Biotech 2050 Podcast

Jake Becraft is co-founder and CEO of Strand Therapeutics, an emerging biotechnology company at the forefront of mRNA therapeutics. With colleagues at MIT’s Synthetic Biology Center, he led the development of the world’s first synthetic biology programming language for mRNA. Jake has been featured in Fierce Biotech, Bloomberg, and the Boston Business Journal, among others, for his vision and mission at Strand of applying this unique platform for real-world disease applications. Jake was recently named a Termeer Fellow and listed on MIT Technology Review's 35 Innovators Under 35 and Boston Business Journal’s 40 Under 40. Outside of science, Jake is an active backcountry snowboarder and trains Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Lex Rovner is the CEO and cofounder of 64x Bio, a spinout of Harvard Medical School and the Wyss Institute at Harvard University. Using novel high throughput genome engineering and screening technologies in a design loop with computational tools, 64x Bio is developing new ways of generating highly optimized cell lines for the manufacturing of viral vectors. These fundamental advances enable pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to bring more lifesaving cell and gene therapies to patients by reducing the cost and complexity of manufacturing, a critical bottleneck in this multibillion dollar market. Lex was a postdoc in George Church’s lab and cofounded the company along with George, Pam Silver, Jeff Way, and David Thompson. She received her Ph.D in molecular, cellular and developmental biology at Yale University. Josh Mandel-Brehm is President & Chief Executive Officer of CAMP4 Therapeutics and holds a dual appointment as entrepreneur partner with Polaris Partners. Mr. Mandel-Brehm previously held key business development and operations leadership roles at leading biotech companies. Most recently he served as part of the Business Development group at Biogen, where he led multiple strategic activities and corresponding transactions, which included expanding Biogen’s non-malignant hematology franchise and overseeing seminal investments to enter the ophthalmology field. Mr. Mandel-Brehm also played an integral role advancing Biogen’s gene therapy strategy, executing a series of external collaborations. Prior to Biogen, Mr. Mandel-Brehm held several roles of increasing responsibility at Genzyme as part of the business development group for the company’s rare disease business unit. Mr. Mandel-Brehm earned a BA in Biology from Washington University in St. Louis and holds an MBA from the University of Michigan. Nabiha Saklayen is CEO & co-founder of Cellino. Cellino’s proprietary technology makes personalized stem cell-derived therapies scalable for the first time. Nabiha was selected as a Pioneer in MIT Tech Review's 35 Innovators under 35 list for her patented inventions in cellular laser editing. She received her Ph.D. in Physics from Harvard University as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) International Fellow. She is also the inaugural Tory Burch Foundation Fellow in Genomics at the Innovative Genomics Institute led by Nobel Laureate Dr. Jennifer Doudna. Nabiha is also a TED speaker and co-creator of I Am A Scientist, an educational program running in 50 states that inspires children to explore science.

Tim Sweeney, MD, PhD, is co-founder and CEO of Inflammatix. Tim has extensive experience in medical practice (general & trauma surgery), bench research, and bioinformatics / machine learning. While training at Stanford he helped invent the core technology on which Inflammatix is based, is named on over a dozen patents related to medical diagnostics, and has published >100 manuscripts & abstracts. He is PI (through Inflammatix) on multiple development contracts from DARPA, BARDA, and NIH, and brought Inflammatix to recognition as the ‘Most Disruptive Technology’ at AACC in 2019, and the “Fierce 15” list in 2020.

Al leads teams in early-stage discovery up through non-clinical development, identifying new drug candidates for advancement into clinical research. Al joined Sage as CSO in 2011, with more than 20 years of drug discovery experience focused primarily in the neuroscience arena. Most recently, he was Vice President of Chemistry and Pharmacokinetic Sciences at Lundbeck USA, where he was responsible for the drug discovery, analytical, computational and pharmacokinetics departments focused on synaptic transmission and neuroinflammation. Earlier, as Senior Director and Head of the Neuroscience Discovery Chemistry Department of Wyeth Research, Al led a group that successfully delivered more than 15 drug candidates into clinical development in a broad range of neuroscience indications. He has co-authored more than 125 manuscripts and abstracts, and is a co-inventor on 50 patents and patent applications. Al holds a B.S. in chemistry from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of California, Irvine and was an American Chemical Society postdoctoral fellow at Colorado State University.

Dr. Stuart Peltz founded PTC Therapeutics in 1998 and has served as Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors since the company’s inception. Under his leadership, PTC has grown from a research organization to a publicly traded, global commercial organization with multiple approved products and a foundation of strong technology platforms that continues to drive a robust discovery pipeline for patients with rare disorders. PTC now has a footprint in more than 50 countries, with offices in 20 countries and more than 1,000 employees. Prior to founding PTC, Dr. Peltz was a Professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics & Microbiology at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Rutgers University. Dr. Peltz is a recognized scientific leader in RNA biology in the area of post-transcriptional control processes involving mRNA turnover and translation, with more than 30 years of research and over 100 publications in this area. Dr. Peltz has received a number of business and scientific awards. Notably, he was elected as a Fellow of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science in 2010. He was recognized as PharmaVoice’s 100 Most Inspiring People in 2009 and received the Dr. Sol J. Barer Award for Vision Innovation and Leadership in 2014. He earned a Ph.D. from the McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research at the University of Wisconsin.

Patrick Kleyn joined Rhythm in 2018 with over 25 years’ experience in human genetics and genomics, and he was named as head of TRAD in 2021. Prior to joining Rhythm, Patrick has held leadership roles in academia, biotech and large pharmaceutical companies, as his work has focused on the application of genomic technologies for drug and biomarker discovery and development. He began his career at Millennium Pharmaceuticals initially working on obesity target discovery and ultimately leading the genomics organization. He subsequently served as Chief Scientific Officer at Gemini Genomics and as Head of Scientific Planning at the Broad Institute during its inception and launch. He left the Broad to co-found Ligon Discovery and subsequently joined EMD Serono as the Head of External Innovation at its Boston site. Patrick earned his bachelor’s of Natural Sciences at Cambridge University, his Ph.D. in human genetics at University College London and carried out postdoctoral research in neuromuscular diseases at Columbia University.

Jacob(Jake)Rubens, Co-Founder, Chief Innovation Officer Jake is Co-Founder and Chief Innovation Officer of Tessera Therapeutics, as well as a Principal at Flagship Pioneering. Jake joined Flagship Pioneering in 2015 and works as part of a venture-creation team, founding and growing companies based on new biotechnology. At Flagship, Jake launched Kaleido Biosciences and co-founded Sana Biotechnology. Jake was the Head of Innovation at Cobalt Biomedicine, where he invented and developed the company’s Fusosome platform prior to its merger with Sana Biotechnology. Before joining Flagship, Jake received his Ph.D. in microbiology from MIT, working in the Synthetic Biology Center with Professor Tim Lu with the support of a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. At MIT Jacob invented gene circuits that allow engineered cells to do novel analog, digital, and hybrid computations, enabling the emerging field of “intelligent” cell therapies. Jake’s work has resulted in multiple pending patents and publications, including articles in Nature and Nature Communications. Jake was honored in 2017 in Forbes' 30 under 30 list in science. Hari Pujar, Chief Operating Officer Hari is Chief Operating Officer of Tessera, as well as Operating Partner at Flagship Pioneering. At Tessera, his responsibilities span across research, manufacturing, program strategy and management and IP. Hari is a global Biopharmaceutical executive with 20+ years of value creation in the biologics and vaccine industry. Before Flagship, Hari served as Chief Technology Officer of Spark Therapeutics, leading the technical operations, process and technology development and quality assurance organizations. At Spark, Hari was responsible for growing and scaling the company’s cutting-edge technology capabilities for an expanding development pipeline. Prior to Spark, Hari was head of Technical Development & Manufacturing at Moderna Therapeutics. At Moderna, he built and led the technology and early manufacturing organizations that delivered on supply for more than a dozen clinical programs in a brand-new technology area. Previously, Hari held a variety of scientific and cross-functional leadership positions during 18+ years at Merck & Co in the company’s commercial, R&D and manufacturing divisions, culminating in the franchise leadership of pediatric and adult vaccines representing over $2B in revenue. Hari has a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Delaware and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a Fellow of the American Chemical Society and the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers.

Kleanthis is a serial biotechnology entrepreneur with over two decades of experience in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical research industries as an executive, company founder, chief executive officer, investor and board member. Dr. Xanthopoulos has founded five companies, introduced three life science companies to NASDAQ and financed and brokered numerous creative strategic alliance and partnership deals with large pharmaceutical partners. In addition to his role at Shoreline Biosciences, Dr. Xanthopoulos is the Chairman of Stork Capital Life Sciences which focuses on building and investing in innovative biotechnology companies. Dr. Xanthopoulos is a member of the board of directors of IRRAS AB, Connect Biopharma, (NASDAQ: CNTB), Zosano Pharma, Inc., (NASDAQ: ZSAN), and is the co-founder and a member of the board of directors of privately held Sente Inc. Previously, he served on the boards of LDO sp.a. (Milan, Italy), Odyssey Therapeutics, Anadys Pharmaceuticals and Regulus Therapeutics. Dr. Xanthopoulos participated in The Human Genome Project as a Section Head of the National Human Genome Research Institute from 1995 to 1997. Prior to this, he was an Associate Professor at the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden. An Onassis Foundation scholar, Dr. Xanthopoulos received his B.Sc. in Biology with honors from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, and received both his M.Sc. in Microbiology and Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Stockholm, Sweden. Dr. Xanthopoulos has over 45 peer-reviewed publications and several issued patents.

David Berry is the Founder and CEO of Valo and since 2005, has served as General Partner at Flagship Pioneering, having founded over 25 companies including Indigo Agriculture, Seres Therapeutics (NASDAQ: MCRB), Eleven Biotherapeutics (NASDAQ: EBIO), T2 Biosystems (NASDAQ: TTOO), Evelo Biosciences (NASDAQ: EVLO), Axcella Health (NASDAQ: AXLA), and Joule Unlimited. David played an instrumental role in the conception and implementation of Flagship Labs, which is the foundation of all of its companies. David has been broadly recognized as a world-leading innovator: elected as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, named as Innovator of the Year by Technology Review from amongst its Annual TR35 list, and selected as one of 12 Innovators Reshaping Reality by the U.S. State Department, alongside pioneers such as Tim Berners-Lee. He holds over 200 patents and patent applications. David and his companies have been awarded with over 150 additional awards and honors. David currently serves on the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (UN SDSN), where he was a Founding Leadership Council Member. David received his MD from Harvard Medical School and his PhD from MIT in Biological Engineering.

A serial entrepreneur in software and biotech, Yochi Slonim has built multiple companies as a founder and CEO through all phases of growth all the way to IPOs and large M&A exits. As a Co-founder and CEO of Anima Biotech, he is driving the company's vision and strategy, fundraising, and partnering. Prior to Anima, Yochi was a co-founder of Mercury Interactive. As CTO and VP R&D from the company's early days, he created product vision and strategy and led a multi-product organization of 200 developers. After going public and reaching revenues of over $1B annually, Mercury was acquired by HP for $4.5B. As Senior VP of products and marketing for Tecnomatix, a public NASDAQ company, he led a 500 people organization of 4 divisions that generated revenues of $100m until the company was acquired by UGS for $230m. In 2000, Yochi was founder and CEO of Identify. The company reached revenues of $50m in less than 5 years and was acquired by BMC in 2006 for $150m in cash. Yochi founded ffwd.me, a unique startup acceleration program where he led a team that worked with over 25 startups in diverse areas and technologies, developing strategy, products and go to market operations while raising multiple rounds of financing from VCs and private investors. As one of Israel's leading speakers on the subject of startup positioning and company building, several of Yochi's approachable and amusing lectures can be found on Youtube ("Youtube Yochi Slonim").

Lovisa Afzelius is an origination partner at Flagship Pioneering and the former SVP of Strategy & Operations at Flagship-founded Cogen Immune Medicines, now known as Repertoire Immune Medicines. A computational scientist by training, she has two decades of leadership experience and a passion for data-driven drug discovery, from early inception to clinical development across multiple therapeutic areas. Previously, Lovisa built and led Pfizer’s systems immunology function and served as executive director of clinical programs. In this role, she launched several Phase II studies across autoimmune indications and as a member of the Inflammation & Immunology Research Unit leadership team, Lovisa co-managed the portfolio from early target discovery to Phase II clinical trials across all immunological assets. In addition, she served on Pfizer’s Worldwide R&D Data Strategy Committee. In 2017, Lovisa co-founded Elsa.science, a digital health company in the rheumatoid arthritis space where she serves as chairman of the board. She also serves on the board of the Swedish New England Chamber of Commerce. Before moving to the US in 2013, Lovisa was CEO of BioChromix Pharma. Lovisa began her career at AstraZeneca as Project Director, Global In Vitro Metabolism Leader and Computational Chemist across cardiovascular, metabolic, and neurodegenerative diseases. Lovisa has received numerous accolades for her work: she was included in the top 100 ​“most influential persons under age 40 in Sweden” by Affärsvärlden, and ​“scientist of tomorrow” at the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations’ 30th anniversary. Lovisa received the Rosenön Award for best thesis of the year within the field of pharmacodynamics/​pharmacokinetics in Sweden. Lovisa holds a Ph.D. in computational chemistry from Uppsala University, a Master of Science in integrative pharmacology from Gothenburg University as well as an M.B.A. from the MIT Sloan School of Management. Theonie is a principal at Flagship Pioneering where she conceives, builds and grows the science, intellectual property and business strategy that form the foundation of Flagship’s next breakthrough startups. She co-founded Alltrna and serves as its chief innovation officer. Prior to joining Flagship, Theonie completed her graduate studies in cell and molecular biology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focused on replication fork dynamics in the context of cancer development and therapeutics. Theonie has received several awards and has been granted multiple fellowships for her academic work, including an NIH NRSA Predoctoral Fellowship. During her graduate studies, Theonie held multiple leadership positions on Executive and Curriculum Committees. She also completed a Wharton Business Foundations Specialization and was a mentor at the yearly Larta Institute NIH CAP FeedForward Sessions. Theonie is a Business Advisory Board member of the Harvard Institute for RNA Medicine and a member of the Bioscience & Investor Inclusion Group (BIIG) Diverse Talent Network Group. Theonie’s work has resulted in multiple pending patents and publications, including articles in Nature Biotechnology, Molecular Cell and Journal of Biological Chemistry.