Biotech 2050 Podcast

Colleen Cutcliffe is the CEO and Co-Founder of Pendulum. She has over 15 years of experience leading and managing biology teams in academia, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology. Prior to starting Pendulum, Colleen was the Senior Manager of Biology at Pacific Biosciences and a Scientist at Elan Pharmaceuticals. Colleen received her Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Johns Hopkins University and her B.A. in Biochemistry from Wellesley College.

Dr. Paul R. Billings is a board-certified internist and clinical geneticist, who also holds a PhD in Immunology, from Harvard University. He worked there with Dr. Baruj Benacerraf, who subsequently received the Nobel Prize in Medicine. In 2018, Dr. Billings became the Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President for Medical Affairs at Natera. Dr Billings recently has been a Partner in the diagnostic medicine consultancy the Bethesda Group, and the Managing Director of the Bethesda Group Fund. He is Chairman of PlumCare, LLc and Synergenz Biosciences Limited. He has held academic and research appointments at Harvard University, UC San Francisco, Stanford University and UC Berkeley. He co-founded the stem cell company, CBR Systems, was a Director at Ancestry.com and Signature Genomics Inc, and is co-founder and senior advisor of Fabric Genomics, Inc., a leading genome informatics firm. Until 2018, Dr. Billings was the Chairman of Biological Dynamics, a revolutionary molecular measurement platform based in San Diego, CA.

Andy Protter, PhD. joined Auransa in January 2017 as Chief Scientific Officer with 35 years of pharmaceutical industry research and development experience. At Auransa, Dr. Protter has led preclinical R&D which uses AI technology to discover novel drug candidates. Auransa’s lead project for hepatocellular carcinoma has completed all IND-supporting preclinical safety studies. Prior to joining Auransa, Dr. Protter was a Vice President at Medivation where he was responsible for preclinical pharmacology and toxicology of Enzalutamide, a prostate cancer drug that was approved by the FDA. Prior to Medivation, Dr. Protter worked at Scios, a biotechnology company where he also lead preclinical development. Dr. Protter initiated the Natrecor development program and was responsible for all preclinical activities. Natrecor was approved by the FDA for acute decompensated congestive heart failure. In addition Dr. Protter led preclinical efforts selecting a p38 MAP kinase inhibitor drug candidate that was tested in patients with rheumatoid arthritis and surgical pain. In 2004 Johnson and Johnson awarded Dr. Protter the Johnson Medal for his work on Natrecor. Trained as a biochemist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Dr. Protter led the first successful cloning of apolipoprotein B, the primary protein on LDL. He has participated in work described in over 84 published papers, 4 book chapters and 28 patents. When not doing science, Andy enjoys hobbies including biking, skiing, sailing, photography and reading.

JoyL is the General Manager of Pfizer CentreOne, a global contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) and a leading supplier of specialty APIs embedded within Pfizer. In 2019, under her leadership, Pfizer CentreOne contributed $810M in revenue with a growth rate of 9% while advancing Pfizer’s purpose of delivering breakthroughs that change patients’ lives. In 2020 Pfizer CentreOne received the Life Science Leader and Outsourced Pharma CMO Leadership Award for the fourth consecutive year, recognizing the strong partnerships built with customers. JoyL began her 20+ year career at Pfizer as a healthcare representative and progressed through a series of sales, operational, and strategic leadership roles. Her roles as U.S. Regional Business Director and Commercial Enablement Lead included managing people leaders and demonstrating commercial excellence. Growing in both partnership and organizational management skills, JoyL then became the Global Integration Lead for the Pfizer/Merck KGaA Immuno-Oncology Alliance and Global Operations Lead for Pfizer Essential Health. JoyL was recently named on the Medicine Maker Power List and Putnam Media Top 20 Influential Women in Manufacturing List. She has also received a Rising Star Award by the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association and the Scrip Best Partnership Alliance Award. JoyL has several industry publications, is a frequent speaker at professional forums and is a board member for the non-profit Pharma & Biopharma Outsourcing Association. A strong proponent of diversity, she is a sought-out mentor and sponsor. JoyL is a graduate of the South Carolina Honors College at the University of South Carolina where she received a Bachelor of Science degree in Biological Sciences with a minor in Medical Humanities. Nicole is Pfizer CentreOne’s Pipeline Development and Innovation Lead. In this role, Nicole has responsibility for assessing competitive intelligence to identify growth opportunities across the Pfizer CentreOne businesses, lead technical and regulatory assessments of pipeline projects and provide development services to meet customer needs. Nicole brings a wide range of expertise to this role, including a background which covers contract manufacturing operations, procurement, business development, and sourcing strategies. Nicole joined Pfizer in 2001 as Pharmaceutical Supply Manager supporting the Parenteral Site in Carolina, Puerto Rico. In 2002, she was promoted to Category Manager in Global Procurement responsible for the identification and selection of contract manufacturers and packagers for pharmaceutical products. She joined External Supply (ES) in 2005 supporting the Divestitures and Business Development Group, and later on moved to manage contractors as an Operations Director. In 2010, Nicole was promoted to ES Strategy and Operations Management Director which included site divestiture support, sourcing, and leading the Americas Virtual Site governance. Nicole’s most recent assignment in Global External Supply included leading the implementation of SAP and partnering with tax and network strategy teams to roll out initiatives aligned with tax efficient system strategies and the standardizing/streamlining supply chain processes across the Global External Supply Virtual Sites. Nicole holds a B.S. Degree in Chemical Engineering from The Georgia Institute of Technology and an M.B.A. from The University of Delaware.

Abbas Kazimi is the Vice President, Head of Business Development at Nimbus Therapeutics, a biotechnology company harnessing quantum mechanics and computational approaches to structural biology to design breakthroughs in medicine. Abbas joined Nimbus in 2014 as Director of Business Development and has driven several of the company’s key transactions that have brought over $775M into Nimbus through financings and transactions, including the exclusive licensing agreement with Genentech, the sale of Nimbus’ clinical NASH program to Gilead in and the multiple strategic alliances with Celgene. Prior to joining Nimbus, Abbas spent a decade in planning, advising, and executing strategic transactions for life sciences clients with industry partners and financial investors across the globe, most recently at Extera Partners, LLC. He earned his M.A. from Harvard University and his B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin.

Dr. Randy Schatzman, Ph.D., is the chief executive officer and a board member of Bolt Biotherapeutics since 2019. He has over 30 years of biotechnology experience. Prior to Bolt, Dr. Schatzman was president and CEO, co-founder and board member of Alder BioPharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: ALDR), from 2004 to 2018. Dr. Schatzman and his scientific team co-founded Alder in 2004 and led the company through the discovery and patenting of two monoclonal antibody therapeutics: eptinezumab, now in registration at FDA for migraine prevention and clazakizumab, being developed by Vitaeris for treatment of antibody-mediated kidney allograft failure. Prior to co-founding Alder, Dr. Schatzman was senior vice president of discovery research at Celltech R&D where the team discovered romosozumab which was subsequently licensed to Amgen in a 50/50 partnership. Prior to joining Celltech, he was at Syntex/Roche Bioscience where he served as preclinical team leader for Cytovene and team leader for Valcyte, both of which are currently marketed drugs. Dr. Schatzman received his Ph.D. in Molecular Pharmacology from Emory University before completing an American Cancer Society postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of J. Michael Bishop at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Schatzman is an inventor on over 30 issued patents and is an author on more than 40 peer-reviewed scientific publications.

Dr. Glenn Rosen has spent the bulk of his career engaged in basic and translational research in cancer and fibrosis. From 1993-2014, Dr. Rosen held a tenured faculty position in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Medicine, Stanford University. He led a basic and translational research laboratory-his research focused on the study of dysregulated signaling in fibrosis and mechanisms of apoptosis resistance in solid tumors. He also led the clinical Interstitial Lung Disease Program at Stanford. Dr. Rosen joined Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) in September 2014 as a Medical Director in the Early Clinical and Translational Research Group, where he led the Phase 2 program of a lysophosphatidic acid receptor antagonist for the treatment of pulmonary fibrosis. This was followed by appointment as Therapeutic Area Head of Fibrosis and Genetically Defined Diseases. In 2016 he was selected as Head, Discovery Fibrosis Biology at Bristol-Myers Squibb, where he led the early discovery and development, and translation of pre-clinical compounds, with a disease concentration in liver and lung fibrosis. Dr. Rosen joined Coherus Biosciences, Redwood City, CA, in April, 2019, where he leads the pre-clinical and translational sciences small molecule program, which is focused on development of a novel selective PPARγ modulator for the treatment of NASH.

Diego is currently the Head of Research & Development of Global Rare Diseases at the Chiesi Group. Before this role, he was leading Chiesi’s development projects in rare diseases and advanced therapies and has more than 10 years experience in drug development, spanning from pre-clinical to commercial phase. Diego is an MD with a specialization in Internal Medicine. He obtained a PhD at the University of Parma (Italy) in cardiovascular pathophysiology and a post-doctoral fellowship in cardiovascular genomics at Stanford University (California, US). Before joining the industry, he worked at the University of Parma (Italy) in the field of cardiovascular and metabolic genomics, and as free-lance consultant for various academic institutions. He joined Chiesi in 2010, where he acted as Clinical Lead in the registration of the first stem cell therapy in EU and led the cross-company team (with uniQure BV) treating the first patient with a commercial gene therapy in EU. He also built an internal unit for the technical assessment of new in-licensing opportunities and the R&D infrastructure for due diligences. Diego is serving as chairman of the Therapies Scientific Committee of IRDiRC (International Rare Diseases Research Consortium) and board member of the European Confederation of Pharmaceutical Entrepreneurs (EUCOPE). He is the author of 50+ indexed papers and a frequent speaker at international medical and industrial congresses.

Dr. Clayman is a co-founder of Flexion Therapeutics and has served as our President, Chief Executive Officer and as one of our directors since our inception in 2007. Dr. Clayman also serves as the Chairman of the board of directors of both Anokion SA and Ribometrix. Previously, Dr. Clayman had a lengthy career at Eli Lilly and Company, where he was most recently Vice President, Lilly Research Laboratories, and General Manager of Chorus, Lilly’s early-phase development accelerator. During his career at Lilly, Dr. Clayman also led its Global Regulatory Affairs division, the Cardiovascular Discovery Research and Clinical Investigation, Research and Development at Advanced Cardiovascular Systems, a medical device subsidiary of Lilly, the Internal Medicine Division, the Lilly Clinic, Lilly’s dedicated Phase 1 unit, and served as Chair of Lilly’s Bioethics Committee. Prior to his tenure at Lilly, Dr. Clayman was an Assistant Professor in the School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, where his research centered on the immunopathogenesis of renal disease. Dr. Clayman is the recipient of the Physician Scientist Award from the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Clayman earned a B.A., cum laude, from Yale University and an M.D. from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine. Following an internship and residency in Internal Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco Moffitt Hospitals, Dr. Clayman completed clinical and research fellowships in Nephrology at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Colón brings over 25 years of experience in biopharma, genomics, healthcare and industrial biotechnology. In addition to her role at InCarda, she is Executive Chairman (formerly CEO) of ProterixBio, and serves on the boards of CareDx (NASDAQ:CDNA) and Cocoon Biotech and on the Advisory Board of the Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship at Santa Clara University. Formerly, she was a partner at New Science Ventures, a New York based venture capital firm with over $700M under management, and served on the boards of Paradigm Diagnostics and PerceptiMed. Previously, she co-founded Pyranose Biotherapeutics, a biologics discovery platform company. She was also founding President of the Industrial Products Division at Intrexon Corporation, where she established a new division focused on leveraging synthetic biology for bioindustrial applications such as biofuels and renewable chemicals. Prior to Intrexon, she was head of Clinical Operations for Gilead Sciences, where she was responsible for global execution of clinical trials. She also created and led both the Alliance Management and Commercial Strategic Planning groups. Prior to Gilead, she was VP, Corporate Planning at Affymetrix, where she was responsible for strategic planning and project management and where she also served as COO for the International Genomics Consortium, a non-profit medical research organization focused on cancer genomics. Earlier in her career she was a consultant with McKinsey & Co., where she served clients in healthcare, biotech, high tech and venture capital. She was also an engineer with Merck & Co. in France and in Rahway, NJ. Dr. Colón received her Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she was an NSF Fellow. She also holds a B.S. degree in chemical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, where she was a Benjamin Franklin Scholar.