Lexeo team

R. Nolan Townsend has served as LEXEO Therapeutics Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board of Directors since January 2020. LEXEO Therapeutics is a New York City-based, clinical stage biotechnology company that aims to apply the transformational science of gene therapy to address some of the world’s most devastating genetic diseases.

Prior to LEXEO, Mr. Townsend held roles as President, Pfizer Rare Disease for the North America region and President, Pfizer Rare Disease for the International markets; overseeing overall strategy, the cross functional organization and operating budget in those regions.  Mr. Townsend has over a decade of experience with Pfizer first joining the company in Corporate Finance and subsequently in roles of increasing responsibility across Corporate Finance, Corporate Strategy, Operations, Marketing, General Management and Commercial leadership in Pfizer’s New York headquarters, Asia, Africa/Middle East and Europe.  Prior to Pfizer, Mr. Townsend worked in the healthcare investment banking group at Lehman Brothers, advising healthcare companies on strategic financing transactions and mergers and acquisitions.

Mr. Townsend serves on the New York City Economic Development Corporation’s Life Sciences Advisory Council and as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Life Science Cares New York.

Mr. Townsend received his Masters in Business Administration from the Harvard Business School and his Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania.

Eric Adler, MD, joined LEXEO Therapeutics in 2022 as Chief Scientific Officer. Dr. Adler is a pioneer in cardiovascular gene therapy, and currently serves as Professor of Medicine, head of the Heart Failure Section, Director of the Strauss Center for Cardiomyopathy, and the Czarina and Humberto S. Lopez Chancellor’s Endowed Chair in Cardiology at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). Dr. Adler’s work has led to the development of a novel investigational gene therapy for Danon disease, which is currently in Phase 1 clinical development.

Dr. Adler’s research is focused on the study and treatment of cardiomyopathy and he has published over 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals on the topic. Dr. Adler is currently an associate editor of Circulation Heart Failure, and has served on leadership, grant review, and guideline committees for the American Heart Association, the Heart Failure Society of America, the International Society of Heart and Lung Transplant, and the National Institute of Health. Dr. Adler earned his medical degree from the Boston University School of Medicine.

Paul B. McCormac, PhD, joined LEXEO Therapeutics as Chief Technical Officer in Q1 2021. Dr. McCormac is an industry expert with a proven track record in the field of gene therapy and biologics chemistry, manufacturing, and controls (CMC). Prior to joining LEXEO, he served as Medicinal Sciences Category Lead for Pfizer Rare Disease, where he among other responsibilities led gene therapy CMC and vector supply strategy for Pfizer’s rare disease business and research units. From 2008 to 2016, he was a product development leader in Pfizer’s manufacturing organization, leading late-stage development and commercialization of large molecule products. Prior to joining Pfizer, he held positions in Process Development at Avecia Biotechnology, a leading contract manufacturer of oligonucleotide therapeutics. Dr. McCormac received his B.S. in analytical science and his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Dublin City University and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Queen’s University Belfast.

Micah Zajic joined LEXEO Therapeutics in Q1 2023. Mr. Zajic joined as Chief Financial Officer later transitioning to LEXEO’s Chief Business Officer where he focuses on the evaluation and execution of external partnerships, license agreements and acquisitions. Prior to LEXEO, Mr. Zajic served as Chief Business Officer and later Chief Financial Officer at SQZ Therapeutics where he led the business development, finance, investor relations and operations functions. He also led SQZ’s strategic collaboration with Roche, in addition taking the company public and raising $130M+ in capital. Prior to SQZ, Mr. Zajic held Corporate Development and Strategy roles at MeiraGTx and Alexion Pharmaceuticals, respectively, where he focused on the evaluation and execution of external partnerships, license agreements and acquisitions. Earlier in his career, he held various roles at Morgan Stanley where he spent over 10 years in the Global Capital Markets and Healthcare Investment Banking Groups raising capital and executing strategic transactions for companies across the healthcare industry. Mr. Zajic received his BA in Economics from Georgetown University.

Jenny Robertson joined LEXEO Therapeutics Q1 2022. Ms. Robertson joined LEXEO as General Counsel, later transitioning to Chief Legal and Administrative Officer where she is responsible for leading legal, HR, IT, information security, and facilities strategies and activities across the Company. Prior to LEXEO, Ms. Robertson served as Chief Counsel to Pfizer’s Oncology Business Unit and has held other senior legal roles including as Chief Counsel for Pfizer’s Rare Disease Business Unit, leading its global legal team for five years. Across positions at Pfizer, Ms. Robertson counseled clients on a range of business and legal matters, including commercialization, disclosure, business development, alliance management, clinical development, intellectual property issues, and litigation. Before joining Pfizer in 2010, Ms. Robertson spent 10 years in private practice with a large international law firm in New York and Washington D.C., engaged in complex commercial litigation with a healthcare law focus. Ms. Robertson holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Science from Southern Illinois University and a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center, where she co-founded and served as Editor-in-Chief of The Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law.

Jordan Shin, MD, PhD, joined LEXEO Therapeutics as Senior Vice President, Clinical Development and Translational Science, Cardiology, in Q1 2023. Prior to LEXEO, Dr. Shin served as Renovacor’s SVP, Clinical Development and Translational Science where he oversaw the development of translational research planning and developed the clinical development strategy for Bag3 gene therapy, serving as the strategic lead for the project team. Prior to Renovacor, Dr. Shin was the VP, Medical Development, at Lung Biotechnology, a subsidiary of United Therapeutics, PBC, were he led clinical aspects of study design and oversight, medical monitoring, site selection, and interaction and engagement for the company’s small molecule programs, devices, xenotransplant and cell and gene therapies. In addition to his full time experience, he has also served as a consultant for Acceleron Pharma, Inc., Reify Corporation, and as a board observer for Celularity, Inc. Prior to his career in industry, Dr. Shin was in clinical practice at Massachusetts General Hospital and an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and specialized in the treatment of patients with advanced heart failure and heart transplant. Dr. Shin earned his M.D. and Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Alabama School of Medicine and his bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics from Harvard College.

Dr. Jordan Dubow joined LEXEO Therapeutics as Head of CNS Clinical Development in Q1 2023. Dr. Dubow is a neurologist with fellowship training in movement disorders and vascular neurology and began his medical career in academia as a movement disorders and stroke neurologist. Dr. Dubow has extensive experience in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry, where he has served in full time or acting CMO capacities for both public and private companies, leading all clinical and regulatory aspects of development for small and large molecule drugs and cell and gene therapies. Dr. Dubow received his medical degree from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. He completed his internal medicine internship, Neurology residency and fellowship training at University of California Los Angeles, Northwestern University and Weill Cornell Medical College.

Julie Allen joined LEXEO Therapeutics as Vice President, Clinical Operations, in Q2 2023. Most recently, Ms. Allen served as Head of Development Operations at Global Blood Therapeutics where she led a clinical operations team overseeing nearly 20 early and late-stage clinical studies simultaneously, including those that led to the accelerated approval of Oxbryta, the first approved treatment for sickle cell disease.  Prior to GBT, Ms. Allen served as Head of Americas for Clinical Operations at EMD Serono and earlier, Regional Head of Site Monitoring & Management at AbbVie. Ms. Allen holds a bachelor’s degree in Nursing from the University of Windsor, Ontario Canada as well as certifications in program and project management.

Leslie DiRisio joined LEXEO Therapeutics as Vice President, Portfolio and Program Management in Q2 2023. Prior to LEXEO, Ms. DiRisio has served in roles of increasing responsibility within Project, Portfolio, Operations, Alliance Management, and Governance at Pfizer. Most recently, Ms. DiRisio served in Pfizer’s Global R&D organization, leading the team responsible for metrics, analytics, and reporting essential to convert portfolio-level data into performance intelligence and strategic business insights to enhance delivery and execution against key development milestones. Prior her latest Pfizer role, Ms. DiRisio directed Governance processes for late-stage clinical programs, led medicine teams and joint development teams, as well as worked in a number of roles within clinical operations. Ms. DiRisio holds a BS in Microbiology, MS in Project Management, and an MPH in Epidemiology.

Richie Khanna, PhD joined LEXEO Therapeutics as Vice President, Non-clinical and Bioanalytical Development in Q1 2021. Prior to LEXEO, Dr. Khanna worked at Amicus Therapeutics for 16 years starting as employee #7, leading the comprehensive Non-clinical Development programs. Dr. Khanna established an In Vivo Pharmacology Department of 15 scientists at Bachelors, Masters, and PhD levels and led all IND-enabling animal studies for small molecules, Biologics, and AAV gene therapy programs. Dr. Khanna’s significant non-clinical achievement was global approval of Galafold for Fabry disease and successful rolling non-clinical BLA submission for ATB200 for Pompe disease. Dr. Khanna received her PhD in Molecular Biology from the University of Delhi, India and obtained first post-doctoral research experience in Biomedical Science from Tufts University and second in Neuroscience from Rutgers University.

Ryan McHenry joined LEXEO Therapeutics as Vice President, Corporate Controller in Q2 2022. Prior to LEXEO, Mr. McHenry served as Vice President, Controller and Assistant Secretary at Sio Gene Therapies, where he oversaw the SEC filing, financial reporting, technical accounting, internal control, income tax and procurement functions, and executed a transformational international corporate structure simplification effort. Prior to Sio, Mr. McHenry worked at Biocept, where he scaled-up the accounting and SEC reporting functions following its IPO, and CareFusion (since acquired by Becton, Dickinson and Company), where he led accounting for M&A transactions among other responsibilities. At the start of his career, Mr. McHenry held roles of increasing responsibility at PwC in the audit and assurance practice focusing on publicly traded and private clients in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology/life sciences and defense contractor industries. Mr. McHenry received his BSBA, Accounting and his Certificate in Advanced Accountancy from Boston University. He is an actively licensed CPA in New York and California, as well as a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

Keith Wonnacott, PhD joined LEXEO Therapeutics as Vice President of Regulatory Affairs in Q4 2021. Prior to joining LEXEO, Dr. Wonnacott was an Executive Director of Regulatory Affairs at Pfizer where he had responsibility for gene therapies within the Rare Disease Business Unit. He provided guidance on regulatory strategy and led regulatory policy for the gene therapy portfolio, which included advancing 3 late-stage programs into phase 3 clinical trials. Dr. Wonnacott also worked at Novartis where he was a Director of regulatory CMC and led the development of Module 3 for the Kymriah BLA, which became the first gene therapy product to receive FDA approval in 2017. Dr. Wonnacott also held roles of increasing responsibility at FDA at the start of his career. He spent 13 years in the Division of Cell and Gene Therapies at FDA, the last 10 of which were as Chief of the Cellular Therapies Branch. He is a respected leader in the field, speaker, and published author, and is currently serving as the Chair of the Regulatory Affairs Committee for the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy. Dr. Wonnacott received his PhD from the Pennsylvania State University and his undergraduate degree from Brigham Young University.

Ronald Crystal is a physician-scientist and pioneer in In vivo gene therapy. He is a Professor and Chairman, Department of Genetic Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College, previously Chief, Pulmonary Branch, NHLBI. He also directs the Weill Cornell Belfer Gene Therapy Core facility, with 45 faculty/staff, including viral vector, pre-clinical translation, toxicology, regulatory and GMP manufacturing expertise.

​Dr. Crystal has 14 approved gene therapy investigational new drug applications with experience in CNS, cardiac, pulmonary and liver human gene therapy.

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Dr. Crystal is the founder/co-founder of several gene therapy companies including GenVec, Adverum and XyloCor.

Jenny Speer joined LEXEO Therapeutics as Vice President, People Experience in Q3 2023. Following her passion for enabling brilliant people who do impactful work, Ms. Speer has held people leadership roles at several biotech startups. Most recently, Ms. Speer served as the head of people at Mammoth Biosciences, scaling the organization from 40 to over 200 employees. Ms. Speer holds a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism from Boston University.

Steven Altschuler, MD, joined LEXEO as Chairman in January 2021, bringing nearly 20 years of experience building and leading world-class, integrated, translational, value-based health care systems and transformational biotechnology companies. Dr. Altschuler currently serves as Managing Director of Healthcare Ventures at Ziff Capital Partners and was previously chair of the board of directors at Spark Therapeutics (now part of Roche) for six years, from its founding until it was acquired in 2019. Dr. Altschuler previously co-founded Spark Therapeutics to develop and commercialize the preclinical and clinical gene therapy programs advanced at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and other institutions. Dr. Altschuler served as Spark’s board chair from its founding through its acquisition in 2019, which included leading the company through a successful transition to a public company and the launch of an approved commercial product, which was the first gene therapy for an inherited disease approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and European Medicines Agency. Dr. Altschuler formerly held chief executive positions at CHOP and University of Miami Health System. He is a member of the board of directors of WW (formerly Weight Watchers International), Orchard Therapeutics, AsclepiX Therapeutics, ImVaX and Platelet Biogenesis. He is also an independent trustee of the Brigham and Women’s Physician Organization at Mass General Brigham. Dr. Altschuler holds a B.A. in Mathematics and an M.D. from Case Western Reserve University.

Bernard Davitian is a Partner at Omega Funds. He has extensive experience in the life sciences and biotech industry, marked by a number of successful transactions including financings and M&A. Mr. Davitian previously served as SVP and Managing Director at Sanofi Ventures, having first joined Sanofi in 2010 as Vice President, Deputy Global Head, Business Development. Over his 7-year tenure, Sanofi Ventures invested in 28 new companies and generated 14 exits (12 NASDAQ IPOs, 1 trade sale and 1 option deal).

Prior to Sanofi, Mr. Davitian held CEO, CFO and other leadership roles at Fovea Pharmaceuticals (which was sold to Sanofi in 2009 in a $540 million cash transaction), Neurotech Pharmaceuticals, Transgene (which successfully raised $100 million in a 1998 IPO on the NASDAQ/EuroNext) and Institut Mérieux (now Sanofi Pasteur). Mr. Davitian received a Masters in Management from EM Lyon in France, as well as an MBA from The University of Pennsylvania Wharton School.

Mette Kirstine Agger is a Senior Advisor at Lundbeckfonden BioCapital. Ms. Agger has extensive industry experience, intellectual property knowledge and serves on the boards of directors for numerous biopharmaceutical and medtech companies. Ms. Agger currently serves on several boards, including KLIFO, Dysis Medical, Psioxus, ScPharmaceuticals, and C.V Obel A/S, an investment company.

Prior to her Senior Advisor role at Lundbeckfonden BioCapital, Ms. Agger was a managing partner of Lundbeckfonden Ventures, a life science venture fund, as well as a co-founder of 7TM Pharma A/S, a biotech company engaged in therapeutic drug discovery and development and served as its chief executive officer from founding to 2009. Prior to founding 7TM Pharma, Ms. Agger was part of the management team of NeuroSearch A/S, a former drug research and development company.

Ms. Agger graduated with an M.Sc. in Biology from the University of Copenhagen and has an M.B.A. from Henley Business School University of Reading.

Paula Cholmondeley currently serves as Principal of The Sorrel Group, a company focused on individualized board education. Ms. Cholmondeley is also a member of the Board of Directors of Terex Corporation (NYSE) and Bank OZK (NASDAQ).

Ms. Cholmondeley’s previous public company boards include Dentsply Corporation, Ultralife Inc., Armco Steel Inc., Albany International, Mineral Technologies, and Nationwide Mutual Funds. During her executive career, Ms. Cholmondeley has had a profit and loss responsibility for global divisions with revenues up to $750M, served as CFO of companies with revenues up to $2B, brought new technologies to market, served as head of strategy for two large corporations and held seats on numerous non-profit boards. Across her board career, Ms. Cholmondeley has served on the audit, investments, governance, strategy, corporate social responsibility, and compensation committees across various companies.

Ms. Cholmondeley currently chairs the Terex audit committee, and is a member of the faculty of the National Association of Corporate Directors In-Board Room and Board Advisory Services where she teaches and conducts board evaluations. Ms. Cholmondeley is a NACD Certified Director and a Board Leadership Fellow. In 2015, she was elected to NACD Directorship 100. She also holds NACD certifications in Cyber Risk Oversight and Digital Transformation.

Reinaldo Diaz is a Venture Partner of Longitude Capital. Concurrently, Mr. Diaz serves as the Chief Business Officer of Opna-IO, a Longitude portfolio company, as well as a consultant for various companies in the healthcare industry, including Auven Therapeutics, where he previously served as Managing Director from 2008 to 2018. Prior to joining Auven Therapeutics, he was a Managing Member and co-founder of Diaz & Altschul Capital Management (D&A Capital). Prior to founding D&A Capital, Mr. Diaz was a Managing Director and Head of the Healthcare group at Schroder Wertheim & Co. Mr. Diaz started his career at PaineWebber, where he was a key member of the PaineWebber Healthcare Investment Banking Group and President of PaineWebber Development Corporation. He currently serves on the board of Inozyme (INZY). Mr. Diaz holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA from Harvard University.

Brenda Cooperstone, MD, joined LEXEO’s board as an Independent Director in 2023. Dr. Cooperstone currently serves as an Independent Director on the Boards of Senti Biosciences and Gandeeva Therapeutics. Previously, Dr. Cooperstone served as Senior Vice President and Chief Development Officer of Rare Disease at Pfizer Inc. and Site Leader for Pfizer’s Pennsylvania campus. Prior to this role, Dr. Cooperstone held varied leadership positions at Pfizer and Wyeth in both Clinical Development and Global Medical Affairs with oversight of a wide range of therapeutic areas, including both small and large molecules in early through late phase development and in-line support.

Dr. Cooperstone earned her M.D. from McGill University, completed her residency in pediatrics at the Montreal Children’s Hospital, her clinical fellowship in pediatric nephrology at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a research fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania, Renal Electrolyte Division. She is certified by the American Board of Pediatrics and Pediatric Nephrology and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, Pediatrics. Dr. Cooperstone was on staff at Scottish Rite Children’s Hospital in Atlanta, GA as a Pediatric Nephrology before joining the pharmaceutical industry.

Marianna Fontana, M.D., is a Director of the University College London (UCL) Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (CMR) unit at the Royal Free Hospital (RFH), Professor of Cardiology and Honorary Consultant Cardiologist at the National Amyloidosis Centre, Division of Medicine, University College London. She has authored 284 publications. Dr. Fontana’s major clinical and research interests focus on the delivery of efficient and effective care for patients with amyloidosis, with a particular attention on new technologies. She was appointed Director of the UCL CMR unit at the RFH in 2015, which she founded, and Professor of Cardiology at UCL in 2020. She was awarded an intermediate fellowship from the British Heart Foundation in 2018. Dr. Fontana is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Michael Davies Early Career Award in 2021 and the BHF Fellow of the year award in 2022. She obtained her medical degree and qualifications as a cardiologist at the University of Pisa.

Jeff Molkentin, Ph.D., is a professor at the University of Cincinnati Department of Pediatrics, the Director of Molecular Cardiovascular Biology at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, and Co-director of the University of Cincinnati Heart Institute. He was a Howard Hughes Investigator from 2008-2021 and was awarded the prestigious Basic Research Prize from the American Heart Association. Dr. Molkentin’s research focuses on the regulation of cell death through the mitochondria, cardiac hypertrophy, extracellular matrix biology, fibroblast activity, stem cells in cardiac regeneration, transcription, and mechanisms of membrane stability in muscular dystrophy.

Kiran Musunuru, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., M.L., is the Scientific Director of the Center for Inherited Cardiovascular Diseases and the Director of the Genetic and Epigenetic Origins of Disease Program at the Cardiovascular Institute at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on the genetics of heart disease and seeks to identify genetic factors that protect against disease and use them to develop new therapies. Dr. Musunuru is also co-founder and Senior Scientific Advisor of Verve Therapeutics.

Iacopo Olivotto, M.D., is Chief of Cardiology at Meyer Children Hospital and professor of cardiovascular medicine at the University of Florence, Italy. During the previous two decades, he has worked as a cardiologist at Cardiology at Careggi University Hospital in Florence, where he served as Head of the Cardiomyopathy Unit for over 10 years. Dr. Olivotto has authored over 300 publications in international peer-review journals and has played a role in designing and executing clinical trials on innovative therapies for genetic heart diseases, principally hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). He remains focused on various clinical and translational aspects of pediatric and adult cardiomyopathies and rare cardiac diseases.

Victoria Parikh, M.D., is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Stanford University. Her clinical and scientific interests focus on inherited arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathies, which are an increasingly recognized disease entity. Dr. Parikh is currently using patient cohort genetics, high throughput molecular biology and human induced pluripotent stem cell derived cardiomyocytes to study variant pathogenicity in cardiovascular disease, inherited cardiomyopathies, inherited arrhythmia, and arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy.

Gene Yeo, Ph.D., is Principal Investigator and Professor at University of California, San Diego and has authored >200 publications. Dr. Yeo is a computational biologist who has made significant contributions to RNA biology and therapeutics. His primary research interest is in understanding the importance of RNA processing and the roles that RNA binding proteins (RBPs) play in development and disease. Since inception, Dr. Yeo’s lab has focused on uncovering molecular principles by which RBPs affect gene expression, how RBP- mediated post-transcriptional gene networks contribute to cellular homeostasis in stem cells and the brain, and how mutations in RBPs lead to human developmental and neurodegenerative disease. Dr. Yeo is also a co-founder in Locanabio and Orbital Therapeutics, both RNA-based therapeutic companies.