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology and the Joseph A. C. Wadsworth Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology at the Duke University School of Medicine. He is a glaucoma clinician and world-renowned glaucoma scientist with both clinical and laboratory research interests. Dr. Epstein is Principal Investigator on two NIH grants and has over 175 refereed scientific publications in his field. He was President of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) from 1992 to 1993 and has served on numerous national Scientific Advisory Boards, often as Chairman. Dr. Epstein has a special interest in fostering M.D. clinician scientists’ careers in ophthalmology and translating the best in science to the understanding and treatment of human ocular disease.


Eric J. Toone, PhD

Eric J. Toone, PhD, is an Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Biochemistry at Duke University. Dr. Toone is a physical organic chemist who studies relationships between structure and activity in the context of biology. In collaboration with Dr. Epstein, Dr. Toone invented Aerie’s novel pro-drug technology for improving delivery of ophthalmic drugs into the eye. He has special expertise in biocatalysis and applied enzymology, ligand binding and the activity of water, and the synthesis of novel donors of nitric oxide. He is the recipient of numerous honors, including: American Cyanamid Faculty Fellow (1992); Alfred P. Sloan Fellow (1995); Camille Dreyfus Teacher Scholar (1996); Chair, Carbohydrates Gordon Conference (2001); and NIH Bioorganic and Natural Products Study Section, Permanent member (1999-2003).


Board of Directors

Janet L. Conway, PhD
Pharmaceutical Industry Consultant
Former Director, Licensing and Development, Pfizer Inc.

Geoffrey Duyk, MD, PhD (Chairman)
Managing Director
TPG Biotech

David L. Epstein, MD
Professor of Ophthalmology
Chairman, Department of Ophthalmology, Duke University Medical Center