Biotech 2050 Podcast

Paul Biondi, Executive Partner, Flagship Pioneering and President, Pioneering Medicines Paul joined Flagship Pioneering in 2019 as Executive Partner, Flagship Pioneering and President, Pioneering Medicines. In his role at Flagship, Paul works with growth company CEOs and their teams to achieve the best attainable value for each company and serves on the boards of selected Flagship companies including Seres Therapeutics, Valo Health. As a member of Flagship’s senior leadership team, Paul is involved in strategic and operational aspects of Flagship, including leading Pioneering Medicines. Pioneering Medicines is an initiative of Flagship dedicated to conceiving and developing an innovative pipeline of life-changing treatments for patients. By harnessing the power of Flagship’s scientific platforms, Pioneering Medicines will create novel medicines that deliver benefits to more patients, sooner. Pioneering Medicines also enters into strategic partnerships to jointly conceive new products by combining partners' R&D priorities with Flagship's unique platform capabilities, providing partners access to the full spectrum of innovation across Flagship as well as the R&D expertise that Pioneering Medicines offers. Paul joined Flagship Pioneering following a seventeen-year tenure at Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS). Most recently, Paul served as the Senior Vice President of Strategy and Business Development where he had enterprise-wide responsibility for establishing and evolving BMS’s strategy, and for pursuing strategic transactions to access external innovation, enhance BMS’s capabilities and strengthen the company’s portfolio. Prior to this role, Paul held a series of leadership roles within BMS’ R&D organization overseeing strategy, portfolio and project management, and clinical and business operations. Prior to BMS, Paul spent nine years at Mercer Management Consulting. He received his M.B.A. from the J.L. Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and his B.A. from Dartmouth College.

Thank you for your support for Season 2! We reflect and look forward to Season 3 on this episode! Learn more about our co-hosts below! Alok Tayi, PhD is the Co-founder and CEO of Vibe Bio. Vibe is a therapeutics company that partners with patient communities to develop new medicines. Previously, Alok spent 10 years as an entrepreneur and life sciences software executive. He started and built the Life Sciences business unit at Egnyte, was a YCombinator-backed founder and started two SaaaS companies. Prior to his career in software, Alok spent over 15 years as a scientist, including postdoctoral work at Harvard University with George Whitesides. Alok holds a PhD from Northwestern University and BS from Cornell University. Rahul Chaturvedi is the Founder and CEO of Clora, the leading marketplace where people go to discover, build, and manage on-demand life science teams. Prior to founding Clora in 2017, Rahul was the head of clinical development at several biopharma companies, such as Kaleido Biosciences (NSDQ: KLDO) and Avedro (acquired by Glaukos). Rahul has successfully led the development activities for 20+ Phase II/III programs that have resulted in 6 product approvals to date. Rahul holds a bachelor of science degree from Brandeis University.

As Chief Medical Officer Dr. Ticho is responsible for Stoke’s efforts to develop first-in-class RNA based disease-modifying medicines to treat severe genetic diseases. He is also co-founder and former CEO of Verve Therapeutics which is developing therapies to edit the genome and confer protection from cardiovascular disease. Prior to joining Stoke Barry was Head of R&D for Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases at Moderna Therapeutics. He was previously Head of External R&D Innovation for Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases at Pfizer. Prior to that he was Vice President of Clinical Development at Biogen where he led clinical development for the Tysabri program for MS and led the aducanumab program for Alzheimer’s Disease. Barry obtained his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Chicago and completed Pediatrics training at Northwestern University and a Cardiology fellowship at Children’s Hospital in Boston. He was on clinical staff at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital.

Gregory J. Divis serves as Avadel’s Chief Executive Officer and a member of Avadel’s Board of Directors. Greg was appointed CEO in June of 2019, after previously serving in several leadership roles within the company, including Chief Operating Officer, Executive Vice President, and Chief Commercial Officer. Greg brings over 30 years of experience in building and leading business and financial operations within the pharmaceutical industry. Prior to joining Avadel, Greg served as an Executive in Residence at Linden Capital Partners, a healthcare-focused private equity firm. He also served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Lumara Health, a specialty branded pharmaceutical company focused on women's health. Prior to Lumara, Greg held general management, sales, marketing, and business development roles at Schering-Plough, which was acquired by Merck & Co., Inc., and Sanofi-Aventis. Greg earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Iowa.

Chip has served as Genocea's President and Chief Executive Officer since February 2011 after serving as Chief Business Officer from August 2010 to February 2011. Chip has also served on Genocea's board of directors since February 2011. Prior to joining Genocea, he served as Chief Business Officer at Vanda Pharmaceuticals, a biopharmaceutical company he co-founded in 2004. Prior to Vanda, Chip was a principal at Care Capital, a venture capital firm investing in biopharmaceutical companies, after serving in a variety of commercial and strategic roles at SmithKline Beecham (now GlaxoSmithKline). Chip holds a B.A. from Harvard University and an M.B.A. from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Srini Ramanathan, Ph.D., Senior Vice President, Research and Development Sciences Srini Ramanathan, Ph.D., joined Horizon Therapeutics in 2018. He leads Horizon’s research and development sciences, with portfolio oversight of discovery, preclinical research and development functions; he also oversees scientific due diligence for business development evaluations. He has worked in the biotechnology industry over 20 years and has been involved in drug approvals across ophthalmology, oncology and virology. Before joining Horizon, Ramanathan served as senior project leader at AbbVie, overseeing the development of multiple immunology programs for rheumatology and gastrointestinal indications. Prior to AbbVie, he served as global head of clinical pharmacology at Gilead Sciences with responsibilities for portfolio programs across all therapeutic areas. Ramanathan earned his Master of Science in pharmaceutics from Duquesne University and his doctorate in pharmaceutics from Rutgers University.

Dr. Keilhack is an accomplished cancer biologist with rich experience in cell biology, animal models of cancer, pharmacology and translational medicine with over 15 years of experience in oncology drug discovery in both small biotechnology companies and large pharmaceutical companies. Prior to joining Ribon, Dr. Keilhack was Senior Director of Biology at Epizyme where, among other responsibilities, she was the project leader for the company’s EZH2 inhibitor program, tazemetostat, which was FDA-approved in 2020 as Tazverik®. Before that, she was a research fellow at Merck and the biology project lead for the company’s clinical stage AKT inhibitor, MK-2206. Dr. Keilhack received her Ph.D. in Biochemistry at Friedrich Schiller University of Jena (Germany) and completed postdoctoral training at the Harvard Medical School. She earned a B.S. in Biochemistry at Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg (Germany).

Dr. Ethan Perlstein is the founder and CEO of Perlara PBC, the first biotech public benefit company established in 2014 that partners with highly motivated and entrepreneurial families and foundations to develop treatments and cures for genetic diseases. Ethan is also cofounder and CEO of Maggie's Pearl LLC, a joint venture co-owned by Perlara, a family based in Michigan and the Mayo Clinic that is commercializing a repurposed drug for a congenital disorder of glycosylation. Ethan relaunched Perlara in 2021 as the first fully decentralized, distributed and web3 biotech company.

Michel Detheux is the co-founder, President, and CEO of iTeos Therapeutics, and has held the role of CEO since the company’s inception in 2012. He previously served as a director at Ludwig Cancer Research from December 2010 to March 2012. Prior to that, Michel worked in various scientific and business development roles at Ogeda (f/k/a Euroscreen). He has also held roles concurrent to his time at iTeos, including Founder and Managing Director of MG6A Bioconsulting SPRL, Director of the Board at BioWin, and Board Member at Immune Health. He studied at Université Catholique de Louvain, receiving his undergraduate degree and his PhD in biochemistry there, before doing his post-doc in parasitology at University of Glasgow and receiving a business certificate from Solvay Brussels School. Michel holds a degree in biochemistry and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Université Catholique de Louvain and a business certificate from Solvay Business School.

Armon Sharei, PhD, is the Chief Executive Officer and Founder of SQZ Biotechnologies, a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on unlocking the full potential of cell therapies for patients around the world and has active programs in Oncology, Autoimmune and Infectious Diseases, and other serious conditions. SQZ Biotech was founded on Dr. Sharei’s doctoral research at MIT and leverages the broad capabilities of the CellSqueeze® technology to enable a diverse pipeline of antigen-specific cell therapies. SQZ Biotech and the CellSqueeze® platform have been named as one of Scientific American’s Top 10 World Changing Ideas (2014), Fierce Biotech’s Fierce 15 (2015), and a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer (2017). The technology has also been highlighted in numerous scientific publications, such as Nature and PNAS. Dr. Sharei received his BS in Chemical Engineering with Honors and Distinction from Stanford University. He earned his PhD in Chemical Engineering from MIT in the laboratories of Professors Klavs Jensen and Robert Langer where he created and implemented the CellSqueeze® technology as a novel method for rapid and flexible cell engineering. Prior to joining SQZ Biotech as CEO, Dr. Sharei completed a Ragon Institute postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School in the laboratory of Ulrich von Andrian. Dr. Sharei has published 19 peer-reviewed publications and is the inventor on 20 patent families. He has been recognized in INC. Magazine’s 30 under 30, Endpoints 40 under 40, and Forbes Magazine’s 30 under 30 in Healthcare.