RESILIENCE - Key Persons
Alex joined Resilience from Genentech, where he was Vice President, Head of Business Development for Genentech Research and Early Development (gRED). In this capacity Alex drove therapeutic, platform technology, and personalized healthcare transactions in support of gRED's ambitions to expand its modality expertise, augment computational and data science capabilities and to grow pipeline in regenerative and curative therapies. Prior to Genentech, Alex held business development leadership roles at Merck Research Labs and the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research. Earlier in his career, Alex was a co-founder of Zafgen and DARA Biosciences, served as Director of Business Development in the Office of Technology Development at the Harvard Medical School and as a consultant in L.E.K.'s Life Sciences Practice. Alex received his PhD from UCSF in cell biology and biochemistry.
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- Professor, MIT, Technical Advisory Board Chair
- Robert T. Haslam Professor Emeritus
- Technical Advisory Board Chair
Charles L. Cooney is Robert T. Haslam Professor Emeritus in the MIT Department of Chemical Engineering. Cooney obtained his bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and his master's degree and PhD degree in Biochemical Engineering from MIT. After working briefly at the Squibb Institute for Medical Research, he joined the faculty of MIT as an Assistant Professor in 1970 and has been a full Professor since 1982. He has received the 1989 Gold Medal of the Institute of Biotechnological Studies (London); the Food, Pharmaceutical and Bioengineering Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers; and the James Van Lanen Distinguished Service Award from the American Chemical Society's Division of Microbial and Biochemical Technology, and was elected to the American Institute of Medical and Biochemical Engineers. He serves as a consultant to and/or director of a number of biotech and pharmaceutical companies and is on several boards of professional journals.
Job Titles:
- President and CEO of in - Q - Tel
Christopher Darby has served as President and CEO of In-Q-Tel since September 2006. He is also a member of its Board of Trustees. In January 2019, Chris was nominated as a Commissioner on the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence. He is also a Director on the Board of the CIA Officers Memorial Foundation.
Prior to joining In-Q-Tel, Chris was a Vice President and General Manager at Intel, where he oversaw the Middleware Products Division. At Intel, Chris had responsibility for the corporation's Infrastructure Software business, including open source and commercial products. He joined Intel in August 2005 with the acquisition of Sarvega, a venture-backed supplier of XML networking and security products, where he served as President and CEO.
Prior to Sarvega, Chris was the Chairman and CEO of @stake, the well-known Internet security consulting firm ultimately acquired by Symantec (SYMC). While at @stake, he assembled the world's leading collection of security researchers and built a business that spanned North America and Europe.
Before that, Chris served as President and CEO of Interpath Communications, which was later acquired by US Internetworking (USIX). Earlier in his career, he held several executive positions at Digital Equipment Corporation (now Hewlett-Packard) and Northern Telecom (now Nortel Networks) with responsibility for telecom industry sales initiatives, corporate strategy, and alliances. Chris began his career at Bell Northern Research.
He is a graduate of the University of Western Ontario.
Job Titles:
- CEO of the Ignited Company
- CEO, Ignited Group, Former CEO, J & J McNeil
Denice Torres is CEO of The Ignited Company change management firm and Founder of The Mentoring Place, an organization dedicated to helping women advance in their careers. She has over 25 years of management and P&L experience in pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and consumer healthcare. She served as president for several multi-billion-dollar Johnson & Johnson companies including Janssen Pharmaceuticals, CNS, and J&J Consumer Healthcare. Denice was also chief strategy and transformation officer for the medical device sector. Denice is credited for successfully leading and transforming the Tylenol company through an unprecedented time period marked by product recalls, manufacturing challenges, and a consent decree. She was named the Healthcare Businesswoman of the Year in 2015.
Prior to joining J&J, Denice had a highly successful, 14-year career at Lilly where she served in leadership roles of increasing responsibility including executive director for women's health and head of global marketing for a multi-billion portfolio.
Denice has served on multiple boards and is currently a director of bluebird bio (Blue). She holds an M.B.A. from the University of Michigan, a J.D. from Indiana University, and a B.S. in Psychology from Ball State. She is a member of the Michigan Bar Association.
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- Chief Scientific Strategy Officer, the Children 's Hospital of Philadelphia, Scientific Advisory Board Chair
- Co - Founder of Spark Therapeutics
- Director of the Raymond G. Perelman Center for Cellular
- Professor
- Scientific Advisory Board Chair
Dr. Beverly L. Davidson is Director of The Raymond G. Perelman Center for Cellular and Molecular Therapeutics, the Chief Scientific Strategy Officer, and holds the Arthur V. Meigs Chair in Pediatrics at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. She is also Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Dr. Davidson received her B.S. in Biology from the Nebraska Wesleyan University, and her Ph.D. in Biological Chemistry from the University of Michigan.
Dr. Davidson is a co-founder of Spark Therapeutics and Talee Bio, and serves on the Scientific Advisory Boards of Sarepta Therapeutics, Homology Medicines, Prevail Therapeutics and Intellia Therapeutics.
Professor Davidson's research is focused on inherited genetic diseases that cause central nervous system dysfunction, with a focus on (1) recessive, childhood onset neurodegenerative disease, in particular the lysosomal storage diseases such as the Mucopolysaccharidoses and Batten's disease; and (2) dominant genetic diseases; for example, the CAG repeat disorders (Huntington's disease (HD) and Spinocerebellar ataxia), and (3), understanding how noncoding RNAs participate in neural development and neurodegenerative diseases processes. Her research on childhood onset neurodegenerative diseases is focused on experiments to better understand the biochemistry and cell biology of proteins deficient in these disorders, and to develop gene and small molecule based medicines for therapy. In recent work, her group demonstrated that the application of recombinant viral vectors to animal models of storage disease reversed CNS deficits.
Professor Davidson has been awarded the 2009 Mathilde Solowey Award (NIH), the 2011 J.J. Armond Lecturer (AANP), the 2011 Presidential Lecture (UIowa), the 2012 Carver College of Medicine Faculty Service Award (UIowa) and the University of Iowa Innovator Award (2012), the 2014 Chair, Electorate Nominating Committee, Medical Sciences Section (AAAS), appointed to the National Advisory Council, NINDS (2014-2018); 2015 appointee to Scientific Advisory Boards of the Huntington Study Group and the Medical Research Advisory Board of the National Ataxia Foundation. In 2017 she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, was appointed a member of the International Selection Committee for the 2018 Bower Award and Prize for Achievement in Science at the Franklin Institute, and was invited to join the Packard Center Board of Advisors at Johns Hopkins University. In 2018, Dr. Davidson was elected to the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. She also received the F.E. Bennett Memorial Lectureship Award from the American Neurological Association in October 2018. In 2019 Dr. Davidson was the Chair of a Gordon Research Conference on Lysosomal Storage Diseases.
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- Board Advisor
- General Partner at GV, Board Advisor
Dr. David Schenkein is a general partner at GV, where he co-leads the life science investment team. Previously, Dr. Schenkein spent ten years as chief executive officer and a member of the board of directors at Agios Pharmaceuticals, where he remains executive chairman.
Dr. Schenkein has been a hematologist and medical oncologist for 30 years. He currently serves as an adjunct attending physician in hematology at Tufts Medical Center. Prior to joining Agios, Dr. Schenkein was the senior vice president, clinical hematology/oncology at Genentech, where he was responsible for numerous successful oncology drug approvals and leading the medical and scientific strategies for their BioOncology portfolio. While at Genentech, he served as an adjunct clinical professor of medical oncology at Stanford University School of Medicine.
Prior to joining Genentech, he served as the senior vice president of clinical research at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, overseeing the clinical development and worldwide approval of Velcade, a first-in-class cancer therapy now approved to treat multiple myeloma and non-Hodgkins lymphoma. He serves on the board of directors of bluebird bio and Denali Therapeutics.
Dr. Schenkein holds a B.A. in chemistry from Wesleyan University and an M.D. from the State University of New York Upstate Medical School.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Professor of Chemical Engineering
Dr. Frances Arnold is the Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry at the California Institute of Technology.
Dr. Arnold pioneered directed enzyme evolution, for which she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2018; she has used directed evolution to solve problems in alternative energy, chemicals, and medicine. Dr. Arnold received the Charles Stark Draper Prize of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering in 2011, the U.S. National Medal of Technology and Innovation from President Obama in 2013, and the Millennium Technology Prize in 2016. She has been elected to the U.S. National Academies of Science, Medicine, and Engineering and was appointed to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 2019. She co-founded three companies in sustainable chemistry and renewable energy (Gevo, Provivi, Aralez Bio) and serves on several private and public company boards, including Alphabet and Illumina.
Dr. Arnold earned a B.S. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder & President, 8VC Co - Founder Affinity
- Co - Founder and President of 8VC
Drew Oetting is co-founder and President of 8VC, where he oversees the internal company incubation efforts in addition to investing. He is a co-founder of Affinity Technologies. Previously Drew served as a partner at Formation 8, and started his career as Chief of Staff to Joe Lonsdale. Drew serves on the Competitiveness Council for Cerberus Capital Management. He is also a Trustee to LivingOnOne, a non-profit impact production studio; WeAreThorn, a NGO which leverages technology to eliminate child trafficking; and the Claremont McKenna College Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
Drew graduated with degrees in Mathematics and Economics from Claremont McKenna College. He was a Robert Day Scholar, two-time Bill Gates Investment Asset Management Fellow, and served as CEO of the Student Investment Fund. In college he played varsity golf and sang in The Claremont Shades a capella group. Drew is originally from Iowa City, Iowa.
Job Titles:
- Chief Digital Officer
- Ex - Physician / Scientist / Engineer
Elliot is an ex-physician/scientist/engineer turned repeat founder/CxO, executive and startup investor. At Resilience he's responsible for all things digital including infrastructure, applications/tools/informatics, information security, data science, and software engineering.
Most recently, Elliot was at Amazon Web Services (Amazon's cloud computing arm) where he founded and led the company's industry specialization initiative for the worldwide startup ecosystem. He and his team were responsible for putting Amazon's people, technology, best practices and relationships to work alongside investors and their portfolio companies to accelerate scientific, engineering and commercial efforts in specific domains (biotech, healthtech, medtech, fintech, gametech, machine learning, artificial intelligence). In this capacity, he worked directly with hundreds of biotech customers from conception to exit at the intersection of cloud, data science, biology and chemistry.
Prior to joining Amazon, Elliot was Managing Partner at Dreamit Ventures, where he founded and led its healthcare and life science practice. In partnership with industry leaders (e.g. Johns Hopkins, Penn Medicine, Independence Blue Cross, and Kaiser Permanente), he sourced and seeded over 40 startups and worked alongside them to get to market with first customers and strategic partners.
Elliot was previously the founder and CEO of HxTechnologies, an early player in health information exchange which he sold in 2009 to Health Care Service Corporation (owner/operator of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas, Illinois, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Montana). Post-acquisition, he served as general manager at their health IT subsidiary, MEDecision, with responsibility for launching and running its provider-facing business. Outside of healthcare, Elliot co-founded and ran Venturef0rth, one of the first co-working spaces in Philadelphia, which he sold in 2014.
Elliot has also served on the University of Pennsylvania faculty, teaching science and engineering students how to launch and operate tech startups.
Elliot earned MD and PhD degrees at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School doing computational neuroscience research on Alzheimer's disease and memory function, specializing in massively parallel simulations of biophysically realistic neurons and anatomically inspired networks. Earlier, he attended Johns Hopkins earning MSEE and BSE degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering following work in chip design.
George Barrett is the former chairman and chief executive officer of Cardinal Health, a role he held from August 2009 through end-2017, when he became executive chairman of the board until November 2018. Previously, Barrett was president and CEO of Teva Pharmaceutical's North American business and corporate executive vice president for global pharmaceuticals.
Barrett serves on the boards of Target Corporation, Olive, a healthcare-focused artificial intelligence company, and on the advisory board of InStride, a public-benefit corporation that provides workforce education. Additionally, Barrett serves on the boards of Nationwide Children's Hospital, the Children's Hospitals' Solutions for Patient Safety, and on the National Academy of Medicine's President's Advisory Council on Healthy Longevity. He is vice chair of the board of trustees of The Conference Board, and previously served on the board of Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
Barrett earned his Bachelor degree from Brown University, and an MBA from New York University. He is Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University, a trustee emeritus of Brown University, and a frequent speaker on leadership and healthcare.
Job Titles:
- Chief Quality Officer
- Leader
Georgeta Puscalau is an accomplished leader with experience in the biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and chemical industries.
She has successfully combined technical, quality, regulatory, and project management expertise during the product development lifecycle through the commercialization phase. She has a proven record with building and leading high-performance teams and compliant GXP systems. Her specialties include - Quality Assurance, Quality Systems, Quality Control, Consent Decree Remediation, Global Regulatory Applications, Project Management, and Chemical Manufacturing.
Georgeta has extensive work experience with increasing responsibilities in the biopharma sector. Her most recent role was Vice President Quality at BMS/Celgene/Juno Therapeutics. She has a Chemical Engineering degree from Gh. Asachi Technical University (Iasi, Romania).
Job Titles:
- Allen & Co, Former United States Senator
- Managing Director at Allen & Company
From 2001 to 2011 Mr. Kerrey was President of The New School, a university founded on democratic ideals and daring educational practices. On his watch, The New School experienced unprecedented growth in enrollment, faculty, scholarships, capital projects, research, and international engagement.
From 1989 to 2001 Mr. Kerrey represented Nebraska in the Senate, where he promoted equity for rural communities, led in farm and environmental legislation, strengthened taxpayers' rights, led in restructuring our intelligence agencies, and partnered with local leaders to build projects of lasting value to Nebraskans.
His public service since leaving the Senate includes: the 9/11 Commission, advisory board of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans Association, co-chair of the Concord Coalition, and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Prior to his Senate service, Mr. Kerrey served one term as Nebraska's Governor. Before entering politics, he was a businessman who helped build a chain of restaurants and health clubs employing over 1000 people.
Mr. Kerrey served as a U.S. Navy SEAL during the Vietnam War. For his service, he received the Medal of Honor. While in Vietnam, he was wounded, permanently disabled, and received from this injury a great gift: sympathy for those who are suffering and an appreciation for the capacity of government to save your life.
Mr. Kerrey earned a BS degree in Pharmacy from the University of Nebraska.
Bob Kerrey is Managing Director at Allen & Company. He is also Executive Chairman of the Minerva Institute for Research and Scholarship, supporting The Minerva Project, an exceptional liberal arts and sciences education.
Job Titles:
- Independent Consultant
- HR Executive
- HR Leader
Kaye Foster is currently an independent consultant, working with CEOs and leadership teams focusing on business transformations, talent management strategy and Human Resources strategy development and implementation. She serves as a Senior Advisor to the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and is a guest lecturer at Columbia University Graduate School of Business and Stanford University Graduate School of Business.
Kaye joined Onyx from Johnson & Johnson where she served as Vice President of Global Human Resources, and a member of the Executive Committee. In that role, she led the global Human Resources organization, and also served as a member of the Management Compensation Committee and the Pension Committee, partnering with the chair of the Compensation Committee of the Johnson & Johnson outside Board of Directors. Prior to Johnson & Johnson, she held several Human Resources executive positions with Pfizer Inc. supporting its pharmaceutical businesses in Japan, Asia, Africa, Middle East and Latin America, and she led the integration of both the Warner-Lambert and Pharmacia mergers for these countries.
Kaye received her undergraduate degree from the City University of New York, Baruch College, and an MBA from the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University in New York City.
Job Titles:
- Chief People Officer
- Global Human Resources Executive
Mara Strandlund is a global Human Resources executive with deep experience in linking data-driven people strategies with business demands to solve for complex talent, scaling, inclusion and cultural challenges in rapidly changing markets including cloud computing, ecommerce, healthcare, academia, distribution, gaming, aerospace, oil, and construction. Her experience leading large-scale teams has spanned across 6 continents (missing Antarctica) and extended beyond HR in leading big data research, product development, and customer training teams. Outside of Resilience, she is an active volunteer supporting veterans transitioning back into the workforce and ensuring that the Internet is a positive force for good that improves the well-being of people around the world. She received her undergraduate and MBA degrees from the University of Chicago and is a certified Coach, Compensation Professional and Six Sigma expert.
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- Doctor
- Founding Chair
Mark McClellan, M.D., Ph.D., is the Robert J. Margolis Professor of Business, Medicine, and Policy, and founding Director of the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy at Duke University.
Dr. McClellan is a doctor and an economist whose has addressed a wide range of strategies and policy reforms to improve health care, including payment reform to promote better outcomes and lower costs, methods for development and use of real-world evidence, and strategies for more effective biomedical innovation.
At the center of the nation's efforts to combat the pandemic, Dr. McClellan is the co-author of a roadmap that details the steps needed for a comprehensive COVID-19 response and safe reopening of our country. His current work on responding to the COVID-19 public health emergency spans virus containment and testing strategies, reforming health care toward more resilient models of delivering care, and accelerating the development of therapeutics and vaccines.
Before coming to Duke, he served as a Senior Fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, where he was Director of the Health Care Innovation and Value Initiatives and led the Richard Merkin Initiative on Payment Reform and Clinical Leadership. He also has a highly distinguished record in public service and academic research.
Dr. McClellan is a former administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), where he developed and implemented major reforms in health policy. These include the Medicare prescription drug benefit, Medicare and Medicaid payment reforms, the FDA's Critical Path Initiative, and public-private initiatives to develop better information on the quality and cost of care. He has also previously served as a member of the President's Council of Economic Advisers and senior director for health care policy at the White House, and as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy at the Department of the Treasury.
Dr. McClellan is the founding chair and a Senior Advisor of the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the FDA, serves on the ICER Advisory Board, and is a member of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM). He chairs the NAM's Leadership Council for Value and Science-Driven Health Care, co-chairs the Guiding Committee of the Health Care Payment Learning and Action Network, and is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is also a Senior Advisor on the faculty of the University of Texas Dell Medical School and is an independent director on the boards of Johnson & Johnson, Cigna, Alignment Healthcare, and PrognomIQ. He was previously an associate professor of economics and medicine with tenure at Stanford University, and has twice received the Kenneth Arrow Award for Outstanding Research in Health Economics.
Job Titles:
- President, Purdue University, Former Governor of Indiana
Governor Mitchell Daniels was elected Governor of Indiana in 2004. He spearheaded a host of reforms aimed at improving the performance of state government. These changes and a strong emphasis on performance measurement have led to many state agencies, including the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, Department of Child Services and Department of Correction winning national awards.
In 2005, he led the state to its first balanced budget in eight years and, without a tax increase, transformed the nearly $800 million deficit he inherited into an annual surplus of $370 million within a year. Governor Daniels' innovations include the 2006 lease of the Indiana Toll Road. This is the largest privatization of public infrastructure in the United States and generated nearly $4 billion for Major Moves, the state's record-breaking 10-year transportation and infrastructure program.
Daniels first became interested in public service while serving as chief of staff to Senator Richard Lugar. He has also served as a senior advisor to President Ronald Reagan and Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President George W. Bush.
Daniels also comes from a successful career in business, holding numerous top management positions. From 1987-1990, Daniels served as the CEO of the Hudson Institute. In 1990, he accepted a position at Eli Lilly and Company, the largest corporation headquartered in Indiana at that time, and eventually held the role of president of the company's North American Pharmaceutical Operations. Daniels also serves on the corporate boards of Cerner Corporation and Interactive Intelligence.
In recognition of his leadership both as Governor and as president of Purdue University, Fortune Magazine named President Daniels to its list of the top 50 world leaders in March 2015. In June 2016, he was named a Living Legend by the Indiana Historical Society.
Most recently, Ori Solomon was Co-Chair of the firmwide Emerging Companies and Venture Capital practice at Morrison & Foerster LLP in Boston, MA where he was a founding partner of the Boston office and also served as the Hiring Partner.
For over 20 years, Ori has provided general corporate representation to a wide range of companies, from start-ups and emerging growth companies to large public companies, in a variety of industries, primarily life sciences and technology. His transaction-based practice focused primarily on representing emerging companies and their investors in a variety of venture and growth equity financings, mergers and acquisitions, capital markets transactions, licensing and collaboration arrangements, joint ventures and other strategic matters.
Ori also represented venture capital funds in a wide range of transactions, including investments in portfolio companies and secondary direct transactions. He also has significant experience in public and private corporate finance transactions, including registered equity offerings, PIPEs and other alternative financing transactions, and regularly advised public company clients with respect to corporate governance issues, board of directors matters, SEC periodic reporting and other securities law compliance, proxy statements and annual meetings, disclosure controls and procedures, and Sarbanes-Oxley and other related matters.
Ori started his career at Proskauer Rose LLP in New York, NY in 1998 and transferred to Proskauer's Boston office in 2011 to lead their private equity and M&A practice in the New England area.
Ori has a J.D. from the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law, and an Honors in Business Administration from the Ivey Business School at Western University in London, Ontario.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Member of the Executive Team
- Vice Chairman
- Vice Chairman, Former EVP Juno, Roche, Genentech
Dr. Pat Yang is one of the most accomplished biotech manufacturing executives and technical operations leaders in the industry.
Pat is a member of the Board of Directors of three public companies, Amyris, Codexis and PharmaEssentia. In addition, he is on the board of several private companies, including Acepodia, AltruBio, Antheia and Sana Biotechnology.
Job Titles:
- CEO
- Co - Founder
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Member of the Executive Team
- Global Leader
Rahul Singhvi is a global leader in the Life Sciences industry and serves as the Chief Executive Officer of National Resilience, Inc.
Most recently, Rahul was an Operating Partner at Flagship Pioneering, a Boston-based life sciences innovation firm where he was responsible for founding and operating companies launched from Flagship's innovation foundry, Flagship labs. Before joining Flagship, Rahul was the Chief Operating Officer of Takeda's Vaccine Business Unit where he was responsible for worldwide vaccine CMC and manufacturing operations. During his six-year tenure at Takeda, the vaccine business grew to over 500 employees and created an industry leading late-stage pipeline of vaccine candidates against dengue, norovirus, and zika. Before Takeda, Rahul was President and CEO of Novavax, Inc. (Nasdaq: NVAX) where he transformed the company from a specialty pharmaceutical business to a vaccine development company with vaccine candidates against influenza (funded by BARDA) and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Rahul's professional career began at Merck & Co in 1994, where he held several positions in R&D and manufacturing.
Rahul serves on the Executive Advisory Board of the Leonard Davis Institute (LDI) of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania and on the Scientific Advisory Board of the anti-microbial resistance research group at the Singapore MIT Advance Research and Technology program. He is a mentor instructor in the Undergraduate Projects Opportunity Program (UPOP) at MIT and is a visiting lecturer at the University College London (UCL).
Dr. Singhvi graduated as the top ranked chemical engineer from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India and obtained both his M.S. and Sc.D. chemical engineering degrees from MIT. He received an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated as a Palmer Scholar.
Rich Stoner is a serial entrepreneur at the intersection of engineering and biology.
Most recently, Rich was the Chief Scientific Officer at Synthego, a venture-backed CRISPR genome engineering startup based in the Bay Area where he led the development of guide RNA manufacturing systems, as well as advanced CRISPR design tools and analysis software. While there, Rich defined the company's scientific vision and built a vibrant research organization, leading a team of multidisciplinary engineers and scientists to build the next generation of automated cell engineering tools.
Prior to Synthego, Rich started and advised numerous Bay Area and San Diego-based startups while pursuing an academic path in parallel. As a postdoctoral fellow at UC San Diego he studied early biomarkers for Autism Spectrum Disorders. Among other projects, Rich built cloud-scale MRI analysis pipelines, published on neuroanatomical pathologies of Autism, and developed novel eye tracking software systems for early screening and intervention. Around the same time, he launched and sold WholeSlide Inc., a mobile software platform to visualize high resolution digital pathology images and led the development on over a dozen technical programs and collaborations at top-tier research institutions, including MIT, Emory and the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Rich obtained a Ph.D. in Biomedical engineering from the University of Pittsburgh with an emphasis in neural engineering. His work centered around microfluidic cell culture platforms and computational models of synaptic plasticity.
Rich has been writing software for over twenty-five years and is constantly trying to find ways to bring technologies from disparate fields together to solve problems. He loves going from zero to one. Don't ask him about two.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Chairman, Resilience Founder ARCH
- Director of Vir Biotechnology
Robert Nelsen is among the most successful biotechnology investors globally. His efforts have helped propel ARCH to be one of the top early-stage biotech venture groups. He joined ARCH at its founding and played a significant role in the early sourcing, financing, and development of more than 100 companies, including thirty that have reached valuations exceeding $1 billion. His seed and early-stage investments include Illumina (ILMN), Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (ALNY), Juno Therapeutics (JUNO, acquired by Celgene-CELG now BMS), Beam Therapeutics (BEAM), Karuna Therapeutics (KRTX), Array BioPharma (ARRY, acquired by Pfizer-PFE), Unity Biotechnology (UBX), Hua Medicine (2552:HK), Vir Biotechnology (VIR), Agios Pharmaceuticals (AGIO), Sage Therapeutics (SAGE), CStone Pharmaceuticals (2616:HK), Gossamer Bio (GOSS), Ikaria (acquired by Mallinckrodt-MNK), Kythera Biopharmaceuticals (KYTH, acquired by Allergan-AGN now ABBV), Receptos (RCPT, acquired by Celgene-CELG now BMS), Aviron (AVIR, acquired by MedImmune-MEDI now AZNCF), Denali Therapeutics (DNLI), Rubius Therapeutics (RUBY), Syros Pharmaceuticals (SYRS), Sana Biotechnology, Lyell Immunopharma, GRAIL, Nutcracker Therapeutics, Bit Bio, Brii Biosciences, Happy Healthcare, Insitro, Maze Therapeutics, Encoded Therapeutics, Encodia, EQRx, Mindstrong, Omniome, Prime Medicine, RBNC Therapeutics, KSQ Therapeutics, SciNeuro Pharmaceuticals, Singular Genomics, Sironax, Sonoma Biotherapeutics, Transcenta Holding, Verve Therapeutics, Volastra Therapeutics, NetBot (acquired by Excite), Bluebird Bio (BLUE), R2 Technology (acquired by Hologic-HOLX), Genomica (GNOM, acquired by Exelixis-EXEL), XenoPort (XNPT, acquired by Arbor Pharmaceuticals), Fate Therapeutics (FATE), Caliper Life Sciences (CALP, acquired by Perkin Elmer-PKI), Trubion Pharmaceuticals (TRBN, acquired by Emergent Biosolutions-EBS), Adolor (ADLR, acquired by Cubist Pharmaceuticals-CBST now MRK), deCODE Genetics (acquired by Amgen-AMGN), Editas (EDIT), 10x Genomics, Semma Therapeutics (acquired by Vertex Pharmaceuticals-VRTX), IDUN Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Pfizer-PFE), Classmates.com (acquired by United Online-UNTD), and Everyday Learning Corporation (acquired by Tribune Corp. now NXST).
Mr. Nelsen is a director of Vir Biotechnology, GRAIL, Sana Biotechnology, Beam Therapeutics, Unity Biotechnology, Denali Therapeutics, and serves as Chairman of Hua Medicine, among others. He previously served as a Trustee of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Institute, the Institute for Systems Biology, and was a director of the National Venture Capital Association. Mr. Nelsen holds an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago and a B.S. from the University of Puget Sound with majors in Economics and Biology.
Job Titles:
- CFO
- COO
- Member of the Executive Team
- President
- Chief Financial Officer and Chief Business Officer of Sarepta Therapeutics
Sandy Mahatme was most recently the Chief Financial Officer and Chief Business Officer of Sarepta Therapeutics, from Nov 2012 through July 2020, where he headed Sarepta's finance, business development, technical operations, facilities, IT and investor and public relations functions. During his tenure Sarepta's employee base grew from around 100 to over 700 employees, its pipeline from nine to over 40 programs in various stages of development, and its footprint of a single location in Cambridge, Massachusetts to over a dozen locations across the U.S. and around the world. Sandy played an instrumental role in this growth, and he's personally led a number of Sarepta's strategic manufacturing deals.
From January 2006 to November 2012, Sandy worked at Celgene Corporation, a biopharmaceutical company, where he served in various roles, including senior vice president of corporate development, senior vice president of finance, corporate treasurer, and head of tax. While at Celgene, Sandy built the treasury and tax functions before establishing the corporate development department focused on strategic, targeted initiatives including commercial development in emerging markets, acquisitions and licensing, and global manufacturing expansion. Prior to working at Celgene, Sandy worked for Pfizer for eight and a half years in senior roles in business development and corporate tax. Sandy started his career at Ernst & Young, where he advised multinational corporations on a broad range of transactions. Sandy holds Master of Laws (LL.M.) degrees from Cornell Law School and New York University School of Law and is a member of the New York State Bar Association. Sandy is also a member of the Boards of Directors of biopharmaceutical companies Idorsia Pharmaceuticals, Aeglea BioTherapeutics, and Flexion Therapeutics.
Job Titles:
- Physician
- Partner, NEA, Former Commissioner, FDA
Scott Gottlieb is a physician and served as the 23rd Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Dr. Gottlieb's work focuses on advancing public health through developing and implementing innovative approaches to improving medical outcomes, reshaping healthcare delivery, and expanding consumer choice and safety. He is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a partner at the venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates.
Dr. Gottlieb is an aggressive advocate for advancing the health of patients, promoting healthcare access, and driving innovation. The agency's historic and prolific advances in new policy distinguished his tenure as the FDA's commissioner, in addition to a record-setting number of approvals of novel drugs, medical devices, and generic medicines. Under his leadership, the FDA advanced new frameworks for the modern and safe and effective oversight of gene therapies, cell based regenerative medicines, targeted drugs, and digital health devices. The FDA implemented new reforms to standardize drug reviews and make historic improvements of post market data collection and the use of real-world evidence. They promoted policies to reduce death and disease from tobacco, improve food safety, and aggressively confront addiction crises.
Previously, Dr. Gottlieb served as the FDA's Deputy Commissioner for Medical and Scientific Affairs and before that, as a Senior Adviser to the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, where he helped advance policies to improve healthcare quality and promote the effective use of new medical technologies. Dr. Gottlieb is widely published in leading medical journals and periodicals, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. He has held editorial positions on the British Medical Journal and the Journal of the American Medical Association and is a regular contributor to CNBC. Fortune Magazine recognized him as one of the "World's 50 Greatest Leaders" in 2018 and again in 2019. In 2018, 2019 and again in 2020, Modern Healthcare named Dr. Gottlieb the "Most Influential Physician Executive and Leaders" in its annual survey of 50 physician executives, and Time magazine named him one of its "50 People Transforming Healthcare in 2018."
Dr. Gottlieb was a practicing hospitalist and he is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine. He lives in Westport, Connecticut with his wife and three daughters.
Susan D. Desmond-Hellmann is a physician scientist who has spent the past four decades as an innovator and leader in life sciences.
Dr. Desmond-Hellmann most recently served as the Chief Executive Officer of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, stepping down in January 2020 to become Senior Advisor and Board Member of the Gates Medical Research Institute. She joined the Board of Directors of Pfizer in April 2020 and began serving as a Senior Advisor at Google Ventures in May 2020. She has served as a Senior Advisor at BDT Capital, LLC, a private investment firm, since October, 2017. Prior to joining The Gates Foundation in May 2014, she was the Chancellor at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) from 2009-2014 where she remains an Adjunct Professor.
From 2004 through 2009, Dr. Desmond-Hellmann served as President of Product Development at Genentech, where she was responsible for pre-clinical and clinical development, business development, and product portfolio management. She joined Genentech in 1995. Prior to joining Genentech, Dr. Desmond-Hellmann was associate director of clinical cancer research at Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute. Dr. Desmond-Hellmann previously served as a member of the board of directors of Facebook 2013-2019 and The Procter & Gamble Company 2010-2016. Dr. Desmond-Hellmann holds a B.S. in Pre-Med and an M.D. from the University of Nevada, Reno, and an M.P.H. from the University of California, Berkeley. She is board certified in Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology.
Syed Husain serves as Chief Commercial Officer of Resilience. He joins the organization with a 20+ years proven track record of strategic management, go-to-market innovation and industry disruption. He is a growth-focused leader committed to driving patient-centric outcomes.
Recently, Syed was part of the executive leadership team at Emergent BioSolutions, where he served as the senior vice president and head of the contract development and manufacturing business unit. During his time at Emergent, Syed transformed Emergent into a top-tier biologics solution provider with a unique and differentiated value proposition while significantly increasing revenue and profitability. Prior to that, he served as Chief Commercial Officer of Alcami Corporation, where he elevated the organization to be a premier, end-to-end service provider, leading to a successful private equity acquisition. Mr. Husain joined Alcami after an extensive career at Lonza where he rose within the Sales & Business Development organization to a global leadership role, delivering significant pipeline and portfolio growth. He began his career in vaccine manufacturing compliance at Wyeth and across validation, product and process development and manufacturing roles at Pfizer. Syed has established experience in devising effective global business development strategies, strengthening market and brand presence, building high-performing commercial growth organizations, aligning operational principles and financial models, and delivering strategic leadership to drive patient focus and profitable revenue growth.
Syed holds a Master of Business Administration from Cornell University's Johnson Graduate School of Management and a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Syed has served as chair of the Education Committee and on the Advisory Council for the Drug, Chemical & Associated Technologies Association and is involved in the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, Society of Biological Engineers, American Institute of Chemical Engineers and American Chemical Society.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Executive Team
- Chief Manufacturing Officer
Viet Nguyen comes to us from Merck KGA (Darmstadt, Germany) where he was most recently the Senior Vice President of Global Biotech Manufacturing. Viet has an outstanding background in biomanufacturing and an impressive track record leading a global network. He has made numerous, far-reaching contributions at Merck in his current job including the implementation of world class manufacturing model and network footprint design, transitioning manufacturing platform from low to higher titer processes, and strategy to implement continuous manufacturing platform in alignment with Merck's development pipeline. In his prior role at Merck as GM/Site Head, he successfully led the construction, licensure and launch of Merck's first manufacturing site in China. Before Merck, Viet was at Genentech for nearly 10 years where he served in various manufacturing, supply chain, quality assurance and business support leadership roles. Viet received his BS in Pharmacy from the University of Sciences in Philadelphia and is a certified Six Sigma Black Belt.