Biotech 2050 Podcast

Recorded in January 2020, we spoke with Sachin Chandran, who is currently Executive Director and Head of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Catabasis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. in Boston. Sachin’s responsibilities include oversight of CMC, Tech-Ops and supply chain along with matrixed interactions with regulatory, quality, biology, clinical and commercial. Working in a lean organization and a virtual environment, Sachin brings a strategic mindset while operationalizing with a can-do attitude with the goal to aid in the successful development and commercialization of edasalonexent. Previously, Sachin has been at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Bristol Myers Squibb Co. in roles of increasing responsibility, courtesy of which he is well-versed in the development of oral dosage forms, biologics and injectables, and inhalation. Over the course of his career, Sachin has been involved in the advancement of new therapies for diseases such as Alzheimer’s, and rare diseases like Cystic Fibrosis and Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Sachin holds a Ph.D. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from the Johns Hopkins University where his graduate work was focused on new modalities in the treatment of prostate cancer.

Mike Novotny is the founder and CEO of Medrio. Mr. Novotny applies 20 years of experience in research and software to his eClinical SaaS vision. Prior to founding Medrio, Mr. Novotny was president of Ninaza, an EDC software company, and had previously held roles as a research associate at the U.N. and a manager of the fraud database at VISA. He holds a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from Columbia University. Mr. Novotny founded Medrio in 2005 in San Francisco.

David Mace is the Co-founder & CEO of SwiftScale Biologics, a life sciences startup based in San Francisco, California. SwiftScale Biologics accelerates time to market for protein drugs by turning a labor-intensive drug production scale-up challenge into a computational challenge. Previously David was an Entrepreneur in Residence at 8VC, where he focused on the intersection of biology & computer science. He is a graduate of the California Institute of Technology.

David Bates is a scientist, inventor, investor, and entrepreneur. He has co-founded several companies including Linus Health and Bode. He is a founding partner of Tamarisc Ventures and serves on the board of several high-growth technology companies. He is on the board of directors of TMCity Foundation and is Strategic Advisor to the Digital Medicine Society. He previously worked at Morningside Ventures where he focused on biotech, healthcare, and cleantech investments. David was also the Chief Strategy Officer for F-Wave, a building technology company and Morningside portfolio company He helped with the acquisition of Fuji Solar in Japan and the company’s expansion from New Zealand into the United States. David has held various positions as a research scientist at Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital/Shriners Burns Hospital, University of Louisville School of Medicine, and the Georgia Institute of Technology. He has published in several high-impact journals and is a co-inventor on multiple technology and biotechnology patents. He holds a Ph.D. in Chemical and Materials Engineering from the University of Auckland and a B.S. and M.Sc. in Applied Biology from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Stephan is a co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer at Anokion, bringing more than 15 years of research expertise in the fields of immunology, protein engineering, and platform technologies to the company. He earned his B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and a Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) in Lausanne. During his thesis work, Stephan co-invented and developed the immune tolerance technology platform that inspired the founding of Anokion and its spin-off company Kanyos Bio. As a founding member of the executive leadership team, he has played a leading role in company creation, including raising equity capital, establishing transformative partnerships with pharmaceutical companies, and building teams and sites in the US and Switzerland. Stephan is an inventor of over 20 granted patents in the field of immune tolerance and continues to lead scientific innovation as head of Anokion's talented Research team.

Robert J. Gould joined Fulcrum as president and CEO at the time of the company’s launch in 2016, bringing over 30 years of experience to the role. Previously, he served as president and CEO of Epizyme from 2010 to 2015. Prior to joining Epizyme, Robert served as director of novel therapeutics at Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard from 2006 to 2010. Robert spent 23 years at Merck where he held a variety of leadership positions, culminating in the role of vice president, licensing and external research. During his time at Merck, Robert was instrumental in advancing more than 20 compounds from discovery into clinical development in multiple therapeutic areas. Robert received a bachelor’s from Spring Arbor University and a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa and completed postdoctoral studies at Johns Hopkins University. Owen Wallace joined Fulcrum in April 2017. He has more than two decades of experience in drug discovery and development across multiple therapeutic areas, including neuroscience, endocrine, infectious, respiratory and rare diseases. He is the co-inventor of seven clinical candidates and has overseen teams who have progressed more than 30 compounds into clinical development. Prior to joining Fulcrum, Owen served as head, global discovery chemistry at Novartis, where he was responsible for teams and projects across multiple sites in several disease areas and the chemical genetics field. Prior to Novartis, he was the site scientific leader with Eli Lilly & Company in the United Kingdom, leading a cross-functional team focusing on Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia. Before that, he held research positions at Bristol-Myers Squibb, where he co-initiated a program on a novel mechanism for inhibiting HIV infection that is now in Phase 3 clinical trials. Owen earned his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Yale University.

Dr. Paul K. Wotton is the Chief Executive Officer at Obsidian Therapeutics. Obsidian is a biotechnology company pioneering controllable cell and gene therapies to deliver transformative outcomes for patients with intractable diseases. Obsidian’s proprietary cytoDRiVE™ technology provides a way to control protein degradation using FDA-approved small molecules, permitting precise control of the timing and level of protein expression. The cytoDRiVE™ platform can be applied to design controllable intracellular, membrane and secreted proteins for cell and gene therapies as well as other applications. The Company’s initial applications focus on developing novel cell therapies for the treatment of cancer. Paul has over 30 years of experience in scientific research, product development and corporate growth in the life science industry. Previously, Paul served as Founding President and Chief Executive Officer of Sigilon Therapeutics, Inc. Prior to Sigilon, Dr. Wotton served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Ocata Therapeutics until its acquisition by Astellas Pharma where he was also Co-Chairman of the Office of Integration. In previous roles, Paul has served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Antares Pharma (NASDAQ:ATRS) as well as Chief Executive Officer of Topigen Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Wotton is a named inventor on numerous patents and was the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Regional (NJ) Winner Life Sciences in 2014. He serves on the Boards of Directors of Vericel Corporation (NASDAQ: VCEL) and Cynata Therapeutics (ASX: CYP) as its Chairman. Until recently Paul was a board member at Veloxis Pharmaceuticals A/S (Copenhagen: VELO) which was recently acquired by Asahi. Dr. Wotton holds a B.Pharm (Honors) from UCL, London’s global university, and a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from University of Nottingham.

Chris is Sr. Vice President, Technical Operations at Blueprint Medicines. He has over 25 years of commercial and clinical manufacturing experience in the biopharmaceutical industry and has been fortunate to help develop and commercialize numerous oncology medicines. He has been in his current role since October 2017.

Carl P. Decicco is a biopharmaceutical veteran with over 30+ years of experience in the industry. Over the course of his career, Carl has played a central role in the advancement of more than 200 compounds into clinical trials and the approval of more than 20 drugs across multiple therapeutic areas. He’s authored/Co-Authored more than 100 scientific papers in peer reviewed journals and is listed as an inventor on 26 patents.

Dr. Florian Wegener is the co-founder and CEO of ZAGENO, an award-winning online marketplace serving the needs of research scientists. He is also a board-certified physician.