Biotech 2050 Podcast

Dr. Salter-Cid brings to Gossamer Bio over 20 years of drug discovery experience in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries and spent the last 13 years at Bristol Myers Squibb (“BMS”) in increasing positions of responsibility, including Vice President and Head of Immunology, small molecule Immuno-Oncology and Genomics Discovery. In this position, she oversaw several biology groups that focused on target validation and development of innovative biologic and small-molecule therapeutics to address significant unmet needs in autoimmune diseases and cancer. During her time at BMS, Dr. Salter-Cid led teams that advanced more than 20 compounds into clinical development. She was also Chair of the Immunoscience Target Science Team (TST) and a core member of Early Development, Strategy and Licensing teams for both Immunology and Immuno-Oncology. Additionally, she was the scientific lead on several of BMS’ acquisitions and licensing deals and sat on multiple Joint Research Committees and Scientific Advisory Boards. Prior to joining BMS, she was a Senior Project Leader at La Jolla Pharmaceuticals where she led discovery projects. Dr. Salter-Cid also held positions at Genset Corp and Johnson & Johnson. She is an author of over 70 publications and patents and holds a Ph.D. in Immunology from the University of Miami.

Thank you for your support for Season 1! We reflect and look forward to Season 2 on this episode! Learn more about our co-hosts below! Alok Tayi is the Vice President of Life Sciences at Egnyte where he is responsible for building and executing the company's strategy for the life sciences market segment. Alok works across the organization to verticalize our marketing, sales, product, compliance, and account management practices for this domain. Before joining Egnyte, Alok was a YCombinator-backed entrepreneur and started two vertical software-as-a-service companies. Prior to his career in software, Alok spent over 15 years as a scientist: he took part in postdoctoral work at Harvard University with George Whitesides, and has published papers in Nature and Nature Chemistry. 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 Executive Vice President and General Manager of Ancestry.com, a 1.6 billion dollar technology company, Ken led the launch of AncestryDNA, a large-scale e-commerce genetic genealogy test with revenues of > $500M. In 2019, Ken led the launch AncestryHealth, an e-commerce LDT genetic health product on a next-generation sequencing (NGS) platform. Prior to Ancestry, he was the President and Chief Executive Officer at Avigen, a biopharmaceutical company that develops drugs for chronic neurological disorders, where he led the company in its mission to acquire, develop and commercialize innovative gene therapeutics. Dr. Chahine is a patent attorney and on the faculty at the University of Utah’s College of Law currently teaching new venture development, intellectual property and licensing. He earned a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Michigan, a J.D. from the University of Utah College of Law, and a B.A. in Chemistry from Florida State University.

Ibraheem Mahmood has an extensive life science and finance background that spans more than 20 years. His experience includes previous roles in Lifescience M&A and Fundraising at Nomura, Lifescience Equity Research at Investec and Business Development and Corporate Venture Capital at Shire Pharmaceuticals. He was co-founder, President and CEO of the clinical operations services company DrugDev, in which he raised over $50m in financing and he sold the business to IQVIA in 2017. Ibraheem studied medicine at the University of Oxford.

Dr. Raymond J. Tesi has been President, Chief Executive Officer and acting Chief Medical Officer since the formation of INmune Bio in September 2015. From November 2011 to May 2015, Dr. Tesi was CEO, President and Acting Chief Medical Officer of FPRT Bio Inc., a development-stage biotech company formed to develop XPro1595 for the treatment of neurodegenerative disease and other inflammatory diseases. From November 2010 to October 2011, Dr. Tesi was Chief Medical Officer of Adienne SRL, an emerging biotech company in Bergamo, Italy focused on products to treat patients with hematologic malignancy. From June 2007 to September 2010, Dr. Tesi was CEO and President of Coronado Biosciences, a company he founded. Dr. Tesi received his M.D. from Washington University School of Medicine in 1982. Dr. Tesi has been a licensed physician since 1982 and Fellow of the American College of Surgery since 1991.

Dr. Matthew Bio is President & CEO at Snapdragon Chemistry. Matthew began his career in chemistry more than 20 years ago developing continuous processes for the manufacture and purification of acrylates at the former Rohm & Haas company. Matthew then moved to Columbia University and earned a PhD in Chemistry. Upon graduating, Matthew returned to industry as a process development chemist at Merck Research Laboratories. In 2006 Matthew moved to Amgen where he worked on the development of both batch and continuous processes, and drove innovation in technologies for the manufacture of synthetic – biologic hybrid molecules. In 2015, Matthew joined Snapdragon Chemistry, Inc., a contract development firm specialized in the design of continuous manufacturing technology. Throughout his career, Matthew has been involved in the development of more than 50 clinical candidates and the launch of three new drugs to the market. He is author or inventor on more than 30 peer reviewed publications and patents and numerous regulatory filings. Matthew is driven by a passion for the development of new technologies in organic synthesis to enable safer, more efficient processes and providing access to new chemical architectures.

Alexander Titus is the Founder of Bioeconomy.XYZ and the Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) at the Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute (ARMI), where his career focuses on the intersection of technology and public benefit, with experience spanning the private and public sectors, as well as non-profits and academia. In previous roles, Alexander was the inaugural Assistant Director (AD) for Biotechnology within the Office of the CTO at the Department of Defense (DoD). As the AD for Biotechnology, Alexander was the DASD-level senior executive in charge of the DoD’s enterprise strategy for biotechnology, where he led the team developing the biotechnology modernization roadmap for the DoD. Alexander joined the DoD from McKinsey & Company, where he was a management consultant and a member of the inaugural cohort of Defense & Security Specialists working with the national security community on high-priority issues related to organization effectiveness, leadership, and analytics. On the technical side, Alexander is a trained data scientist with an expertise at the intersection of AI and biology. Prior to consulting, Alexander was a data scientist at the venture capital firm In-Q-Tel, as a member of their B. Next group, as well as a data scientist at Amazon on the Alexa AI team and at Dartmouth in the Geisel School of Medicine. Alexander holds a PhD in Quantitative Biomedical Sciences from the Guarini School of Graduate and Advanced Studies at Dartmouth, as well as a BS and BA in biochemistry and biology (respectively) from the University of Puget Sound.

James Burns, PhD, Chief Executive Officer, Locanabio James (Jim) Burns, Ph.D., joined Locanabio in December 2019 as CEO and Board member. Prior to joining Locanabio, Dr. Burns served as the CEO of Casebia Therapeutics and led the team in discovering and developing new CRISPR/Cas9-based breakthrough therapeutics to treat blood disorders, blindness and auto-immune disease. Prior to Casebia, Dr. Burns spent the bulk of his career at Sanofi-Genzyme, where he held several leadership roles with increasing responsibility, including North America Site Head for R&D where he coordinated R&D operations across key therapeutic areas, and head of Sanofi-Genzyme R&D. Dr. Burns is a former board member of MassBio, a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and a member of the External Advisory Committee for the BioMedical Engineering Department at Boston University. He also served as the industry representative for the Food and Drug Administration General Plastic Surgery Panel. Dr. Burns earned a Bachelor of Science degree in biology from Purdue University and Master of Science and Doctorate degrees in bioengineering from the University of Illinois-Chicago, where his thesis work focused on drug delivery. Following his graduate studies, he was a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Florida. Kathie Bishop, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer, Locanabio Kathie M. Bishop, Ph.D., joined Locanabio in August 2019 as CSO. Dr. Bishop has 20 years’ experience in leading translational research and drug development, with a focus on novel therapeutics in neurological and rare diseases. She was previously CSO at Otonomy, where she led preclinical and clinical development of a pipeline of neurotology programs. Before that, she was CSO of Tioga Pharmaceuticals. From 2009 to 2015, Dr. Bishop served in various product development management roles at Ionis Pharmaceuticals including Vice President, Clinical Development. At Ionis, she led translation and development of multiple programs in the neurology franchise including leading the development and clinical trials for SPINRAZA™ (nusinersen), the first approved treatment for patients with spinal muscular atrophy and winner of the 2017 Prix Galien Award. Dr. Bishop also served in research and development leadership roles from to 2001 to 2009 at Ceregene, a company focused on the development of AAV-based gene therapy products for the treatment of neurodegenerative and retinal disorders. She conducted post-doctoral work at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Alberta.

Seth Lederman is a physician, scientist and founder and executive officer of innovative biopharmaceuticals companies. Prior to founding Tonix, among the companies Dr. Lederman founded was Targent Pharmaceuticals, which developed late-stage oncology drugs, including pure-isomer levofolinic acid (levoleucovorin). Targent’s assets were sold to Spectrum Pharmaceuticals, which marketed levoleucovorin as Fusilev® for advanced colorectal cancer, where it gained significant market acceptance. Dr. Lederman served as an Associate Professor at Columbia University from 1996 until April 13, 2017. He joined the faculty of Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1985, became Assistant Professor of Medicine in 1988, and Associate Professor with tenure in 1996 and Director of the Laboratory of Molecular Immunology in 1997. From 1988 to 2002, Dr. Lederman directed basic science research at Columbia in molecular immunology, infectious diseases and the development of therapeutics for autoimmune diseases. Dr. Lederman is author of numerous scientific articles, and inventor of technologies recognized by a number of issued patents. His fundamental work on the CD40-Ligand (CD154) elucidated the molecular basis of T cell helper function and has led to the development of therapeutic candidates for autoimmune diseases and organ transplant rejection in collaboration with Biogen and UCB. The successful defense of his CD154 patents has led to important precedents in defining the relationship of therapeutics and molecular targets. In collaboration with Prof. David Baltimore (then at Rockefeller University and later MIT), Dr. Lederman identified and functionally characterized the CD40 signaling molecule, TRAF-3. His early work on HIV contributed to the understanding of how the V3 loop of HIV gp120 was involved in fusion with CD4 cell membranes, an early and essential event in viral entry and infection. In addition to his research, Dr. Lederman served as attending physician in the Edward Daniels Arthritis and Autoimmunity Clinic on the Medical Service at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital from 1988-1996. Dr. Lederman represented U.S. Biotechnology at a Beijing Summit in September 2015 with China’s President Xi Jinping. The Summit was organized by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and involved a delegation of U.S. CEOs, former U.S. Cabinet officials and leading academic experts. Dr. Lederman earned an AB from Princeton in Chemistry cum laude in 1979 and an MD from Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1983. Dr. Lederman trained in internal medicine and rheumatology at Columbia's Presbyterian Hospital. He was an NIH Physician-Scientist 1985-1990 at Columbia.

Victor Hanson-Smith is the Head of Computational Biology at Verge Genomics and is one of the world's leaders in mathematical modeling of eukaryotic genome evolution and function. He has co-authored 13 publications in peer-reviewed journals such as Nature and Science, and his work has been featured in the NYTimes and The Washington Post. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Oregon, and completed an NIH post-doctoral research fellowship in Evolutionary Genomics at UCSF. Additionally, he is a full-stack software engineer with 17 years experience building web applications, supercomputing simulations, and genomics pipelines.