Biotech 2050 Podcast

Mr. Gergen was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Poseida in February 2022. He joined Poseida in February 2018, initially serving as Chief Business Officer and Chief Financial Officer before being named President and Chief Business Officer in July 2020. He has been a member of the Company’s board of directors since 2018. Mr. Gergen was previously the Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Halozyme, Inc. and Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Mirati Therapeutics, Inc. Previously he served in senior management positions, including as Senior Vice President of Corporate Development, at Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Inc. He also served in senior management positions at CardioNet Inc., Advanced Tissue Sciences, Inc., and Medtronic, Inc. Mr. Gergen received a J.D. from the University of Minnesota Law School and a B.A. in business administration from Minot State University.

Timothy J. Miller, Ph.D. CEO, President and Co-Founder Timothy Miller is CEO, President and Co-Founder of Forge Biologics, Inc., a VC-backed gene therapy development engine focused on accelerating access to potentially life-saving AAV gene therapies. Prior to founding Forge, Dr. Miller co-founded Abeona Therapeutics, a rare disease gene and cell therapy company. He served as Abeona’s CEO and President from 2012-early 2018, taking the company public in 2015. He is a proven biotech leader with experience in driving gene therapy pipeline development, regulatory strategy, investor relations, M&A activities, licensing, GMP manufacturing, clinical development, and leading stakeholder/shareholder engagement. Dr. Miller has over 20+ years of business development, scientific research, product development and clinical operations expertise, with a focus on transitioning novel gene and cell therapies through pre-clinical and Phase 3 human clinical trials. He is an avid patient-centric drug developer and entrepreneur. Dr. Miller earned degrees in Pharmacology (Ph.D.) and Biology/Molecular Science (M.S. and B.S.) from John Carroll University. Erandi De Silva, Ph.D. Co-Founder & Senior Vice President of Product Development Erandi De Silva is Co-Founder and Senior Vice President of Product Development at Forge Biologics. She is an experienced scientist and entrepreneur, with 10+ years of experience in discovery research, therapeutic development, and partnering across oncology, infectious disease, and gene therapy. Prior to founding Forge, Dr. De Silva held leadership roles in both academic and industry settings, including at Myonexus Therapeutics. She earned a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from Princeton University, where she was awarded the Procter Fellowship in recognition of exceptional research, and her B.S., with honors, from Stanford University. Dr. De Silva was also a Postdoctoral Research Scientist at Genentech.

Our guest this week is one of our hosts, Alok Tayi, and he has some exciting news. The official launch of his new company, Vibe Biotechnology, building a global community of patients, scientists, and partners around a shared mission to cure rare diseases. Vibe Bio's novel approach seeks to scale the development of treatments sustainably and provides patient communities unprecedented ownership over the results. Alok is a scientist by trade, with over 15 years under his belt including a PhD at Northwestern - and time spent at Harvard under a successful biotech founder. He then went on to start multiple biotech software companies - securing over $100M in total venture funding along the way. Through his own personal and professional experience, Alok has realized that the families of patients with rare diseases have plenty of hope - but what they need is help. Not necessarily finding the right potential therapeutic option - but actually funding it. That’s where the Vibe community steps in - vetting out which drug development programs have the highest potential and financing the process via crypto token sales. Tapping into the crypto market opens up a wealth of new opportunities when it comes to tackling some of these major rare diseases. Vibe’s aim is to give families not only the community of support - but the genuine power to pursue a cure for any rare disease at scale - an issue that impacts 1 in 10 Americans. Sit back, relax, and we hope you enjoy this enlightening conversation between Alok and our wonderful guest host Susanna Harris, PhD.

Paul is the CEO & Co-founder of Locus Biosciences. With a career that spans manufacturing, research & development, information technology and corporate transformations, Paul brings a broad range of experience and capability to deliver on the Locus vision. Prior to Locus, Paul was Chief Technology Officer at Patheon Pharmaceuticals and also held the role of Global Head of Operations for Patheon’s Pharmaceuticals Development Services business unit. Paul previously served as Global Head of Manufacturing and Chief Information Officer at Valeant Pharmaceuticals, amount other roles. Paul was a Visiting Professor at North Carolina State University’s Poole College of Management and volunteered as an executive-in-residence for the HiTEC Graduate Program, NCSU’s Entrepreneurship Collaborative, where he identified the technology that would form the basis for Locus. Paul earned a BSBA in Management Information Systems from the University of Arizona and completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School.

Dr. Trevor Martin founded Mammoth Biosciences with the mission to enable the next generation of CRISPR-based synthetic biology products across therapeutics and diagnostics, including a novel class of affordable, effective, and rapid CRISPR-enabled molecular diagnostics that allow individuals worldwide to better understand their health and a novel family of CRISPR Cas14 proteins that can enable in vivo editing. Trevor earned his BA from Princeton University and his Ph.D. in Biology from Stanford. His work has been featured in outlets including FiveThirtyEight and The Atlantic. He is the featured healthcare honoree on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, is on Fortune’s 40 Under 40 list, and is a Malaria No More “10 to END” innovator.

Laurence joined Decibel in January 2020. He previously served as an entrepreneur in residence at Third Rock Ventures, where he focused on novel drug discovery and development opportunities. Before that, Laurence was CEO of Warp Drive Bio, a small molecule company focused on novel oncology and antibiotic drug discovery based on natural products, until its merger with Revolution Medicines in 2018. Prior to that, he was the senior vice president and chief business officer of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, where he was responsible for the company’s business development, finance and legal functions. Before coming to Alnylam, Laurence was the chief business officer at Ensemble Discovery, where he led the company’s strategic planning and corporate development efforts. Laurence previously spent ten years at Millennium Pharmaceuticals in a range of general management and business development positions. In addition to his professional interests, Laurence is a board member of the Possible Project and board advisor to Life Science Cares. He earned his Ph.D. from King’s College London and his B.A. from Cambridge University.

Ms. Zaderej has served as Axogen’s President, Chief Executive Officer, and a member of our Board of Directors since September 2011 and the Chairman of our Board of Directors since May 2018. Since May 2010, she has served as the Chief Executive Officer of Axogen’s wholly owned subsidiary, Axogen Corporation, and a member of the Board of Directors of Axogen Corporation. Ms. Zaderej joined Axogen Corporation in May 2006 and served as Vice President of Marketing and Sales from May 2006 to October 2007 and as Chief Operating Officer from October 2007 to May 2010. From October 2004 to May 2006, Ms. Zaderej worked for Zaderej Medical Consulting, a consulting firm she founded to assist medical device companies build and execute successful commercialization plans. From 1987 to 2004, Ms. Zaderej worked at Ethicon, Inc., a Johnson & Johnson company, where she held senior positions in marketing, business development, research & development, and manufacturing. Ms. Zaderej is a member of the University of Tampa Board of Trustees and the MedExec Women Board of Advisors. Ms. Zaderej has an MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Business and a B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University.

John Glasspool is CEO and member of the Board of Directors of Anthos Therapeutics. Mr. Glasspool is also a member of the Board of Directors of Dalcor Corporation. He was formerly the Executive Vice President, Head of Corporate Strategy and Customer Operations at Baxalta Incorporated (NYSE: BXLT), formerly Baxter BioScience (NYSE: BAX). Prior to joining Baxter in August 2012, Mr. Glasspool was Head of Region Europe and Novartis Vaccines & Diagnostics (NYSE: NVS), a member of the V&D Executive Committee. Mr. Glasspool served as a board member, Vice President and President of the European Vaccine manufacturers (EVM), from 2010 until December 2012. Previously, Mr. Glasspool was Head of Global Pricing & Market Access and Head of Global Commercial Operations in Novartis Pharma, where he led the functions in embedding the needs of customers and consumers for brands at all stages of their lifecycle development, launch, and in market. Mr. Glasspool joined Novartis as Head of Marketing for Neuroscience. He was promoted to Global Head Cardiovascular & Metabolism Business Franchise in 2006, during which time he grew the franchise sales over a three-year period.

Dr. Sullivan is co-founder and CEO of Vanqua. In addition, he has been a Venture Partner with Orbimed since January 2019. Previously, he was the Vice President of Research at Abbvie where he was responsible for the company’s research efforts in a variety of therapeutic/disease areas including oncology, immunology, neurology, hepatitis C and cystic fibrosis. Jim has advanced more than 100 compounds into clinical development across a number of disease states and technology platforms. These include products on the market for HCV (Mavyret and Viekira), the first-in-class Bcl2 selective inhibitor, Venclexta, for hematological cancers, a new oral agent for patients with rheumatoid arthritis, RINVOQ, and multiple compounds currently in Phase II or III clinical trials. He has authored/co-authored more than 130 scientific publications and is an inventor on 11 patents. Jim is an adjunct faculty member at Northwestern University and serves on the board of several companies and foundations including Regis Technologies, Genomics Medicine Ireland, Genuity Science, MATTER Healthcare Incubator, Chicago Biotechnology Accelerator and the Pistoia Alliance. He earned his bachelor’s degree and Ph.D. in biochemistry from Trinity College Dublin and conducted post-doctoral research in neurobiology at Northwestern University.

Paula Soteropoulos brings to Ensoma more than 30 years of experience in the biopharma industry in areas of drug development, manufacturing, business development, global commercialization with P&L accountability, company building and organizational development. Her leadership throughout her career spans a broad range of therapeutic areas, including rare disease, cardiovascular and metabolism, infectious disease, renal, and transplant and oncology. In addition to Ensoma, Paula is a strategic advisor to 5AM Ventures and a member of the Board of Directors of uniQure and Rallybio. Previously, Paula served as the founding CEO and board member of rare disease therapeutic developer Akcea Therapeutics. There, she led the company through its IPO, as well as significant growth — employing over 270 staff in 13 countries and overseeing six drugs in its portfolio with two rare disease drug approvals and commercial launches. Prior, Paula served as senior vice president and general manager, cardiometabolic and rare disease businesses and strategic alliances at Moderna Therapeutics. She also spent more than 20 years at Genzyme Corporation, most recently as vice president and general manager, cardiovascular, rare diseases. Paula holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in chemical and biochemical engineering from Tufts University and an executive management certificate from the Darden School of Business, University of Virginia. Paula serves on the advisory board for the Chemical and Biological Engineering Department of Tufts University.