Advisors

Scientific Advisory Board

Peter Kolchinsky, PhD

Co-founder, Portfolio Manager, & Managing Director, RA Capital Management

Peter Kolchinsky (Ph.D ’01) is co-founder, Managing Director, and Portfolio Manager of RA Capital Management, a multi-stage investment manager dedicated to evidence-based investing in healthcare and life science companies. He is active in both public and private investments in companies developing drugs, medical devices, diagnostics, and research tools and serves as a member of the Board of Directors for a number of private companies. He is the author of “The Entrepreneur’s Guide to a Biotech Start-up” and the Biotech Social Contract series.

Chandra Ramanathan, PhD, MBA

Global Head, Pharma R&D Open Innovation, Bayer

Chandra Ramanathan, Global Head of Pharma R&D Open Innovation, leads the Open Innovation Centers (OICs) around the world (US, Europe, Japan, China and Singapore). The OICs focus on early access to breakthrough technologies, management of strategic alliances, and public-private partnerships. His previous roles at Bayer include Head of Open Innovation Center North America-East, Global Program Lead for External Innovation/Life Sciences, Global Launch Team Leader (copanlisib) and Head of Global Oncology Pipeline Marketing. Prior to joining Bayer, Chandra worked at Wyeth (Pfizer) and Bristol-Myers Squibb in various roles in Drug Discovery, Applied Genomics, and Business Development & Licensing. Chandra earned an MBA from the Columbia Business School, a PhD in Genomics/ Bioinformatics, an MS in Medicinal Chemistry, and a BS in Pharmacy. Chandra is an adjunct assistant professor at the Tufts School of Medicine and is on the Board of Directors of MassBIO, the Massachusetts Biotech Council.

pearl photo.jpeg — Pearl Frier

President, Cambridge BioPartners

Pearl Freier is President of Cambridge BioPartners, Inc., a strategic advisory firm specializing in targeted search and business development services for the biopharmaceutical and healthcare technology industries. The firm’s methodologies have been used as best practices for several industry groups throughout North America over the years. Pearl has been quoted in publications including BIO-IT World, The Boston Globe, Nature, The Philadelphia Inquirer and Science and has served the biopharmaceutical and healthcare technology industries for over 10 years.

John Maraganore, PhD

Chief Executive Officer and Director of Alnylam

John is Chief Executive Officer and Director of Alnylam. Prior to Alnylam, Dr. Maraganore served as an officer and a member of the management team for Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. As Senior Vice President, Strategic Product Development for Millennium, he was responsible for the company’s product franchises in oncology, and cardiovascular, inflammatory, and metabolic diseases. Before Millennium he served as Director of Molecular Biology and Director of Market and Business Development at Biogen, Inc. At Biogen, Dr. Maraganore invented and led the discovery and development of ANGIOMAX® (bivalirudin) for injection, formerly HIRULOGTM and currently marketed by The Medicines Company. Dr. Maraganore received his MS and PhD in biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Chicago. He is the Chair of the Board for Agios Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Maraganore is a member of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) Board and former BIO Chair.

Faculty Advisors

George M. Church is a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, a founding member of the Wyss Institute, and director of PersonalGenomes.org, the world’s only open-access information on human genomic, environmental, and trait data. He is widely recognized for his innovative contributions to genomic science and his many pioneering contributions to chemistry and biomedicine. Dr. Church developed the first methods for the first genome sequence and dramatic cost reductions since then (down from $3 billion to $600), contributing to nearly all next-generation sequencing methods and companies.

His honors include the Franklin Bower Laureate for Achievement in Science, the Time 100, and election to the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering. His many innovations have been the basis for 514 papers, 143 patent publications, and founder of 28 companies.

Gregory Verdine is Erving Professor of Chemistry in the Departments of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology and Chemistry and Chemical Biology, a pioneer in the field of chemical biology, a serial biotech entrepreneur and a life science venture capitalist. He is a leading figure in the field of new therapeutic modalities, and has developed a new class of therapeutics termed stapled peptides, which are currently in clinical development and have received much attention for their ability to drug targets previously considered “undruggable.”

Dr. Verdine has made important contributions in the translation of bench science to the bedside. He has founded or co-founded a number of successful biotechnology companies, and has also worked in the venture capital industry as a Venture Partner with Apple Tree Partners, Third Rock Ventures, and WuXi Healthcare Ventures, and as a Special Advisor to Texas Pacific Group.

Dr. Verdine is Chairman of the Board of Directors of WaVe Life Sciences, and is a Director of Warp Drive Bio, for which he also Chairs the company’s Scientific Advisory Board. He is currently President and CEO of FogPharma, a biotechnology company focused on a transformative drug discovery platform based on Cell-Penetrating Miniproteins. Dr. Verdine serves on the Board of Scientific Consultants of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Research Institute and on the Board of Scientific Advisors of the National Cancer Institute.

Carl D. Novina MD, PhD is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute & Harvard Medical School and an Associate Member of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. He received his M.D. from Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons and his Ph.D. from Tufts University, Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences. He completed his postdoctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Dr. Phillip Sharp.

Dr. Novina’s laboratory has made several important discoveries about the biology of noncoding RNAs, their dysregulation in cancers, and their development as biomedical tools. His recent work has been driven by the unmet clinical needs in cancer therapy. His laboratory has developed tools for epigenetic engineering and autologous T cell engineering for cancer immunotherapy. He has established numerous collaborations between industry partners and physicians to accelerate the translation of these tools to the clinic.

Dr. Novina is the recipient of numerous awards and honors including the Doris Duke Clinical Scientist Development Award, American Cancer Society Research Scholar Award, W.M. Keck Distinguished Young Scholars Award, Department of Defense Idea Award, The NCI Director’s Provocative Questions Award, and the National Science Foundation Collaborative Research Project Award. He is also the recipient of the prestigious NIH Director’s Pioneer Award, which funds high-risk research with transformative potential.

Peter Barrett, Ph.D., is a Senior Fellow at Harvard Business School, where he teaches the second year MBA course, Lab to Market. He is also the faculty chair of the key advisory board of the Blavatnik Fellowship Program.

In addition to his work at Harvard, Peter is a Partner at Atlas Venture, an early stage life science venture capital firm. Since 2002, Peter has been involved in the creation of several novel therapeutic and drug discovery platform companies.