Our highly experienced and diverse board is instrumental in driving our strategy forward
John Isaac is SVP, Research and Discovery at AviadoBio.
John brings more than 30 years of experience in academia, non-profit and industry. He’s an internationally recognized neuroscientist, originally with a focus on synaptic mechanisms in circuit function and how dysfunction causes psychiatric and neurological disease, and latterly on the cellular and molecular mechanisms of neurodegeneration. Most recently at Johnson & Johnson Innovation, John served as Head of Neuroscience, External Innovation, EMEA where he oversaw neuroscience partnerships and assets in EMEA spanning Discovery through Phase 2 development, as well as related business development activities, including the spinout of AviadoBio. Prior to that, he held several roles in various organizations, including leading the neuroscience strategy and funding at the Wellcome Trust and at Eli Lilly & Co, UK where he led a team of labs dedicated to identifying new treatments for psychiatry and neurodegeneration, including Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.
John received a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and pharmacology, and a PhD in neuroscience from University of Southampton, UK, and has held academic faculty positions in the UK and USA.
Professor Shaw had trained as a Neurologist in New Zealand before coming to Cambridge, UK on a Wellcome Trust Fellowship and moving to King’s College London in 1995. He is Director of the Maurice Wohl Clinical Neuroscience Institute, and Centre Director of the UK Dementia Research Institute at King’s. His research team have discovered more amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) genes than any other laboratory, enabling gene testing for patients and at-risk family members. They have generated a large number of stem cell and transgenic mouse models that recapitulate key features of the human disease and have revealed important mechanistic insights. Their focus for the future is to develop gene therapies for a wide range of neurodegenerative disorders using adeno-associated viral gene vectors. Award highlights include the “Forbes Norris Award” for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Care and Research (2009), “Sheila Essey Prize” for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Research (2012) and “Kea World Class New Zealander Award” (2019). He remains clinically active, running an ALS clinic at King’s College Hospital and leading clinical trials of antisense oligonucleotide therapies.
Professor Shaw had trained as a Neurologist in New Zealand before coming to Cambridge, UK on a Wellcome Trust Fellowship and moving to King’s College London in 1995. He is Director of the Maurice Wohl Clinical Neuroscience Institute, and Centre Director of the UK Dementia Research Institute at King’s. His research team have discovered more amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) genes than any other laboratory, enabling gene testing for patients and at-risk family members. They have generated a large number of stem cell and transgenic mouse models that recapitulate key features of the human disease and have revealed important mechanistic insights. Their focus for the future is to develop gene therapies for a wide range of neurodegenerative disorders using adeno-associated viral gene vectors. Award highlights include the “Forbes Norris Award” for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Care and Research (2009), “Sheila Essey Prize” for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Research (2012) and “Kea World Class New Zealander Award” (2019). He remains clinically active, running an ALS clinic at King’s College Hospital and leading clinical trials of antisense oligonucleotide therapies.
John Lavarino is Senior Director, People at AviadoBio. John has over 15 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical industry in the HR field. His HR career began in talent acquisition, but he rapidly gained experience in all areas of HR. He spent over two years at BioMarin where he supported an exciting period of growth in EMEA.
After his time at BioMarin, John joined Orchard Therapeutics as employee number 14, and during his five years there, he helped the company to grow and develop enormously. He was again involved in the company’s expansion into different territories, and saw the company grow from a startup into a publicly held company. This role allowed John to work in multiple areas of HR such as organisational design, organisational development, employee relations, learning and development, performance and reward, and talent planning.
Do Young Lee is Co-Founder at AviadoBio. Do Young has over 15 years’ experience in the clinical translation of gene therapies. Her initial research interest at University College London was in the discovery and translation of gene therapy for the treatment of Haemophilia and lysosomal storage disorders. Earlier in her career, she specialised in vector design and AAV capsid development – two key components of potent and safe gene therapy vectors. In 2015, Do Young joined Freeline therapeutics where she successfully led the research vector core as well as early preclinical programme designs.
In 2018, Do Young moved to the Department of Basic and Clinical neuroscience (Wohl Institute – King’s College London), where she led the UK-DRI vector core facility. Together with Professor Chris Shaw and Dr Youn Bok Lee, she co-founded AviadoBio. At AviadoBio Do Young is responsible for vector manufacture, discovery and pre-clinical activities.
Do Young holds a dual degree, a BSc in Biological engineering and Clinical pathology, MSc in Epidemiology from the Korea University and a PhD in Haematology from the Cancer institute in University College London.
Youn Bok Lee is Co-Founder at AviadoBio. Youn Bok has a career spanning over 25 years of research in molecular biology of neurodegenerative disease. In 2001, he Joined the molecular neuroscience research group at the University of Bristol, where he investigated the neuro specific regulatable system using virus technology. His study focused on the protective role of RNA binding proteins and microRNAs on neuronal cell death. In 2010, Youn Bok moved to King’s College London, where he continued pre-clinical research on the role of RNA binding protein TDP-43 and FUS in ALS and FTD. He discovered toxic gain of G4C2 RNA repeat expansion function and demonstrated the pathogenic mechanism of di-peptides in C9orf72 ALS/FTD. During this research career, he has conducted Lenti and AAV projects for pre-clinical research and translational science. In 2018, Youn Bok established his gene therapy group in King’s College London and conducted pre-clinical research for ALS/FTD. At AviadoBio Youn Bok is responsible for leading the innovative pre-clinical research and developing the gene therapy programmes.
Youn Bok holds a BSc in Biology and MSc in Animal Physiology and Biochemistry from Dongguk University, South Korea and a MSc and PhD in Molecule Neuroscience from University of Bristol, UK.
Lisa Deschamps is Chief Executive Office and Executive Board Member at AviadoBio.
Prior to joining, Lisa served as Senior Vice President and Chief Business Officer of Novartis Gene Therapies, a unit of Novartis where she was responsible for strategic planning and worldwide commercialization of the pipeline and in-line assets across the extensive gene therapy portfolio; including the world-wide commercialization of Zolgensma. Her career at Novartis spanned for more than twenty-five years, during which she brought products from the clinic to commercialization across many therapeutic areas, including highly Specialized, Rare and Ultra-Rare disease areas and has led teams across U.S, Europe, LatCan and Asia/Pac in Strategic, Functional and General Management roles.
Lisa served on several executive teams across commercial and development within Novartis and serves as a Non-Executive Director for VERONA Pharma and is a Strategic Advisor and Non-Executive Director for Reset Pharma.
Lisa is a visionary and passionate leader driven by a strong belief that those rallied around a common vision can achieve the extraordinary together – and has proven that throughout her career. She and her teams have fostered a strong, People-and Purpose driven culture built on productive curiosity, courage, collaboration and transparency, while serving patients and delivering growth far exceeding expectations.
She has garnered many industry awards and honors and has a number of philanthropic interests. Lisa has an MBA in General Management from NYU Stern School of Business and a BBA in marketing from IONA College, Hagan School of Business.
Dr. Carlos Miranda is VP, Pre Clinical at AviadoBio. Carlos brings over ten years of preclinical research in gene therapy gained in academic and industrial settings. During this period, Carlos worked in various AAV product development, including Zolgensma®, an FDA-approved gene therapy product to treat spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). Before joining AviadoBio, Carlos worked for Freeline Therapeutics (Stevenage, UK), leading the preclinical work on lysosomal storage disorders. Before that, Carlos gained his experience in AAV gene therapy at the Centre for Gene Therapy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus (Ohio, USA).
Carlos holds a PhD in Neuroscience and MSc in Human Genetics from the University of Porto, Portugal.
Jeff Goater is a Venture Partner at The Column Group. He is also interim Chief Executive Officer of Atavistik Bio. Previously, Jeff served as Chief Executive Officer of Surface Oncology. During his tenure at Surface, the company fostered an award-winning culture, advanced four programs into clinical development, completed its initial public offering and secured multiple strategic collaborations, including a transformative partnership with GlaxoSmithKline. Prior to Surface, he served as Chief Financial Officer of Voyager Therapeutics where he was one of the members of the founding management team. While at Voyager, he led its crossover financing, initial public offering and strategic partnership with Sanofi Genzyme. Previously he spent nearly a decade in investment banking, most recently as a managing director at Evercore Partners, advising on more than $100 billion in strategic transactions in the biopharma industry. He began his career as a research scientist in the field of AAV gene therapy.
Jeff holds master’s degrees in microbiology/immunology (M.S.), pathology (M.S.) and business administration (M.B.A.) from the University of Rochester, New York.
Dominic Schmidt is General Partner at Advent Life Sciences. Dominic has a background in biochemistry, genomics, molecular oncology, strategy consulting and life science venture capital. Prior to joining Advent, he spent eight years as a Partner in the investment team of Syncona, a publicly listed healthcare investment company. During his time there he was involved in the founding, funding and building of several life science businesses and served on the Boards of Anaveon, Orbit Biomedical (merged with Gyroscope), Gyroscope Therapeutics (acquired by Novartis for up to $1.5 billion), Purespring Therapeutics and Forcefield Therapeutics. After gaining a German Diplom Degree in Biochemistry from the Free University of Berlin and the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics he received a PhD from the Department of Oncology at the University of Cambridge. Dominic was a Cancer Research UK scholar, and his research has been published in Cell, Nature and Science. His PhD thesis was recognized with the Pontecorvo and Science and SciLife Lab Prizes.
Farah Speer is Senior Vice President, Communications and External Relations at AviadoBio.
Prior to this, Farah led communications for AveXis/Novartis Gene Therapies where she was responsible for establishing the company as a leader in gene therapy. While at Novartis, Farah led the launch of Zolgensma, a gene therapy approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for children with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), helping it to become the world’s most widely used gene therapy reaching over 2,000 patients and 43+ approvals globally.
Farah was also responsible for investor relations and internal communication to thousands of employees globally.
Farah’s experience prior to this was leading the North American healthcare practice at Golin, part of the Interpublic Group. In that role, Farah led the development of communications programs for global pharmaceutical, biotech and consumer healthcare companies on critical initiatives including corporate reputation, brand communications, consumer engagement and internal communications.
Farah graduated cum laude from the University of Notre Dame with a Master’s in Business Administration and has a Bachelor of Science in mass communication from Boston University’s College of Communication.
Fiona is a Senior Director, Venture Investments, Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation (JJDC) and sits on the Boards of Calypso Biotech BV, Pulmocide & Mestag Therapeutics. Prior to joining JJDC, Fiona served as a Director at Inkef Capital. A qualified pharmacist, Fiona is passionate about helping early-stage companies establish a value-building trajectory by engaging and challenging management and creating optimal development plans. Fiona began her career in biotech focusing on the development of non-viral gene therapy and other novel delivery solutions. A fundamental interest in philanthropy led her to the Wellcome Trust and a focus on translational funding, including establishing a fund to support the development of affordable healthcare technologies in India. Fiona’s transition to venture investing began with a move to Advent Life Sciences, where she was involved in helping shape and build a number of early-stage companies including Arrakis Therapeutics.
Alex Bloom is Chief Technology Officer at AviadoBio and heads up the technical operations and enabling functions (CMC, Quality Assurance and Regulatory Affairs). Alex brings over 15 years of operational excellence in biologics, with over 10 years spent dedicated to cell and gene therapy development. In this time, Alex has worked on over 25 clinical-stage gene therapy programs. Previously, Alex led quality and regulatory activities at Gyroscope Therapeutics, supporting the development of gene therapies and innovative delivery devices for retinal disease. Before Gyroscope, Alex held CMC technical leadership and regulatory roles of increasing responsibility at Kuur Therapeutics and Chiesi Farmaceutici, where he played a pivotal role in the development and approval of Holoclar®, the first tissue engineered product to be approved in Europe or the US. Earlier in his career, he spent time at Parexel, the Institute of Cancer Research and Meridian Life Sciences.
Alex holds a PhD and MSc from Sheffield University.
Graeme Fielder is Chief Operating Officer and was part of founding management team at AviadoBio. Graeme brings over 10 years of experience in the life science industry holding roles in strategy, business development, program and alliance management. He joins AviadoBio from Audentes Therapeutics Inc., (now Astellas Gene Therapies), a neuromuscular gene therapy company, where he oversaw the company’s corporate development activities including the acquisition to Astellas Pharma Inc., for $3 billion. Prior to Audentes, he held roles at BioMarin Pharmaceutical and Mesopharm Therapeutics.
Graeme holds a BSc. (Hons) degree in Biotechnology and a Ph.D. from the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Graeme also has a M.B.A from Stanford University, Graduate School of Business, USA.
Dr. David Cooper is Chief Medical Officer of AviadoBio.
David is a neurosurgeon with broad clinical development experience and has been a senior pharmaceutical professional for 20 years with an excellent track record of driving successful cross-functional teams as the medical lead within the clinical development and medical affairs organizations.
Prior to joining, he was Vice President of Clinical Development at uniQure, where he led the clinical translation approach to bring pre-clinical assets to clinic and served as clinical program lead in executing on multiple Phase I – III clinical programs. This included the pioneering first human dose studies in US and EU for intraparenchymal gene therapy for early-stage Huntington’s Disease. He served as uniQure’s clinical lead on the hemophilia B gene therapy through the BLA/MAA submissions. Prior to uniQure, David spent the majority of his industry career at Novo Nordisk within the hemophilia and rare bleeding disorders space as a key contributor to strategic clinical development planning, trial execution and life cycle management. He supported four successful BLA submissions and product launches in the hemophilia therapeutic area at Novo Nordisk.
David is a respected expert and valued collaborator in the area of clinical trials and observational research by key opinion leaders and professional organizations with 85 publications and 194 scientific posters and oral presentations.
Tim Funnell is a London Partner of Monograph Capital. Originally trained as a Pharmacologist with a PhD in lysosomal biology, Tim gained commercial experience at the Boston Consulting Group, before moving into Venture Capital. He has investing and operating experience via his roles at Syncona, Third Rock Ventures and Oxford Science Innovations. He has worked across small molecules, antibodies, gene and cell therapies and he has a particular interest in AAVs.
Matt McAviney joined NEA in 2018 and is currently a Partner on the healthcare team. He focuses on biopharma investments. Prior to NEA, Matt was a Principal at F-Prime Capital Partners. During his five years at F-Prime, he was responsible for closing investments in more than 20 private biopharma companies, and served on the board of more than 10 portfolio companies. Prior to F-Prime, he was a management consultant in the health and life sciences practice at Oliver Wyman, a biotech equity research analyst at Robert W. Baird, and a healthcare investment banker at JP Morgan. He also conducted lipid metabolism research at the National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Disorders. Matt is a board member of AviadoBio and Recludix Pharma, and works closely with Korro Bio.
Matt received a BA with Honors in Biological Sciences from the University of Chicago, an MD from the University of Illinois, and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
After serving as Aviado’s start-up CEO, Jonathan is currently responsible for the company’s business and financial activities. He is an experienced biotechnology executive and brings over 20 years of experience spanning company formation, business development and venture capital. Most recently he was part of the foundational management team at CRISPR Therapeutics initially leading the company’s business development activities before, more latterly, helping build the company’s technical operations and collaborations. Before this Jonathan worked for Janssen pharmaceuticals with regional business development responsibility for Immunology and EMEA emerging markets. Prior to Janssen spent time at Nomura Phase4 Ventures, completing investments in both private and public biotechnology companies whilst observing on several boards.
Jonathan hold a DPhil and MA in Chemistry from the University of Oxford.
Amber Salzman began her career at GlaxoSmithKline where she served as a member of the R&D Executive team. She was responsible for clinical trials globally with 30,000+ active patients, directing a budget of $1.25B and 1,600 employees worldwide. She then served as CEO of Cardiokine, where she successfully negotiated the sale of the company to Cornerstone Therapeutics (NASDAQ:CRTX). After Cardiokine, Amber launched Annapurna, a gene therapy company with rare disease assets that merged with Avalanche (NASDAQ:AAVL) to create Adverum Biotechnologies (NASDAQ:ADVM). Amber took on the CEO role, and while CEO Adverum’s stock price doubled and a secondary offering brought in additional funding. Amber returned to the east coast to lead Ohana Biosciences, a Flagship Pioneering company, establishing the industry’s first sperm product platform. Amber recently took on leadership of epic bio, a stealth company that regulates the epigenome to suppress and activate multiple genes simultaneously. Amber served on the Board of Akcea (NASDAQ:AKCA) until its sale to Ionis (NASDAQ: IONS) and currently serves on the Board of Osler Diagnostics (UK) and AviadoBio (UK).
For a variety of personal and professional reasons, Amber developed depth in the gene therapy space. Concurrent with industry positions, Amber leads a non-profit medical research foundation focused on accelerating the development of therapies for adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD). In that capacity, she was a catalyst to establish a novel gene therapy approach for treating ALD, resulting in the treatment moving towards registration via bluebird bio (NASDAQ: BLUE).
Laurence Barker is a Partner in the Dementia Discovery Fund (DDF) and has supported the funding and formation of numerous DDF companies developing transformational new medicines for dementia. He joined SV Health Investors in 2016 having played an active role in setting up DDF. Prior to joining the DDF, Laurence was Head of Investment Management in Worldwide Business Development at GSK where he was responsible for managing GSK’s venture investment portfolio, covering both direct equity positions as well as a venture fund-of-funds portfolio. In addition, he led licensing transactions for the pharma R&D business. Prior to GSK, Laurence worked in business development at biotech companies Syntaxin and MorphoSys. Laurence received his Masters degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, his PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Tübingen, Germany, and an MBA from Cambridge.
Nihal Sinha is a Partner at F-Prime based in London and focuses primarily on biotech. Nihal has been an early-stage investor in several gene and gene therapy companies including as a founding team member of Orchard Therapeutics. Prior to joining F-Prime in 2013, he worked as a strategy consultant at BCG and as an academic physician at Oxford University and UCL Hospitals. Nihal holds a MB BChir with distinction from the University of Cambridge and is a Member of the Royal College of Physicians.