Kriya Therapeutics competitors

Experienced Board Member, Inventor and Serial Entrepreneur with a demonstrated history of success in the biotechnology industry. Skilled in Biotechnology, Product Development, Life Sciences and Transactions. Strong business development professional with a Ph.D. focused in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Nottingham. Winner EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2014, NJ Region.

Colin Farlow is a Co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer & Board Member at Serotiny.

Jake Becraft is a synthetic biologist and biotech entrepreneur, as well as the co-founder and CEO of Strand Therapeutics. Strand is situated at the intersection of synthetic biology, immunotherapy, and mRNA therapeutics. Jake started his career developing the SAfER platform at MIT, the world’s first synthetic biology programming language for mRNA. Beyond that work, his broader interests span synthetic biology, the intersection of hard-tech and biologically engineered therapeutics, and biologically engineered organism-machine interfaces. He is an inventor on a multitude of patents in the biotech/gene therapy space and has won numerous awards for his scientific and entrepreneurial achievements, including a Goldwater Scholarship, a Viterbi Fellowship, and an Amgen fellowship. He is an advocate among the life science entrepreneurial ecosystem for supporting founder-driven biotech startups and works to help increase young technical founders in biotech entrepreneurship. Jake has previously served as a Science and Technology advisor to legislators in the Massachusetts State Legislature. He often speaks internationally on the field of synthetic biology, as well as the broader entrepreneurship environment necessary to bring next generation synbio gene therapeutics to market. Jake also serves on the Executive Board of Public Health United, a non-profit focused on educating scientists across disciplines to foster their communication skills in order to become their own scientific ambassadors. He received his PhD in Biological Engineering and Synthetic Biology from MIT and his BS in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, graduating Magna cum Laude with distinction. In his free time, he is an avid back-country snowboarder and trains Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

Bastiano Sanna, Ph.D., joined Vertex in 2019 and is the company’s Executive Vice President, Chief of Cell and Genetic Therapies. In this role, Dr. Sanna is responsible for advancing research, development and manufacturing for all of Vertex’s cell and genetic therapy programs, including hemoglobinopathies, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, myotonic dystrophy type 1 and type 1 diabetes. He will also oversee the future Vertex Cell and Genetic Therapies research site, which is expected to open in 2021 at Innovation Square in Boston’s Seaport District. Dr. Sanna was previously the CEO of Semma Therapeutics, which was acquired by Vertex in 2019. Under his leadership, Semma’s pioneering work to develop cell therapy treatments for those living with type 1 diabetes significantly advanced. Prior to Semma, Dr. Sanna was Chief Operating Officer at Magenta Therapeutics, where he was responsible for operations, finance, clinical development and program management. Prior to Magenta, Dr. Sanna served on the leadership team of Novartis’ Cell and Gene Therapy Unit as the Global Program Head of Stem Cell Transplant and early programs, where he oversaw clinical, regulatory, CMC and commercial aspects of programs in bone marrow transplant and CAR-T cell therapies. He also served as Global Head of Strategic Planning and Portfolio Management at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, where he was responsible for the global portfolio management of all Novartis’ research programs, from discovery through Phase II across all disease areas. Dr. Sanna received a Ph.D. in Biotechnology from the University of Sassari.

Rick has helped bring transformative medicines to patients in more than 10 diseases across multiple successful biotech companies. Before joining Affinia Therapeutics, Rick was Chief Business Officer at AveXis where he played a significant role in the company's build and sale to Novartis for $8.7 billion and the launch of Zolgensma®, its flagship gene therapy product. Prior to AveXis, Rick was Chief Business Officer at Catabasis Pharmaceuticals and before that, a Senior Vice President in the commercial group at InterMune until its acquisition by Roche. Before this, Rick held roles of increasing responsibility at MedImmune (AstraZeneca) and at Centocor (J&J). Before joining the industry, Rick practiced as a clinical pharmacist in a hospital setting. He received his B.S. in Pharmacy from the University of Iowa and his M.B.A. from the Wharton School.