Arthur O. Tzianabos, Ph.D., is President and CEO of Lifordi Immunotherapeutics and a Venture Partner at 5AM Ventures. He has over 30 years of experience in the biotechnology industry and academia leading teams in the discovery, development, clinical translation and commercialization of new treatments for immunology and rare diseases.
Dr. Tzianabos served as President and CEO of Homology Medicines and later became Chair of the Board prior to its merger with Q32 Bio. Dr. Tzianabos is currently a member of the Board of Directors at Q32 Bio and Chair of the Board of Directors at Stoke Therapeutics. Previously, he was Chair of the Board for Akouos Therapeutics (acquired by Eli Lilly in 2022). He also serves on the Development Board for the University of New Hampshire’s College of Life Sciences and Agriculture. Earlier in his career, Dr. Tzianabos had an active role in the development, approval, and commercial launch of multiple therapies for patients with rare genetic disorders at Shire Pharmaceuticals. He also worked closely with the Business Development and Corporate Venture functions to invest in and acquire new companies and technologies to build Shire’s pipeline.
Dr. Tzianabos is trained as an immunologist and was an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School where he maintained laboratories at the Channing Laboratory, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at Harvard Medical School. He has published more than 80 scientific papers, reviews, book chapters and patents. Dr. Tzianabos holds a Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of New Hampshire and a B.S. in Biology from Boston College.
Naina Bhasin, Ph.D. brings to Lifordi 20 years of life science experience in corporate and business development, strategic planning, and operations. Dr. Bhasin’s broad understanding of the needs of emerging companies has led to a successful track record in building teams, functions, and organizations.
Most recently, Dr. Bhasin served as Chief Business Officer at Ensoma where she was instrumental in building the company from seed stage through Series B. Previously, Dr. Bhasin worked at Intellia Therapeutics as the Chief of Staff to the CEO, leading the planning and execution of a wide variety of strategic initiatives across the business. Prior to that, Dr. Bhasin was Director of Business Development at Shire where she was responsible for the identification, evaluation, and execution of transactions that supported the company’s rare disease strategy. Earlier in her career, she held business development and operational roles at SciFluor Life Sciences, CellzDirect and The Hamner Institutes, a nonprofit research organization.
Dr. Bhasin is a member of the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association, previously serving as a board member of the Boston Chapter and has been involved with MassBio’s MassCONNECT program. Dr. Bhasin holds a Ph.D. in Cell and Developmental Biology from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a B.S. in Cell and Structural Biology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Dr. McClure has over 20 years of knowledge and hands-on experience in all phases of clinical development and global operations across a broad range of therapeutic areas spanning from orphan diseases to highly prevalent diseases.
Following his medical training at Duke University, he worked at biotechnology companies in roles of increasing responsibility, including as Chief Medical Officer at several companies. Prior to joining Lifordi, Dr. McClure was CMO of Aligos Therapeutics where he was responsible for development team functions including Clinical and Clinical Operations and he designed and oversaw six first-in-human clinical trials as well as Phase 2 studies. Before Aligos, Dr. McClure was CMO of Second Genome where he directed Clinical, Operations, Regulatory, as well as Toxicology and Chemistry, Manufacturing, and Controls (CMC) functions. Earlier in his career, he was responsible for the design, execution, and interpretation of numerous clinical studies at Alios BioPharma (acquired by Johnson & Johnson), Portola Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and InterMune, Inc. (acquired by Roche).
Dr. McClure received his medical degree from Duke University and is an alumnus of the University of California, San Diego, where he graduated summa cum laude with a B.S. in biochemistry and cell biology.
Theresa McNeely has more than 25 years of integrated corporate communications experience spanning investor relations, public relations, marketing communications and patient advocacy in life sciences companies, including pharmaceutical, biotech, diagnostics and medical device firms.
Ms. McNeely was most recently Chief Communications Officer & Patient Advocate at Homology Medicines where she led investor relations, public relations, and interactions with patient advocacy groups and key opinion leaders. Prior to Homology, she was SVP, Investor Relations and Corporate Communications at Akebia Therapeutics, and before that she was EVP, Chief Communications Officer at OvaScience. She also held management positions at a number of other companies including Millennium Pharmaceuticals, EXACT Sciences, Clinical Data, Inc. and Pyrosequencing. Earlier in her career, Ms. McNeely worked on Wall Street for a boutique investment bank as a stockbroker and supported a portfolio manager and analyst. Ms. McNeely is a member of the National Board of Directors for Women in Bio and an Advisory Board member for Cramer Productions — a creative brand experience agency, and currently serves as their lead director for the Cramer Health division.
Ms. McNeely received her B.S. in Business Management from Providence College, and an M.S. in Business Communications and Healthcare Communications from Simmons College.
Dave Nichols has more than 25 years of experience in process development and GMP clinical and commercial manufacturing for biologics, including antibody drug conjugates (ADC) and small molecules, as well as analytical development and quality control, cold chain logistics and management.
Prior to joining Lifordi, Mr. Nichols was Chief Technology Officer at Magenta and a member of the Executive Team. While at Magenta, he led CMC activities from early development through late-stage clinical development and production, including driving strategic initiatives to ensure comparability, compliance and risk mitigation for ADCs, cell therapy, and peptide manufacturing processes. Before Magenta, Mr. Nichols served as Senior Vice President of Technical Operations at Kiniksa Pharmaceuticals, Ltd., where he was responsible for process development and internal and external GMP manufacturing across the portfolio, supply chain, device and quality control initiatives. Previously, Mr. Nichols held positions of increasing responsibility at leading pharmaceutical companies including Head of CMC Biologicals Drug Substances at Tesaro; Senior Director of Process Development at Operations at Teva; and Senior Director, CMC Integration at Shire.
Mr. Nichols holds an M.B.A. from Northeastern University and a M.S. in Biochemistry from the University of New Hampshire.
Jay Rothstein, Ph.D., has more than 30 years of experience as a translational immunobiologist leading discovery, PK/PD, toxicological assessment, and proof-of-concept models for immune-modulatory drugs.
Most recently, he was Chief Scientific Officer at ImmuNext where he was instrumental in helping to establish five strategic research partnerships with leading pharmaceutical and biotech companies, including Eli Lilly, Sanofi, Roche, Janssen (Johnson & Johnson), and Curis. Previously, Dr. Rothstein was Director of Inflammation Research at Amgen where he championed a novel class of immunomodulatory drugs for the treatment of autoimmune disease. During his nine years at Amgen, he helped in cross-functional teams to evaluate and develop Amgen’s early immune-oncology drug pipeline, which included novel bispecifics such as BiTEs, as well as novel drugs to target immunometabolism. Before Amgen, Dr. Rothstein was a Professor of Otolaryngology-HNS at the Kimmel Cancer Institute of Thomas Jefferson University for 13 years, where his laboratory was responsible for discovering an association between oncogenes and chronic inflammation leading to a better understanding of the tumor microenvironment.
Dr. Rothstein holds a Ph.D. in Tumor Immunology from the University of Chicago and a B.S. in Microbiology/Molecular Biology from Pennsylvania State University.
Rex L. Williams, Ph.D., has more than 20 years of experience in life sciences spanning molecular biology, DMPK, and clinical and nonclinical pharmacology. Dr. Williams has contributed to and led the application of clinical pharmacology and pharmacometrics across all phases of drug development.
Dr. Williams previously served as Vice President of Clinical Pharmacology at SpringWorks Therapeutics where he oversaw clinical pharmacology, pharmacometrics, DMPK, and bioanalysis efforts for the clinical stage portfolio in rare oncology leading to multiple regulatory submissions and drug approvals. Before SpringWorks, Dr. Williams was a clinical pharmacologist at Bausch Health and a clinical pharmacology consultant and program manager at Nuventra Pharma Sciences.
Dr. Williams holds a Ph.D. in Genetics and Molecular Biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a B.S. in Biochemistry from Texas A&M University.