Ted brings many years of experience in accounting and financial reporting for rapidly evolving biotechnology companies. Most recently he was VP Finance, Accounting and Treasury at Xilio Therapeutics in Waltham, and prior to that he worked in a similar capacity at research and commercial biopharmaceutical companies such as Evelo Biosciences, TESARO, AMAG Pharmaceuticals and Praecis Pharmaceuticals. Ted spent the first several years of his career at KPMG, an independent public accounting firm, and obtained his MSA/MBA from Northeastern University and BSBA from Georgetown University.
Derek is Vice President and Head of Business Development at Jnana and brings his experience in business development and strategy from large and small biopharmaceutical organizations to Jnana.
Prior to joining Jnana, Derek held roles of increasing responsibility in business development at Biogen, where he was responsible for all aspects of deal evaluation, negotiation, and execution for varied transactions ranging from discovery through late stage, including collaborations, licenses, and strategic investments. He also previously spent time in business development with Nimbus Therapeutics.
Derek holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management, MS in biological sciences from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and BS in biology from Boston College.
Justin joined Jnana shortly after its founding in 2017. While at Jnana, he co-invented and has continued to evolve the technology underlying the RAPID platform, which is a next-generation chemoproteomics method that identifies lead-like small molecules that bind to any target of interest inside of a cell. Every drug discovery program at Jnana has used the RAPID platform to identify drug-like chemical starting points, including Jnana’s allosteric inhibitor of SLC6A19 currently in clinical trials for PKU. Justin also played a key role in establishing and supporting Jnana’s two active partnerships with Roche, which leverage RAPID to tackle challenging targets across immunology, oncology, and neurological disease. Today, Justin leads the Early Discovery group, which is responsible for supporting teams in taking new projects from conception through to cellular proof of concept.
Prior to Jnana, Justin completed postdoctoral training in discovery biology at the Whitehead Institute with the late Susan Lindquist. He obtained his PhD in chemical biology working with Jim Wells at UCSF to discover small molecules targeting allosteric sites and protein-protein interfaces.
Toby joins Jnana as Vice President, Head of Clinical Operations with over 30 years of experience in all phases of global pharmaceutical and device development across multiple therapeutic areas, including over 25 years in Clinical Operations. Other areas of experience include Preclinical Safety Assessment, Regulatory Affairs and Medical Affairs leading Advisory Boards and providing Medical Scientific Liaison training and development. Before joining Jnana, Toby served as Vice President of Clinical Operations at Sio Gene Therapies. Prior to that, he was Vice President of Clinical Development at Liquidia Technologies. He has been responsible for building Clinical Operations organizations from the ground up – hiring talent, developing infrastructure, and providing management and oversight of clinical trials and programs – for several companies, including Liquidia Technologies, Exact Sciences, Actavis, Warner Chilcott Pharmaceuticals, and Procter and Gamble Pharmaceuticals. His responsibilities have also included the assessment of new technologies and process to drive innovation and efficiency into clinical development programs and lead the vetting and selection of preferred vendors and systems. Toby holds an M.S. degree in Clinical Pharmacology from The Ohio State University School of Medicine, and a B.S. in Biology from Xavier University.
Matthew Hammond is a Principal on the Investment Team at RA Capital Management. Matthew works on both public and private investments and serves as a Director for Cerebral Therapeutics, DTx Pharma, Forge Biologics, Kira Pharmaceuticals, and Research Alliance Corp II. Matthew holds a BS in Environmental Health Science from the University of Georgia and both a PhD in Biomedical Science and an MBA with a concentration in Finance from the University of Connecticut. His graduate research investigated innate immune responses after intracerebral hemorrhage.
Joanne has broad life sciences experience in research, business and operations. She helped formulate the initial scientific strategy for Jnana and has led the business and operations of the company since its launch. Prior to Jnana, she was assistant director of the F-Prime Biomedical Research Initiative, whose mission is to advance the discovery of novel therapeutic agents for the treatment of neurodegenerative disease by funding early-stage research in academia and biotech companies. Before F-Prime, Joanne was a director at the Broad Institute, where she held a leadership role in creating and guiding partnerships to advance drug discovery efforts, including the Broad-Bayer collaboration in oncology that resulted in the identification of multiple drug candidates. At Broad, Joanne also developed a model for rare disease research that directly involved patients in the research team. Joanne received her doctorate in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley and bachelor’s in chemistry from the University of Florida. She conducted her postdoctoral research at the Necker Children’s Hospital in Paris and Genentech. Following Genentech, she was at Nature Publishing Group, including as founding editor of the journal Nature Chemical Biology.
Dr. Nicholson was most recently CEO at Nimbus Therapeutics. Prior to Nimbus, Dr. Nicholson spent 25 years at Merck, where he held various strategic, leadership and operational roles across diverse therapeutic areas including inflammation, immunology and neuroscience, amongst others. He began his career at Merck Frosst in Montreal as a senior research biologist and advanced through various positions of increasing responsibility, including vice president and site head of the Merck Neurosciences Research site in San Diego, vice president of immunology and infectious diseases and then vice president and worldwide discovery head for the Bone, Respiratory, Immunology and Endocrine franchise based in New Jersey. Don has co-authored more than 150 publications in peer-reviewed scientific and medical journals and is internationally recognized for his contributions to the field of apoptotic cell death. Don received his doctorate in biochemistry from the University of Western Ontario and trained as a Medical Research Council postdoctoral fellow at the University of Munich in Germany. He is the recipient of multiple academic and professional honors. Don is also a member of the Board of Directors of Kymera Therapeutics and Generation Bio.