Ep. 119 - Special Edition - Ankit Mahadevia, Author | "Quiet Leader, Loud Results"

Interested in purchasing the book? Order here: amzn.to/3R4RWfT

Ankit Mahadevia is the founder and CEO of Spero Therapeutics, an organization committed to fighting the threat of infectious disease through the development of novel medicines. Over his career, he has led the formation of nine companies, including Spero, several of which are trading on the Nasdaq exchange and several others acquired by large pharmaceutical organizations. Through these companies, he has raised over $1 billion for the development of novel therapeutics, and built multiple high performing management teams. He and the companies he built have won multiple awards for their culture, including Boston Business Journal’s “Best Places to Work” Award and Glassdoor’s “Top 50 CEOs of 2021” (#15 nationwide).

Read More
Rahul Chaturvedi
Ep. 118 - Chris Posner, President & CEO | Cara Therapeutics

Mr. Posner has served as our President and Chief Executive Officer since November 2021 and has served as a member of our Board since August 2018. He has broad experience in commercial and marketing operations and product management at both large and specialty pharmaceutical companies, where he has focused on products for autoimmune, inflammatory and pain conditions, including Xeljanz® and Enbrel®. From July 2017 to October 2021, he served as the Chief Executive Officer of LEO Pharma, Inc. US, a subsidiary of LEO Pharma A/S, a global healthcare company specializing in dermatology and critical care, including such conditions as psoriasis and atopic dermatitis.

Read More
Rahul Chaturvedi
Ep. 117 - Rachel Meyers, CSO | Faze Medicines

Rachel Meyers serves as the chief scientific officer at Faze Medicines. She was most recently an entrepreneur-in-residence at Third Rock Ventures (TRV), where she helped drive the creation of Faze Medicines. Rachel brings more than twenty years of drug discovery and development expertise to Faze and is an expert in the development of RNAi therapeutics. Prior to joining Faze and TRV, she served as a biotech consultant in the Greater Boston area and served as SVP Research and RNAi Lead Development at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals where she spent over 13 years. Prior to Alnylam, Rachel was a senior scientist at Millennium Pharmaceuticals. She also serves on several scientific advisory boards, consults on nucleic acid therapeutic development, is listed as an inventor on many patents and patent applications, and has numerous peer-reviewed publications. She completed her postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School in the field of signal transduction and received her PhD from MIT in the field of in vitro transcription.

Read More
Rahul Chaturvedi
Ep. 116 - Brian Culley, CEO | Lineage Cell Therapeutics

Mr. Culley joined Lineage as Chief Executive Officer in September 2018. Prior to joining Lineage, Mr. Culley served from August 2017 to September 2018 as interim Chief Executive Officer at Artemis Therapeutics, Inc. (ATMS). Mr. Culley previously served as Chief Executive Officer of Mast Therapeutics, Inc. (MSTX), from 2010, and was also a member of its board of directors from 2011, until Mast’s merger with Savara, Inc. (SVRA) in April 2017. Mr. Culley served from 2007 to 2010 as Mast’s Chief Business Officer and Senior Vice President, from 2006 to 2007 as Mast’s Senior Vice President, Business Development, and from 2004 to 2006 as Mast’s Vice President, Business Development.

Read More
Alok Tayi
Ep. 115 - Timothy Kieffer, CSO, Manasi Sinha Jaiman, CMO | ViaCyte

Timothy Kieffer
Dr. Kieffer has a deep knowledge of gene and cell therapies, regenerative medicine, diabetes applied research, and industry experience. As Chief Scientific Officer, he leads ViaCyte’s scientific team focused on delivering and commercializing clinical interventions for diabetes. Prior to joining ViaCyte, Dr. Kieffer oversaw the Laboratory of Molecular and Cellular Medicine with a focus on the development of novel gene and cell therapy approaches to treat diabetes at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Kieffer holds patents in the field and has co-authored over 200 peer-reviewed publications that collectively have been cited more than 20,000 times. He co-founded enGene, a biotech developing non-viral gene therapies.

Read More
Rahul Chaturvedi
Ep. 114 - Ying Huang, CEO | Legend Biotech

Dr. Ying Huang currently serves as Chief Executive Officer of Legend Biotech. He sits on the Board of Directors of Legend, as well as Quanta Therapeutics.

Dr. Huang brings over 9 years of experience in research and development at major multi-national pharmaceutical companies and 12 years of experience as a biotechnology analyst on Wall Street.

Read More
Alok Tayi
Ep. 113 - Elisabet de los Pinos, CEO | Aura Biosciences

Eli de los Pinos is the founding CEO of Aura, which she has created from the ground up: She developed the company concept and has spearheaded fundraising efforts, and today, she continues to lead Aura’s strategy and operations. Prior to founding Aura, she worked in Eli Lilly & Co.’s oncology business unit, where she was part of the leadership team responsible for the market launch in Europe of Alimta, a drug for the treatment of lung cancer. Earlier in her career, Eli worked as a post-doctoral fellow at the Institute of Cancer Research in London. She previously completed fellowships at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine Institute of Molecular Medicine and at the Georgetown School of Medicine. Eli holds a Ph.D., magna cum laude, in Molecular Biology from the University of Barcelona and an MBA from IE Business School.

Read More
Rahul Chaturvedi
Ep. 112 - Brad Margus, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman | Cerevance

Brad Margus is co-founder and Executive Chairman of Cerevance, a drug discovery company advancing a robust pipeline of targeted treatments for patients with neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease. The company's lead program, CVN424, has recently shown significant and clinically meaningful efficacy and safety in a 135-patient, phase 2 clinical study for Parkinson’s Disease. Investors include Takeda Pharmaceuticals, Google Ventures, Bill Gates, Casdin Capital, Lightstone Ventures, Foresite Capital, UPMC Enterprises, Dolby Ventures and the Dementia Discovery Fund. In 2013, Margus started Genome Bridge, a non-profit subsidiary of the Broad Institute of Harvard and M.I.T., to build a computational platform for sharing genomic data. From 2009 to 2012, as co-founder and CEO of Envoy Therapeutics, Margus led the discovery of therapeutics for brain diseases and then sold the company to Takeda Pharmaceuticals. From 2000 to 2007, Margus was co-founder and CEO of Perlegen Sciences, a leader in analyzing genetic variation.

Read More
Rahul Chaturvedi
Ep. 111 - Aoife Brennan, President & CEO | Synlogic

Dr. Aoife Brennan is an experienced physician scientist and drug developer responsible for the successful clinical development and registration of multiple transformative medicines. Aoife has served as Synlogic’s president and chief executive officer since May 2018. She joined Synlogic in September 2016 as chief medical officer. Prior to Synlogic, Aoife spent six years at Biogen, most recently as vice president and head of the Rare Disease Innovation Unit, developing programs from pre-clinical to commercial. She has led programs across multiple therapeutic areas including the successful late phase development & registration of SPINRAZA® (nusinersen) for spinal muscular atrophy and ALPROLIX® and ELOCTATE® for Hemophilia B and Hemophilia A, respectively.

Read More
Rahul Chaturvedi
Ep. 110 - Mark Gergen, CEO | Poseida Therapeutics Inc.

Mr. Gergen was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Poseida in February 2022. He joined Poseida in February 2018, initially serving as Chief Business Officer and Chief Financial Officer before being named President and Chief Business Officer in July 2020. He has been a member of the Company’s board of directors since 2018. Mr. Gergen was previously the Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Halozyme, Inc. and Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Mirati Therapeutics, Inc.

Read More
Rahul Chaturvedi
Ep. 109 - Tim Miller, CEO & Erandi De Silva, SVP of Prod. Dev. | Forge Biologics

Timothy Miller is CEO, President and Co-Founder of Forge Biologics, Inc., a VC-backed gene therapy development engine focused on accelerating access to potentially life-saving AAV gene therapies. Prior to founding Forge, Dr. Miller co-founded Abeona Therapeutics, a rare disease gene and cell therapy company. He served as Abeona’s CEO and President from 2012-early 2018, taking the company public in 2015. He is a proven biotech leader with experience in driving gene therapy pipeline development, regulatory strategy, investor relations, M&A activities, licensing, GMP manufacturing, clinical development, and leading stakeholder/shareholder engagement.

Read More
Alok Tayi
Ep. 108 - Alok Tayi, Ph.D., Co-Founder & CEO | Vibe Biotechnology

Our guest this week is one of our hosts, Alok Tayi, and he has some exciting news. The official launch of his new company, Vibe Biotechnology, building a global community of patients, scientists, and partners around a shared mission to cure rare diseases. Vibe Bio's novel approach seeks to scale the development of treatments sustainably and provides patient communities unprecedented ownership over the results.

Alok is a scientist by trade, with over 15 years under his belt including a PhD at Northwestern - and time spent at Harvard under a successful biotech founder. He then went on to start multiple biotech software companies - securing over $100M in total venture funding along the way.

Read More
Alok Tayi