Biotech 2050 Podcast

William J. Newell has served as our Chief Executive Officer and a member of our Board of Directors since January 2009. Previously, he served as the President of Aerovance, Inc., a biotechnology company focused on respiratory diseases, from 2006 to 2007. Mr. Newell has also served as the Chief Business Officer and Senior Vice President at QLT Inc., in several senior management positions at Axys Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and has experience as a corporate lawyer. He currently serves on the boards of directors of a private biotechnology company, the Biotechnology Innovation Organization’s Health Section and Emerging Company Section and the California Life Sciences Association, where he also serves as a member of the executive committee. Mr. Newell received an A.B. in Government from Dartmouth College and a J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School. We believe that Mr. Newell is qualified to serve on our Board of Directors because of his experience with various biotechnology companies, including working with and serving in various executive positions in life sciences companies.

Adam Crystal, M.D., Ph.D. joined C4 Therapeutics in February 2019 as our Chief Medical Officer. Previously, Adam was at Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, most recently as Senior Director, where he led several early clinical development programs. Before transitioning to industry, Adam was a medical oncologist at Massachusetts General Hospital where he researched resistance mechanisms to targeted therapies. Adam was also a laboratory-based researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital where his work on resistance mechanisms to targeted therapies was recognized with the American Society of Clinical Oncology Conquer Cancer Young Investigator Award and was also published in Science. He trained at Massachusetts General Hospital in internal medicine, and in medical oncology at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Adam holds an M.D., as well as a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Stew Fisher, Ph.D. joined C4 Therapeutics in May 2016 and has served as our Chief Scientific Officer since May 2018. Between May 2016 and May 2018, Stew served as our Senior Director of Discovery Sciences. Prior to joining C4 Therapeutics, Stew held senior leadership roles at the Broad Institute, including Director of Quantitative of Biochemistry and Enzymology, where he developed and implemented biochemical plans for therapeutic projects. He previously spent fifteen years at AstraZeneca in roles of increasing responsibility across target validation, drug discovery and clinical candidate support, including Executive Director of Infection Bioscience. Stew started his career at Hoffmann-La Roche as a Research Scientist after completing an NIH Post-Doctoral Fellowship at Harvard Medical School. Stew holds a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the California Institute of Technology, and a B.A. in Chemistry from the University of Vermont.

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. From 2002 until 2004, Mr. Culley was Director of Business Development and Marketing for Immusol, Inc. From 1999 until 2000, he worked at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Department of Technology Transfer & Intellectual Property Services and from 1996 to 1999 he conducted drug development research for Neurocrine Biosciences, Inc. (NBIX). Mr. Culley has also served on the Board of Orphagen Pharmaceuticals, Inc. since May 2017. Mr. Culley has more than 25 years of business and scientific experience in the life sciences industry. He received a B.S. in biology from Boston College, a masters in biochemistry and molecular biology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and an M.B.A. from The Johnson School of Business at Cornell University. Mr. Culley brings to our Board significant knowledge of the biotechnology industry and extensive experience as an executive and board member of publicly traded pharmaceutical companies.

Kevin is a scientist-entrepreneur with 30 years of research experience in academia and pharma. He co-founded Scientist.com in 2007. In 2001, he co-founded Kalypsys, a small pharmaceutical company. He was Director of Lead Discovery at Tularik from 1997-2001. He carried out postdoctoral work at Harvard Medical School after receiving a PhD degree from Marc Kirschner’s laboratory at UC-San Francisco and an A.B. degree, magna cum laude, from Cornell University.

Dr. Javitt has played leadership roles in seven successful healthcare IT and biopharma startups with public exits. He has additionally led drug-development engagements for Merck, Allergan, Pharmacia, Novartis, and Pfizer. He was appointed to healthcare leadership roles under Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush. In the latter role he was commissioned to lead the White House policy for universal adoption of Health IT and establishment of the Office of the National Coordinator. He is a graduate of Princeton University, Cornell University Medical College, Harvard School of Public Health, the Wills Eye Hospital, and Johns Hopkins Medical School. Dr. Javitt has published more than 200 scientific works in the areas of health outcomes and pharmacoeconomics that have been cited by more than 16,000 people.

Mei Mei Hu: Mei Mei is also CEO of United Neuroscience and a member of the executive committee of United Biomedical, Inc. She oversaw the launch of one of the first endobody vaccines in the world and the successful spin-out of three companies. Mei Mei was formerly a consultant at McKinsey & Company where she advised pharmaceutical companies on strategic, operational and organizational issues. Prior to that, Mei Mei was in the Securities group at Cravath, Swaine and Moore. Mei Mei is also co-founder of an investment and advisory group with active investments in real estate, energy and life sciences. She was named to Time 100 Next list, Fortune 40 under 40, and Young Global Leaders of World Economic Forum. She holds a B.A. from University of Pennsylvania and her J.D. from Harvard Law School. Recently named by Fortune as one of the “World’s 50 Greatest Leaders,” Peter H. Diamandis is the founder and executive chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation, which leads the world in designing and operating large-scale incentive competitions. He is also the executive founder of Singularity University, a graduate-level Silicon Valley institution that counsels the world's leaders on exponentially growing technologies. Peter Diamandis: As an entrepreneur, Diamandis has started over 20 companies in the areas of longevity, space, venture capital and education. He is cofounder of BOLD Capital Partners, a venture fund with $250M investing in exponential technologies, and co-founder and Vice Chairman of Celularity, Inc., a cellular therapeutics company. Diamandis is a New York Times Bestselling author of two books: Abundance – The Future Is Better Than You Think and BOLD – How to go Big, Create Wealth & Impact the World. His newest book in this series of exponential technologies—The Future is Faster Than You Think—was released in 2020. He earned degrees in molecular genetics and aerospace engineering from the MIT and holds an M.D. from Harvard Medical School. Diamandis’ favorite saying is “the best way to predict the future is to create it yourself.”

Shawn Singh has served as our Chief Executive Officer since August 2009; he joined our Board of Directors in 2000. Mr. Singh has nearly 30 years of experience working with private and public biotechnology, medical device, and pharmaceutical companies, a venture capital firm, and a profitable contract research and development organization (CRO), serving in numerous senior management roles. Prior to joining us as Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Singh served as President of Artemis Neuroscience, prior to our acquisition of that company, Managing Principal of Cato BioVentures, a healthcare-focused venture capital firm, and as Chief Business Officer and General Counsel of Cato Research Ltd, a global CRO. Earlier, Mr. Singh assisted with the IPO of SciClone Pharmaceuticals (formerly NASDAQ: SCLN), a revenue-generating, China-focused specialty pharmaceutical company, and served as its Chief Business Officer before departing to form Cato BioVentures with the founders of Cato Research. He began his career as a corporate finance attorney in the Silicon Valley offices of Morrison & Foerster LLP, with a transaction-focused practice involving both emerging biotechnology and high technology companies. Mr. Singh earned a B.A. degree, with honors, from the University of California, Berkeley, and a J.D. degree from the University of Maryland School of Law. Mr. Singh is a member of the State Bar of California.

Dr. Salter-Cid brings to Gossamer Bio over 20 years of drug discovery experience in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries and spent the last 13 years at Bristol Myers Squibb (“BMS”) in increasing positions of responsibility, including Vice President and Head of Immunology, small molecule Immuno-Oncology and Genomics Discovery. In this position, she oversaw several biology groups that focused on target validation and development of innovative biologic and small-molecule therapeutics to address significant unmet needs in autoimmune diseases and cancer. During her time at BMS, Dr. Salter-Cid led teams that advanced more than 20 compounds into clinical development. She was also Chair of the Immunoscience Target Science Team (TST) and a core member of Early Development, Strategy and Licensing teams for both Immunology and Immuno-Oncology. Additionally, she was the scientific lead on several of BMS’ acquisitions and licensing deals and sat on multiple Joint Research Committees and Scientific Advisory Boards. Prior to joining BMS, she was a Senior Project Leader at La Jolla Pharmaceuticals where she led discovery projects. Dr. Salter-Cid also held positions at Genset Corp and Johnson & Johnson. She is an author of over 70 publications and patents and holds a Ph.D. in Immunology from the University of Miami.

Thank you for your support for Season 1! We reflect and look forward to Season 2 on this episode! Learn more about our co-hosts below! Alok Tayi is the Vice President of Life Sciences at Egnyte where he is responsible for building and executing the company's strategy for the life sciences market segment. Alok works across the organization to verticalize our marketing, sales, product, compliance, and account management practices for this domain. Before joining Egnyte, Alok was a YCombinator-backed entrepreneur and started two vertical software-as-a-service companies. Prior to his career in software, Alok spent over 15 years as a scientist: he took part in postdoctoral work at Harvard University with George Whitesides, and has published papers in Nature and Nature Chemistry. Alok holds a PhD from Northwestern University and BS from Cornell University. Rahul Chaturvedi is the Founder and CEO of Clora, the leading marketplace where people go to discover, build, and manage on-demand life science teams. Prior to founding Clora in 2017, Rahul was the head of clinical development at several biopharma companies, such as Kaleido Biosciences (NSDQ: KLDO) and Avedro (acquired by Glaukos). Rahul has successfully led the development activities for 20+ Phase II/III programs that have resulted in 6 product approvals to date. Rahul holds a bachelor of science degree from Brandeis University.

As Executive Vice President and General Manager of Ancestry.com, a 1.6 billion dollar technology company, Ken led the launch of AncestryDNA, a large-scale e-commerce genetic genealogy test with revenues of > $500M. In 2019, Ken led the launch AncestryHealth, an e-commerce LDT genetic health product on a next-generation sequencing (NGS) platform. Prior to Ancestry, he was the President and Chief Executive Officer at Avigen, a biopharmaceutical company that develops drugs for chronic neurological disorders, where he led the company in its mission to acquire, develop and commercialize innovative gene therapeutics. Dr. Chahine is a patent attorney and on the faculty at the University of Utah’s College of Law currently teaching new venture development, intellectual property and licensing. He earned a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Michigan, a J.D. from the University of Utah College of Law, and a B.A. in Chemistry from Florida State University.