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Chris Schade appointed as Board Chairperson
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Lynne Parshall, Robert Plenge, M.D., Ph.D., and Nancy Simonian, M.D., appointed to Board of Directors
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.
, July 17, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Alltrna, a Flagship Pioneering company unlocking transfer RNA (tRNA) biology and pioneering tRNA therapeutics to regulate the protein universe and resolve disease, today announced the appointment of Chris Schade, Growth Partner at Flagship Pioneering, as Chairperson of the Board, succeeding Noubar Afeyan, Ph.D., Co-Founder of Alltrna and Founder and CEO of Flagship Pioneering. In addition, Alltrna also announced the appointments to the company's Board of Directors of Lynne Parshall, founding Chief Operating Officer of Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Robert Plenge, M.D., Ph.D., Executive Vice President, Chief Research Officer and Head of Research at Bristol Myers Squibb, and Nancy Simonian, M.D., Founding CEO of Syros Pharmaceuticals. They join Board Directors Michelle Werner, Alltrna CEO and Flagship Pioneering CEO-Partner, and Lovisa Afzelius, Ph.D., MBA, Alltrna Co-Founder and Flagship Pioneering General Partner.
"As a Co-Founder of Alltrna and Board Chairperson since 2018, I've been honored to guide Alltrna from ideation to platform creation to in vivo preclinical proof-of-concept," said Noubar Afeyan, Ph.D., Founder and CEO of Flagship Pioneering and Co-Founder of Alltrna. "As Alltrna looks to bring its first tRNA medicines into the clinic, Chris' expertise in company development, partnering, and financing will be indispensable. With Chris leading the Board and the additions of Lynne, Robert, and Nancy, Alltrna is exceptionally well-positioned to fulfill this enormous opportunity leveraging the unique biology of tRNA to scale the development of genetic medicines for many diseases."
"Noubar's extraordinary vision as Board Chairperson during Alltrna's critical formative years have brought us to our leadership position in the genetic medicines community today, and Chris's diverse experience and insights in helping grow biotech companies will be invaluable as we build on this momentum to pioneer tRNA medicine and further build Alltrna and its platform to support innovation and scale," added Michelle C. Werner, CEO of Alltrna and CEO-Partner of Flagship Pioneering. "I also look forward to working closely with Lynne, Robert, and Nancy and leveraging their extensive experience to advance our first universal medicine for Stop Codon Disease to the clinic."
"I am honored to be Chairperson and look forward to continuing to work with Michelle and Lovisa at this pivotal time as Alltrna charts its path to clinical trials and beyond," said Chris Schade, Board Chairperson, Alltrna and Growth Partner, Flagship Pioneering. "With proof-of-concept in vivo data showing its platform can be leveraged to engineer and modify tRNAs for universal readthrough of a shared genetic mutation found in thousands of rare diseases, Alltrna is leading the field in turning tRNA's sophisticated biology into scalable genetic medicines. I am also thrilled to welcome Lynne, Robert, and Nancy to Alltrna's Board of Directors. Their diverse expertise spanning all aspects of drug development, from translational research to operations and strategy, will serve Alltrna well as the company advances this completely new class of RNA medicines."
Christian S. Schade
Mr. Schade has more than 30 years of private and public pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry experience, as well as broad corporate finance expertise from his tenure in investment banking. Prior to Flagship, he served as the Chairman and CEO of Aprea Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ: APRE), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company. Prior to Aprea, Schade's previous roles include CEO of Novira (acquired by Johnson & Johnson), Executive Vice President (EVP) and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Omthera Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: OMTH, acquired by AstraZeneca Plc), EVP and CFO at NRG Energy Inc. (NYSE: NRG), and Senior Vice President of Administration and CFO at Medarex, Inc. (NASDAQ: MEDX, acquired by Bristol Myers Squibb). Before Medarex, Schade served as Managing Director at Merrill Lynch in London and held various corporate finance and capital markets positions in New York and London for both Merrill Lynch and JP Morgan Chase & Co. Schade currently serves as Chair of the Board of Directors of Omega Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: OMGA), and serves on the Boards of Ring Therapeutics, Valo Health, and Integra LifeSciences Inc. (NASDAQ:IART), where he chairs the Audit and Finance Committees.
Lynne Parshall
Ms. Parshall is a seasoned biotechnology leader with more than 35 years in industry. An attorney by training, she spent more than 30 years as the founding Chief Operating Officer of Ionis Pharmaceuticals and subsequently as a Strategic Advisor to the CEO, overseeing legal, finance, business development, portfolio management, strategic planning, manufacturing, regulatory, alliance management, and other functions. While at Ionis she was responsible for raising more than $6 billion in financing from equity-based securities and corporate partner transactions. Ms. Parshall has sat on numerous public and private company Boards of Directors and has extensive Audit Committee and corporate governance experience. She currently is on the Boards of Ionis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: IONS), Cytokinetics (NASDAQ: CYTK), Foghorn Therapeutics (NASDAQ: FHTX), Ring Therapeutics, Repertoire Immune Medicines, and Celdara Medical. She was previously Chair of the Board of Akcea Therapeutics prior to its acquisition. Prior to working in industry, she was a partner at the Cooley law firm with a practice focusing on securities law and biotechnology corporate partnering.
Robert Plenge, M.D., Ph.D.
Dr. Plenge is Executive Vice President, Chief Research Officer and Head of Research at Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS). He leads scientific activities across eleven research sites around the world all focused on transforming patients' lives through science. Prior to his current role, Dr. Plenge served as head of Discovery & Translational Sciences at BMS, which spanned all therapeutic areas at the company. He joined BMS as part of the acquisition of Celgene in November 2019. At Celgene, he served as Vice President, Immunology & Inflammation portfolio, Research & Early Development. Prior to joining Celgene, Dr. Plenge was Vice President and Head of Translational Medicine at Merck. Prior to his roles in industry, he was an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and an Associate Member of the Broad Institute while practicing clinical rheumatology and running a research laboratory at Brigham & Women's Hospital. Dr. Plenge is an author of more than 125 manuscripts published in peer-reviewed journals and a recipient of several academic and corporate awards. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for the PhRMA Foundation.
Nancy Simonian, M.D.
Dr. Simonian is a physician-scientist who has dedicated her career to developing drugs for people with serious diseases. She is the Founding CEO and a member of the Board of Directors of Syros Pharmaceuticals, a biopharmaceutical company committed to advancing novel approaches to treating cancer based on altering gene expression. Prior to Syros, she was Chief Medical Officer at Millennium Pharmaceuticals and Vice President of Clinical Development at Biogen. At Millennium, Dr. Simonian oversaw the successful development of VELCADE® to treat multiple myeloma, and mantle cell lymphoma, NINLARO® to treat multiple myeloma and ENTYVIO® to treat inflammatory bowel disease. At Biogen, she played a central role in developing AVONEX® and TYSABRI® for multiple sclerosis. Dr. Simonian started her career as an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. She currently serves as a Director of Syros (NASDAQ: SYRS) and the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation. She previously served as a Director of Seagen (NASDAQ: SGEN; acquired by Pfizer in 2023), Evelo (NASDAQ: EVLO), and ArQule (NASDAQ: ARQL; acquired by Merck in 2020).
About Stop Codon Disease
Stop Codon Disease encompasses thousands of rare and common diseases that stem from premature termination codons (PTC) also called nonsense mutations, where the code for an amino acid has been mutated into a premature "stop" codon. This results in a truncated or shortened protein product with no or altered biological activity that causes disease. Approximately 10% of all people with a genetic disease have Stop Codon Disease, representing approximately 30 million people worldwide. Alltrna is engineering tRNA medicines that can read these PTC mutations and deliver the desired amino acid, thereby restoring the production of the full-length protein.
About Alltrna
Alltrna unlocks tRNA biology to treat disease. The company's platform incorporates AI/ML tools to develop and deliver diverse programmable molecules with broad therapeutic potential. Alltrna has an unprecedented opportunity to advance a single tRNA medicine to readthrough premature stop codons and unify treatment across a wide range of diseases with the same underlying genetic mutations. Alltrna was founded in 2018 by Flagship Pioneering. For more info, visit www.alltrna.com.
About Flagship Pioneering
Flagship Pioneering invents and builds bioplatform companies, each with the potential for multiple products that transform human health or sustainability. Since its launch in 2000, Flagship has originated and fostered more than 100 scientific ventures, resulting in more than $75 billion in aggregate value. To date, Flagship has deployed over $3.8 billion in capital toward the founding and growth of its pioneering companies alongside more than $27 billion of follow-on investments from other institutions. The current Flagship ecosystem comprises 40 companies, including Foghorn Therapeutics (NASDAQ: FHTX), Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA), Sana Biotechnology (NASDAQ: SANA), Generate Biomedicines, Inari, Indigo Agriculture, and Tessera Therapeutics.
Media Contacts
Jessica Yingling, Ph.D., Little Dog Communications Inc., jessica@litldog.com, +1.858.344.8091
Josephine Zorbo, Ph.D., Flagship Pioneering, Jzorbo@flagshippioneering.com
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