SIONNA - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
Adam was the founding chief executive officer of Sionna and is the chief executive officer of Aliada Therapeutics. He has over 20 years of experience leading biopharmaceutical companies across various stages, most recently as venture partner at RA Capital Management. He served as chief executive officer of Rodin Therapeutics until its acquisition by Alkermes in 2019. Adam was also co-founder and chief executive officer of Teleos Therapeutics and Link Medicine Corporation. He currently serves on multiple private company boards. Adam received his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law and holds a B.A. from Whittier College.
Job Titles:
- Vice President of Preclinical Safety
Alison is Sionna's Vice President of Preclinical Safety and has over 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. She is responsible for preclinical safety studies required to support the Sionna discovery and development portfolios.
Prior to Sionna, Alison spent three years at Praxis Precision Medicines where she supported multiple programs spanning early discovery and late-stage clinical development. She started her career in 2002 at AstraZeneca U.K. as an electrophysiologist within the safety pharmacology group before moving to the U.S. and advancing to a program-focused general discovery toxicology role. This was followed by four years at Biogen where she was a program toxicologist on a variety of small and large molecule programs for CNS and immunology indications.
Alison received her Ph.D. in Molecular Pharmacology from the University of Birmingham, U.K. and is a Diplomate of the American Board of Toxicology.
Job Titles:
- Vice President of Information and Technology
Andy is Vice President of Information and Technology for Sionna. He has over 25 years of experience across IT in the biopharmaceutical industry, building and scaling infrastructure with a focus on R&D. Most recently he served as Executive Director, Head of IT at H3 Biomedicine, where he established a new unified IT team, architecture and portfolio management approach.
Andy previously held various technology and business capability leadership positions with companies including Biogen, Amgen, Bristol Myers Squibb, Accenture, Hospira, and Pfizer. He earned a B.A. in Business Information Systems from Southern New Hampshire University.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Board Member to
Bruce serves as a board member to Sionna and is also a partner at Atlas Venture where he focuses on the discovery and development of novel medicines and therapeutic platforms. Currently, Bruce is chairman of Arkuda Therapeutics, AvroBio, Hotspot Therapeutics, Kymera Therapeutics, Nimbus Therapeutics, Quench Bio and Vigil Neuroscience. He also serves on the board of Magenta Therapeutics and several seed-stage companies. He previously served on the boards of past Atlas companies, including Avila (acquired by Celgene), Lysosomal Therapeutics, miRagen, Padlock (acquired by BMS), Prestwick (acquired by Biovail), Stromedix (acquired by Biogen), Rodin Therapeutics (acquired by Alkermes) and several other ventures. Bruce serves or has served as an advisor in various capacities to Takeda, UCB and the Gates Foundation. Before joining Atlas in 2005, Bruce was a consultant at McKinsey & Company, as well as an investor for Caxton Health Holdings. Bruce was a British Marshall Scholar and received a D.Phil. in molecular immunology from Oxford University. He received a B.S. in biochemistry, summa cum laude, from The Pennsylvania State University.
Job Titles:
- Chief Medical Officer
- Member of the Leadership Team
Charlotte is Sionna's Chief Medical Officer. She has over 20 years of drug development experience, most recently serving as the VP of CF and Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency Clinical Development at Vertex, where she was instrumental in bringing the CFTR modulators Trikafta/Kaftrio®, Symdeko/Symkevi® and Orkambi® to CF patients and expanding indications across the CF portfolio. Prior to Vertex she was VP and Head of Clinical Development at Infinity Pharmaceuticals after having held positions of increasing responsibility at Tolerx and Wyeth Research (now Pfizer), working across multiple therapeutic areas and modalities.
Prior to her career in industry, Charlotte was a faculty member in the pulmonary and critical care division at Brigham and Women's Hospital/Harvard Medical School where she cared for CF patients and specialized in lung transplantation and translational research. She obtained her undergraduate degree from Harvard University and her M.D. from Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, and completed internal medicine training and pulmonary and critical care fellowship at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Dr. John Lowe is a medicinal chemist who serves as a consultant to the pharmaceutical industry with a focus on drug discovery projects. He was previously a Senior Research Fellow for Pfizer Global Research & Development. Dr. Lowe was recognized with an American Chemical Society (ACS) Heroes of Chemistry Award in 2007 and was the ACS Awardee in Industrial Chemistry in 2011. He was inducted into the Medicinal Chemistry Hall of Fame in 2021. Dr. Lowe earned a B.A. in chemistry and history from Williams College, a Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry from the University of California, Los Angeles, and completed a postdoc at Stanford University.
Job Titles:
- Executive Director
- Scientific Advisor
- Professor
Dr. Mark Namchuk is the Executive Director of Therapeutics Translation and Professor of the Practice of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School. He previously served as Senior Vice President of Research and Nonclinical and Pharmaceutical Development at Alkermes. Dr. Namchuk also held leadership positions at Vertex Pharmaceuticals including SVP of Research, North America and started his biotech career at Cubist Pharmaceuticals. He earned a B.Sc. in chemistry with honors from the University of Alberta and a Ph.D. in bioorganic chemistry from the University of British Columbia. He was also a Human Frontier Science Program postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, San Francisco.
Job Titles:
- Clinical Advisor
- Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
Dr. Michael Konstan is Vice Dean for Translational Research and the Gertrude Lee Chandler Tucker Professor of Pediatrics at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and the Austin Ricci Chair in Pediatric Pulmonary Care and Research at University Hospitals Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital in Cleveland, OH. He has spent his entire professional career in the care and research of people with cystic fibrosis (CF) and has led numerous national and international clinical trials of once-novel therapies that are in use today. Dr. Konstan was the first recipient of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation's Harry Shwachman Clinical Investigator Award and also received the Richard C. Talamo Distinguished Clinical Achievement Award from the Foundation. He has authored more than 200 peer-reviewed publications, nearly all related to CF, and has served on multiple advisory boards and committees for the CF Foundation, the NIH and the FDA, all related to advancing the treatment of CF. He currently serves on the CF Foundation's Clinical Research Executive Committee.
Job Titles:
- Clinical Advisor
- Medical University of South Carolina
- Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics at the Medical University of South Carolina
Dr. Patrick Flume is a Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics at the Medical University of South Carolina. He serves as the Powers-Huggins Endowed Chair for Cystic Fibrosis and oversees a rapidly growing Cystic Fibrosis (CF) Center, including the largest adult CF program in South Carolina. Dr. Flume is recognized by the national and international CF community having served on the CF Foundation Center Committee, the Adult Care Consensus Committee, and the Advisory Task Force on Adult Issues, the Professional Education Committee, the European CF Society's Best Practices committee, and as founding co-chair of the CF Foundation's Pulmonary Practice Guidelines Committee. He co-led the International Working Group on Antimicrobial Resistance in Cystic Fibrosis, and is the Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Cystic Fibrosis.
Dr. Taiyin Yang is the former Executive Vice President of Pharmaceutical Development and Manufacturing for Gilead Sciences. She also serves on the Board of Directors for Kronos Bio and Kodiak Sciences, is a member of the Expert Scientific Advisory Committee of Medicines for Malaria Venture and was recently elected to the National Academy of Engineering. Dr. Yang was previously a director in research and development at Syntex Corporation. She earned a B.S. in chemistry from National Taiwan University and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Southern California.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Chief Financial Officer & Head of Corporate Development
Elena is Chief Financial Officer & Head of Corporate Development of Sionna. She has over 20 years of experience in finance and the life sciences industry. Most recently she served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for Acadia Pharmaceuticals where she was responsible for leading the corporate finance, accounting, investor relations, corporate affairs and government affairs functions. During her tenure at Acadia, Elena played a critical role in the organization's commercial, business development and pipeline growth including successfully raising $600 million in capital.
Prior to Acadia, Elena was Vice President, Investor Relations at Alexion Pharmaceuticals and served as a member of the Operating Committee. Additionally, Elena was Chief Executive Officer of BIOVISIO, an independent consulting firm serving the life sciences industry. She was also a Managing Director at Maverick Capital, a hedge fund, and was responsible for investments in the biotechnology, pharmaceutical and life science sectors. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of Kronos Bio, Inc. and Kymera Therapeutics, Inc. Elena received her B.A. in history and sociology of science from the University of Pennsylvania. She is also a CFA© charterholder.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder
- Co - Founder and Senior Vice President, Discovery Research
Greg is co-founder of Sionna and serves as Senior Vice President of Discovery Research. Formerly, he was the Head of Protein Conformational Diseases and Rare Pulmonary Diseases Research at Sanofi Genzyme. Greg's research has led to a novel strategy for discovering small molecules that directly address the molecular pathology of the most common cystic fibrosis-causing mutation, ∆F508-CFTR. He was the Principal Investigator for $32 million in grant funding from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Therapeutics Development Initiative to support CF drug discovery and preclinical development.
Greg also served as an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Greg received his Ph.D. in cell and molecular biology from Université Paris XI (Paris-Saclay), where he graduated summa cum laude for research performed at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Greg received a B.S. in biology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Job Titles:
- Vice President, Development Operations
Heather is the VP, Development Operations for Sionna. In this position, Heather is responsible for the clinical operations, medical writing and data management functions, providing leadership around the company's development programs.
Heather has a long track record in clinical development, with a focus on building and leading clinical operations and data management teams. Widely recognized as a leader in the space, she has been a key member of both large and small companies including Decibel Therapeutics, Infinity Pharmaceuticals, Millennium/Takeda Pharmaceuticals, Accenture (ACE), Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, Synta Pharmaceuticals and Genetics Institute. She has been part of teams submitting INDs and other regulatory applications, as well as others successfully gaining FDA approval. Heather graduated from Skidmore College with a B.A. in English.
Job Titles:
- Chief Scientific Officer
- Member of the Leadership Team
John is Chief Scientific Officer of Sionna. He brings over 35 years of drug discovery experience, having made significant contributions at Pfizer, Astra Arcus, BMS, and, most recently at Sanofi, where he was the Global Head of Integrated Drug Discovery. John has led teams that have progressed more than 25 compounds into clinical development.
He is a co-inventor of numerous compounds that achieved clinical success and ultimate regulatory approval, and has contributed to over 560 publications, US-issued patents, and external presentations. John was awarded the 2009 Scarborough Award in Medicinal Chemistry, the 2014 Alfred Burger Award in Medicinal Chemistry, the 2019 Smissman Award, and the 2020 IUPAC-Richter Prize. He is an ACS Fellow (2011) and is an inductee in the MEDI Hall of Fame (2014). John obtained a B.S. from the University of Notre Dame and a Ph.D. from Princeton University, both in chemistry.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Board Member to
Josh serves as a board member to Sionna and is a managing director at RA Capital Management. In his role as managing director, his primary focus is leading early-stage private investments and overseeing the creation of new companies developing drugs, medical devices, diagnostics and research tools. He has more than 15 years of experience in investing, company formation and company leadership across all stages of drug development, from discovery through commercialization. Josh was previously co-lead of SV Health Investors' U.S. biotech practice where he was responsible for SV's U.S. venture creation activities, including its incubator, Brahma Discovery. Before SV, Josh was president and managing partner at MRL Ventures Fund, the early-stage therapeutics-focused corporate venture fund within Merck & Co. Prior to MRL Ventures, Josh was a venture partner with Atlas Venture and a partner at Prism Venture Partners, focusing on company formation as well as seed and Series A investing. Josh is currently a faculty member at Harvard Medical School and continues to practice medicine as an attending physician in the department of emergency medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. Josh received his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and MBA from The Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania. He graduated with his B.A. in chemistry from Williams College.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Board Member to
Lucian serves as a board member to Sionna and is also a partner with TPG Growth where he focuses on healthcare investing. Prior to joining TPG, Lucian was a general partner at dRx Capital and led the $100 million Qualcomm Life Fund, which he helped establish as one of the most widely recognized and respected digital healthcare funds in the space, cited as among the most active today by numerous sources including CB Insights, Rock Health and Startup Health. Among the investments Lucian led or co-led are Edico Genome (acquired by Illumina) and Fitbit. Previously, Lucian worked at McKinsey & Company, where he worked in the North American healthcare practice advising on clinical- and business-model transformation for large hospital systems. Lucian is a board-certified internal medicine doctor and practiced in New York prior to joining McKinsey and Company. Lucian received both his B.S. and M.D. from Tufts University and trained in internal medicine at Columbia University Medical Center.
Job Titles:
- Senior Vice President and Head of Global Regulatory Affairs and Quality
Mara is the Senior Vice President and Head of Global Regulatory Affairs and Quality for Sionna. She is an accomplished drug development professional with substantial experience in regulatory affairs and global R&D strategy. Prior to Sionna, she was the Head of Regulatory Affairs for Apellis Pharmaceuticals, where she led the team to deliver the company's first global marketing authorizations.
She previously held senior positions at Shire Pharmaceuticals in both Regulatory Affairs and R&D Business Operations, where she focused on due diligence assessments for in-licensed assets across therapeutic areas. In her earlier roles at Amicus Therapeutics and Cato Research, she advanced multiple rare disease programs through early and mid-stage development. Mara holds a master's degree in biochemistry from Duke University and earned Regulatory Affairs Certification.
Maria is the VP, DMPK for Sionna. In this position, Maria is responsible for setting criteria and enabling modeling that supports lead optimization and advancing molecules to safety studies and IND filing.
Maria has extensive experience with early discovery projects across multiple therapeutic areas including HIV, central nervous system, cardiovascular, inflammation, and oncology, providing leadership around development programs from early clinical operations and medical writing to data management functions. She most recently served as a consultant for project out-licensing at Novo Nordisk and has previously held positions with FORMA Therapeutics, Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, and Boehringer-Ingelheim. Maria also has experience as a research scientist with AstraZeneca and DuPont Pharmaceuticals. She earned a Ph.D. in renal physiology and philosophy from Georgia State University and holds a B.S. in biology/chemistry from The University of Alabama in Huntsville.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder and Vice President, Medicinal Chemistry
Mark is a co-founder of Sionna and serves as Vice President of Medicinal Chemistry. He has nearly 30 years of experience creating biopharmaceutical drugs. Formerly, he was the U.S. head of medicinal chemistry at Sanofi where he oversaw a diverse group of scientists that advanced forward multiple development candidates in oncology and rare disease. He also contributed to several external partnerships including Principia, MyoKardia, Lead Pharma, and DiCE.
Mark was a founding member of Array Biopharma (acquired by Pfizer) where he led several programs into clinical development (ARRY-797, ARRY-382 and pexmetinib). He began his career at Amgen where he created and led the highspeed synthesis group. Mark received his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Minnesota and his B.S. from Macalester College.
Job Titles:
- Vice President, Programs, Portfolio and Operations
Meghan is the VP of Programs, Portfolio and Operations for Sionna. She brings over 15 years of experience in strategic operations and planning, program leadership, medical affairs and scientific communications. Most recently Meghan was Vice President at Sage Therapeutics, where she held multiple leadership positions including Head of Program, Portfolio and Alliance Management and Head of Medical Communications & Operations. Meghan has previously held positions within small and large companies including Infinity Pharmaceuticals and Takeda Pharmaceuticals.
She began her career within academia, managing research teams at Dana Farber Cancer Institute and University of California San Francisco. Meghan received her B.A. in chemistry from Smith College.
Job Titles:
- Vice President, Chemistry, Manufacturing and Controls
Mike is Vice President, CMC at Sionna and has 20 years of development experience in the pharmaceutical industry. Prior to Sionna, Mike was CMC lead for ALKS-1140 at Alkermes after their acquisition of Rodin Therapeutics. At Rodin, Mike was responsible for all aspects of CMC for Rodin's clinical CoREST-selective HDAC inhibitors.
Mike spent 6 years at Constellation Pharmaceuticals where he was a medicinal chemist on the Pelabresib/CPI-0610 team (currently in Phase 3), project manager for the CPI-1205 IND and a CMC leader for CPI-0610 and CPI-1205. He began his career at Sepracor/Sunovion as a medicinal chemist and was an inventor of Ulotaront/SEP-363856, currently in Phase 3 clinical trials for Schizophrenia.
Mike received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from MIT and his A.B. in chemistry from the College of the Holy Cross.
Job Titles:
- Chief Executive Officer
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Member of the Leadership Team
- President
Mike is President and Chief Executive Officer of Sionna. He is a respected biotech leader with over 20 years of biopharma experience across global organizations. Most recently he served as Chief Operating Officer at Sage Therapeutics leading all the business functions (commercial, medical affairs, government affairs, business development, technical operations, strategy and program management) and G&A functions. During his four years with Sage, he helped lead the growth of the organization through multiple capital raises, the launch of the company's first product, and execution of a transformational, multi-billion dollar collaboration.
Prior to Sage, he had a 14-year tenure at Biogen in various business and commercial roles. His most recent role at Biogen was as Senior Vice President, U.S. Commercial, where he was the general manager of the multi-billion dollar MS, hemophilia, and SMA franchises. Prior to Biogen, Mike worked at Bain & Company as a consultant specializing in healthcare. Mike earned his MBA from the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia and a B.A. from College of the Holy Cross.
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the Board of Directors
Paul serves as Sionna's Independent Chairman of the Board of Directors. He has more than three decades of industry leadership and operational, strategic and financial experience. Paul serves on the Board of several biopharmaceutical companies including Incyte Corporation, Exact Sciences, and Xilio Therapeutics. He was previously Chief Financial Officer of Alexion Pharmaceuticals and of Biogen. Paul has also held various leadership roles across marketing, portfolio management, business planning and finance, including financial and general management positions with PepsiCo, Inc. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Finance from Babson College and an M.B.A. from Columbia University.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
Peter is a board-certified internist and oncologist and Affiliate Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Washington. He has over 30 years of industry experience, serving leadership roles with Becton-Dickinson, Chiron, Trubion Pharmaceuticals, Corvus Pharmaceuticals, Cleave Biosciences, Silverback Therapeutics, Edgewise Therapeutics, and Terremoto BioSciences. He also served on the staff at the National Cancer Institute and is an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year awardee. Peter earned his MD in internal medicine at Yale University.
Vanya is Sionna's Chief People Officer. She has over 15 years of experience as a strategic business partner and operational leader focused on people and culture. She is passionate about attracting, retaining and developing world-class teams while putting the employee experience front and center.
Most recently Vanya served as Chief People Officer of Affinivax where she was responsible for all aspects of Human Resources. She led Affinivax and the people function through pivotal transformation and a successful merger with GSK. Prior to Affinivax, Vanya served as Chief Human Resources Officer of Sigilon Therapeutics during a period of rapid growth and a transition from a private to a post-IPO organization. Prior to Sigilon, Vanya held various leadership positions at Biogen as a business partner, talent acquisition leader and in HR operations. Before joining industry, she held leadership positions at Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham Women's Hospital, and Harvard Medical School, focusing on training and education, program management, and operations. Vanya earned a Master of Public Administration, Health Policy and Management Emphasis from Suffolk University and a B.A. in Counseling from Dominion College.