Andrew Sandford and Michael Paglia are the President and COO, respectively, of ElevateBio BaseCamp, a cell and gene therapy technology company powering transformative therapies. They join us from the company’s manufacturing facilities in Waltham, Massachusetts, for a discussion about the landscape of company creation in the cell and gene therapy space and how ElevateBio is helping companies bring innovation and therapeutics to clinics and patients to help treat and cure diseases. They talk about how ElevateBio is driving next-generation technologies like gene editing and regenerative medicine that empower new therapies in the industry. They also cover what they think the next two decades in this space will look like, opportunities they feel are untapped, and the importance of having a passion for what you do and confidence in yourself.

Josh Wolfe is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Lux Capital, a venture capital firm that invests in emerging science and technology ventures. Josh joins us for a discussion centered around investing in biotech. He discusses the arc of his career and the forces that led him to pursue a path at the intersection of science and finance. Josh also talks about the current state of biotech investing, trends he expects to see in the future, his advice to founder-led biotech companies, what he believes are the top three criteria for success for biotech companies, and his thoughts on the future of biotech. It’s an illuminating conversation you won’t want to miss.

Amanda Wagner is the President and CEO of Immunitas and was a founding member of the company at its launch in 2019. During her time at Immunitas, she has contributed to the company’s fundraising efforts totaling nearly $100 million; led the structuring and negotiation of multiple strategic collaborations with leading academic institutions; and driven the advancement of the lead asset IMT-009, a CD161 inhibitor, and robust pipeline based on the company’s proprietary discovery engine.

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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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.