For decades, scientists have dreamed of creating medicines through protein engineering but were limited by the molecules found in nature. Just as custom parts revolutionized personal computing, custom proteins have the potential to revolutionize precision medicine. To create such proteins, better software tools were needed.
At David Baker’s Institute for Protein Design, our founders Marc Lajoie and Scott Boyken pioneered the ability to create new biological functions from scratch by designing proteins with moving parts and precise interactions. For the first time, custom proteins could be made to specifically address the biological mechanisms that stand in the way of curing disease.
The sophistication of living cells makes them an attractive tool for curing disease. The first cell therapy, KYMRIAH®, was approved in 2017. This pioneering treatment showed promise for blood cancers, but cell therapies for solid tumors — which account for over 90 percent of all cancers — lag behind.
Our founders Marc Lajoie and Scott Boyken collaborated with Stan Riddell from Fred Hutch Cancer Center and began creating proteins that help cell therapies kill cancer cells while avoiding healthy tissues. From this we realized protein design will be the key to overcoming long-standing barriers to safely cure solid tumors.
These barriers to treatment are ingrained in the very biology of our cells. To overcome this, we cannot simply repurpose molecules from nature. Protein design is needed to unleash the full potential of cells to become cures.
Recognizing that protein design and engineered cell therapy were poised to improve the lives of patients, Marc, Scott, Stan and David, along with other leaders in the field, co-founded Lyell Immunopharma to industrialize and translate the team’s foundational technologies into cures for solid tumors.
Several of these technologies helped establish Lyell’s pipeline of cell-based therapies.
It became clear that no single company could realize the full potential of what was to come. With support from Lyell and visionary investors, we spun out Outpace to focus on building the efficacy & safety technologies needed to overcome the barriers to cures.
We are building a pipeline of engineered T cell therapies powered by multiple Outpace technologies as well as forging strategic collaborations with industry leaders, which allows us to incorporate our solutions into many cell therapy products that have the potential to improve the lives of cancer patients and their families.
At Outpace, we believe in collaborative science. We co-founded the OpenFold AI Research Consortium to support open-access development of protein folding & design software. These tools can be used by a wide community of researchers to discover new medicines.
We have moved to a new home in Seattle’s Dexter Yard. This facility offers state-of-the-art laboratories that will allow us to develop new technologies for years to come. Seattle remains a world leader for cell therapy research.
We are expanding our collaborations with leading experts in protein design & cellular immunotherapy to ensure that our platform continues to be powered by the best ideas from the frontiers of science. Together, these collaborations with the University of Washington Institute for Protein Design and Fred Hutch Cancer Center will help to advance our mission to create safe and effective cell therapies.
For decades, scientists have dreamed of creating medicines through protein engineering but were limited by the molecules found in nature. Just as custom parts revolutionized personal computing, custom proteins have the potential to revolutionize precision medicine. To create such proteins, better software tools were needed.
At David Baker’s Institute for Protein Design, our founders pioneered the ability to create new biological functions from scratch by designing proteins with moving parts and precise interactions. For the first time, custom protein could be made to specifically address the biological mechanisms that stand in the way of curing disease.
Team (All)
Executive Team
Board of Directors
Advisors
Team (All)
Scott
Boyken
Co-founder & Chief Technology Officer
Scott Boyken, PhD is co-founder and CTO of Outpace Bio. During his postdoctoral work in the Baker lab at the University of Washington, Dr. Boyken pioneered new computational methods to design the first de novo proteins with programmable interaction specificity and moving parts. Applying these methods, he created de novo protein switches and logic gates capable of controlling new biological functions in cells and precisely targeting immunotherapies, resulting in over 20 publications and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award at the Scientific Interface. Based on this technology, he co-founded Lyell Immunopharma, where he led the Protein and Cell Engineering team together with Marc Lajoie, creating new technologies to improve efficacy and safety for anti-cancer T cell therapies. Dr. Boyken earned his PhD from Iowa State University where he was awarded an NSF IGERT Fellowship in Computational Molecular Biology. His dissertation research in the Andreotti and Jernigan labs combined NMR and biochemical assays with computational modeling and MD simulations to study kinase-mediated immune cell signaling. In 2021, Scott was selected for Endpoints 20 under 40. He has authored more than thirty scientific publications and is an inventor on 16 published patent families.
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Aaron
Foster
Chief Scientific Officer
As Chief Scientific Officer, Aaron Foster, PhD brings more than 30 years of drug discovery experience to Outpace Bio and a record of leading research teams in the translation of advanced engineered immune cell therapies from discovery into the clinic. Prior to joining Outpace, Dr. Foster was Vice President of T Cell Therapeutics at Sana Biotechnology where he oversaw the development of allogeneic and in vivo gene delivery platforms and also led non-clinical and IND-enabling research for T cell therapy pipeline programs. Prior to Sana, he served as Senior Vice President, Head of Research at Bellicum Pharmaceuticals where he oversaw the company’s research strategy and led discovery and product development for CAR T and CAR NK cell therapies. Prior to joining Bellicum, Dr. Foster was an Assistant Professor at Baylor College of Medicine at the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy, where he led a research group investigating adoptive T cell therapies, cancer vaccines, and nanotherapeutics for the treatment of cancer and infectious diseases. Dr. Foster received his PhD from the University of Sydney and conducted postdoctoral work at both the University of Sydney and Baylor College of Medicine. He is the author of 53 peer-reviewed publications and is an inventor on 12 patent families.
Marc
Lajoie
Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer
Marc Lajoie, PhD is co-founder and CEO of Outpace Bio. Prior to Outpace, Dr. Lajoie co-founded Lyell Immunopharma, where he led a technology development team focused on protein and cell engineering, playing a key role in creating product candidates and overcoming the mechanisms driving T cell dysfunction. Dr. Lajoie completed his postdoctoral studies in David Baker’s lab at the University of Washington, where he helped pioneer the ability to create new biological functions with de novo protein design. He completed his PhD in George Church’s lab at Harvard University, where he created the first genomically recoded organism with a reassigned genetic code and co-founded GRO Biosciences. Dr. Lajoie was named 30 under 30 in science by Forbes Magazine in 2012, 35 Innovators Under 35 by MIT Tech Review in 2019, and Endpoints 20 under 40 in biopharma in 2021. He has authored more than thirty scientific publications and is an inventor on nineteen published patent applications.
Charity
Scripture
Chief Development Officer
Charity is Outpace's Chief Development Officer (CDO) and brings twenty years of oncology drug development experience to the team. Most recently, Charity led several solid tumor CAR T clinical trials as CDO at Bellicum Pharmaceuticals. Prior to that, she was the first employee hired at ACELYRIN and spent a year in the role of VP, Business and Development Operations where she helped to establish the core business capabilities and supported diligence efforts to secure the lead asset. In addition, Dr. Scripture held clinical development leadership positions at AbbVie/Stemcentrx and Pharmacyclics, and spent almost a decade with Amgen in oncology clinical development and medical affairs in the global and international offices (based in Thousand Oaks, California and Zug, Switzerland). Prior to joining industry she worked in clinical practice at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. Dr. Scripture holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Hamilton College, a Master’s Degree in Pharmacology and Toxicology from Dartmouth Medical School, and a Doctorate of Pharmacy degree from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and completed a Clinical Pharmacology Drug Development fellowship at the National Cancer Institute. In her free time, you will find her hiking in the mountains both near and far.
Eric
Soller
Chief Business Officer
As Chief Business Officer, Eric Soller, PhD brings to Outpace Bio more than fifteen years of scientific expertise, company building and transactions leadership in the biotechnology sector. Prior to joining Outpace, Dr. Soller was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Versant Ventures where he co-founded BlueRock Therapeutics, a company with $225 million in initial financing. Dr. Soller led BlueRocks’s corporate development and strategy efforts to create an industry-leading engineered cell therapy platform and pipeline of innovative cell therapies across multiple disease areas. He forged partnerships with leading biotechnology companies, scientists, and academic institutions in the process, and these efforts culminated in the company’s 2019 acquisition by Bayer Pharmaceuticals as the foundation for their cell therapy efforts for a potential value of $1 billion, two and a half years after launch. Dr. Soller also worked as a Junior Partner at McKinsey & Company, where he advised both large and early-stage biotechnology companies on a range of strategic and operational topics. He holds a PhD in mechanical engineering with a biomedical focus from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering from the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.
Scott
Boyken
Co-founder & Chief Technology Officer
Scott Boyken, PhD is co-founder and CTO of Outpace Bio. During his postdoctoral work in the Baker lab at the University of Washington, Dr. Boyken pioneered new computational methods to design the first de novo proteins with programmable interaction specificity and moving parts. Applying these methods, he created de novo protein switches and logic gates capable of controlling new biological functions in cells and precisely targeting immunotherapies, resulting in over 20 publications and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award at the Scientific Interface. Based on this technology, he co-founded Lyell Immunopharma, where he led the Protein and Cell Engineering team together with Marc Lajoie, creating new technologies to improve efficacy and safety for anti-cancer T cell therapies. Dr. Boyken earned his PhD from Iowa State University where he was awarded an NSF IGERT Fellowship in Computational Molecular Biology. His dissertation research in the Andreotti and Jernigan labs combined NMR and biochemical assays with computational modeling and MD simulations to study kinase-mediated immune cell signaling. In 2021, Scott was selected for Endpoints 20 under 40. He has authored more than thirty scientific publications and is an inventor on 16 published patent families.
Marc
Lajoie
Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer
Marc Lajoie, PhD is co-founder and CEO of Outpace Bio. Prior to Outpace, Dr. Lajoie co-founded Lyell Immunopharma, where he led a technology development team focused on protein and cell engineering, playing a key role in creating product candidates and overcoming the mechanisms driving T cell dysfunction. Dr. Lajoie completed his postdoctoral studies in David Baker’s lab at the University of Washington, where he helped pioneer the ability to create new biological functions with de novo protein design. He completed his PhD in George Church’s lab at Harvard University, where he created the first genomically recoded organism with a reassigned genetic code and co-founded GRO Biosciences. Dr. Lajoie was named 30 under 30 in science by Forbes Magazine in 2012, 35 Innovators Under 35 by MIT Tech Review in 2019, and Endpoints 20 under 40 in biopharma in 2021. He has authored more than thirty scientific publications and is an inventor on nineteen published patent applications.
Jake
Simson
Board Member, RA Capital
Jake Simson, PhD is a Partner at RA Capital Management. He works on both public and private investments and serves as a Board Director for Janux Therapeutics, Tyra Biosciences, Bicara Therapeutics, Convergent Therapeutics, and Septerna. Previously, he covered solid tumor oncology landscapes. Dr. Simson holds a SB in Materials Science and Engineering from MIT and a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. In his doctoral research, he investigated clinically translatable treatments for musculoskeletal tissue repair using injectable hydrogels.
Stuart
Peterson
Board Member
Stuart Peterson is the Founder and Managing Partner of ARTIS Ventures. He led early stage investments for the firm in media giant YouTube, targeted cancer therapeutics leader StemCentrx, data storage leaders Cohesity and Nimble, and networking leaders Aruba and Versa Networks. He has been recognized as a Forbes Midas List Investor, TechCrunch VC of the Year, and both NY Times and CB Insights Top 100 VC honoree, and more. Stuart currently sits on the Board of Directors of OPYN Health, Unnatural Products, Conceivable Life Sciences, Versa Networks, TAE Life Sciences, Rad Ai, Affect Therapeutics, and Cohesity. He is Co-Founder of FIG, ONTO Fertility, and more. Stuart received his B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles and M.B.A. in Analytic Finance from The University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business.
Matt
Fust
Corporate Finance & Strategy Advisor
Matt Fust is a board member and an advisor to life sciences companies. Mr. Fust served as executive vice president and chief financial officer of Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. from January 2009 until January 2014, when he retired. From May 2003 to December 2008, Mr. Fust served as CFO of Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Inc. From 2002 to 2003, Mr. Fust served as CFO at Perlegen Sciences. Previously, he was senior vice president and CFO at ALZA Corporation, where he was an executive from 1996 until 2002. From 1991 until 1996, Mr. Fust was a manager in the healthcare strategy practice at Andersen Consulting. Mr. Fust serves on the board of directors of Atara Biotherapeutics, Inc., Crinetics Pharmaceuticals, Inc., ArsenalBio and Neumora. He is on the Inclusive Governance Advisory Council of the National Association of Corporate Directors and serves as senior advisor to Out Leadership. Mr. Fust received a B.A. from the University of Minnesota and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Ann
Lee-Karlon
Corporate & Portfolio Strategy Advisor
Ann Lee-Karlon, PhD, is the CEO and Board member of EpiBiologics, focusing on new bispecific antibody protein degrader therapeutics. She previously served as COO of Altos Labs and SVP at Genentech. During her 18 years at Genentech, Ann led portfolio strategy and operations and had project leadership oversight for over 80 drug development teams from research and development through FDA approval and global launch. She led major corporate partnerships and programs, including Ocrevus for multiple sclerosis and Rituxan in immunology. Before Genentech, Ann served in the new ventures group at Lilly. Ann holds a BS in bioengineering from UC Berkeley, MBA from Stanford University, and PhD in bioengineering from UC San Diego, where she was a National Science Foundation Fellow. Ann was the president and board chair of the Genentech Patient Foundation and president and board chair of the Association for Women in Science, based in Washington, D.C. She is a board member of Eko Health and serves on the Dean’s advisory boards for UC Berkeley and UCSD schools of engineering. Ann was elected Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and is a Fellow of the Aspen Institute.
Jeff
Kindler
Advisor to the CEO
Jeff Kindler serves as Chief Executive Officer of Centrexion Therapeutics, a company focused on developing safe and effective, non-addictive treatments for chronic pain. Kindler is also a Senior Advisor to Blackstone, one of the world’s leading investment firms, and an Operating Partner at Artis Ventures, a leading venture capital firm. He also serves on the boards of Perrigo, an international manufacturer of private label over-the-counter pharmaceuticals; Precigen, a biotechnology company and Terns Pharmaceuticals, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company. He also serves as a director or advisor to a number of private health care firms. Kindler was formerly the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Pfizer, the world’s largest research-based biopharmaceutical company, which he joined in January 2002. As CEO, Kindler led Pfizer’s $68 billion merger and acquisition of Wyeth, diversified Pfizer’s product portfolio, improved its R&D pipeline, and reshaped the company’s commercial, innovation, and leadership models to drive growth and cultural change. He joined Pfizer as Executive Vice President and General Counsel and, prior to his appointment as CEO in July 2006, he served as a Vice Chairman of the company, responsible for Pfizer’s corporate affairs including worldwide legal, regulatory and patent matters as well as a range of public affairs and communications functions, and serving as a member of the four-person executive committee overseeing global business operations. While at Pfizer, Kindler worked with former President Bill Clinton to help bring medicines to impoverished patients in the developing world through public-private pharmaceutical partnerships. He also represented the pharmaceutical industry in U.S. government healthcare reform efforts, helping to increase access to affordable medicines while preserving an environment in which pharmaceutical firms can discover and develop innovative treatments. In 1996, Kindler joined McDonald’s Corporation as Executive Vice President and General Counsel, responsible for both legal and corporate affairs, and then moved into line management as President of Partner Brands, which included overseeing franchise, operations and marketing efforts for restaurant brands such as Boston Market, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Donato’s Pizza, and Pret a Manger. Before joining McDonald’s Corporation, Kindler was Vice President of Litigation and Legal Policy of the General Electric Company. Prior to GE, Kindler practiced civil and criminal litigation as a partner at the Washington D.C. firm of Williams & Connolly. He began his career as an attorney at the Federal Communications Commission and served as a law clerk to Judge David L. Bazelon of the U.S. Court of Appeals of the D.C. Circuit and later as law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. Kindler earned his BA in 1977 from Tufts University summa cum laude and his JD in 1980 from Harvard magna cum laude, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.
Manya
Deehr
Legal Advisor
Manya has spent close to 30 years strategizing with public and private life sciences companies on ways to maximize the value of company assets. She has experience with companies in all stages of development and with a broad spectrum of product offerings, including animal health, over the counter, diagnostics, pharmaceuticals, biologics, specialty pharma, branded generics, medical devices, as well as a spectrum of drug delivery platforms. Manya focuses her practice on assisting companies navigate transformative events – whether they are acquiring or divesting of products or technologies, entering clinical development, launching a product, entering the US market, establishing their first compliance program, policies and procedures, or organizing and preparing the company for sale. She has lent strategic and operational support for numerous consumer and prescription product launches/relaunches, including specialty pharma, drug delivery technologies, animal health, orphan and pediatric drugs. The heart of her practice resides in structuring and negotiating complex life sciences transactions and exclusivity positions designed to optimize company value. She has extensive experience in developing proprietary positions around products and structuring and negotiating life sciences collaboration transactions. She has negotiated deals for numerous companies at all stages of development – from university technology acquisitions to late stage product candidate divestitures and acquisitions for major pharmaceutical companies – both during her tenure as a partner and member of the life sciences steering committee at Morgan Lewis and Cooley and in building value and orchestrating successful exits as the chief legal officer for each of Eurand Pharmaceuticals and Velcera Pharmaceuticals. Manya has held a number of executive leadership positions and board seats in pharmaceutical companies, including Receptagen, Eurand and Velcera, and has played integral roles in building value through exclusivity strategies, structuring transactions, facilitating IPOs, secondary and debt financings and successful company exits in her tenure with those companies. She received a JD from the University of Wisconsin Law School and an AB in Biochemical Sciences from Harvard University.
Greg
Curhan
Advisor
Greg Curhan joined FLG Partners in 2020 with over 35 years of operational, financial, capital markets and strategic advisory experience in various sectors including Investment Banking, Medical Device/Life Sciences, Internet, Clean Technology, and Investment/Wealth Management. As CFO, Greg has managed Finance, Legal HR, and Investor Relations functions for Public and Private companies. He has raised equity and debt capital for both private and public companies, completed a successful IPO, and executed M&A transactions both acquiring and divesting companies. He has also served in CEO, President and Board of Director capacities. In July 2020, Greg was appointed to the Advisory Board at Specific Diagnostics as the company prepares to launch its Reveal rapid susceptibility testing system in Europe. Greg founded and was President of an investment bank (Merriman Curhan Ford) growing it from pre-revenue startup to 250 employees, $90 million in revenue, profitability, and a Nasdaq listing within 7 years. The investment bank raised over $5 billion dollars for corporate clients (both public and private) during that period in IPOs, Public offerings, PIPE financings and Private Placements, while also executing numerous successful M&A engagements in various Technology, Biotech, Medical Technology and Consumer sectors. Prior to joining FLG, Greg was CFO and SVP Corporate Development of Providence Medical Technology, a venture backed medical device manufacturer whose purpose is to improve clinical outcomes for high-risk patients and prevent surgical failures of the cervical spine. At Providence Greg raised multiple rounds of equity investment, identifying and bringing in a new lead investor in the company’s largest private round to date. He arranged new debt financing facilities, increasing the size and extending the maturity twice in three years. He introduced long term FP&A practices to support strategy formation and capital raising, including budgeting for a multi-year, randomized clinical trial. Prior to that Greg was CEO of Clickworker USA, a US subsidiary of a venture backed German Crowdsourcing platform. He was EVP and CFO of MCF Corporation, the parent company of Merriman Curhan Ford. He was also CFO of WorldRes, a venture backed web-based hotel reservation booking engine. In addition, Greg has worked for various investment banking firms including Merrill Lynch, Montgomery Securities, Volpe Brown Whelan and MLV. Greg earned a BA degree in Economics (summa cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa) from Dartmouth College. He was an Adjunct Professor teaching Entrepreneurial Finance to MBA students at Dominican University and wrote and published a Novel Indomitable Spirit.
Erika
Hayes
Erik
Hermanns
Sydney
Huff
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Bahija
Jallal
Jeff
Kindler
Robin
Kirkpatrick
Prasad
Adusumilli
Rupesh
Amin
David
Baker
Laura
Baker
Scott
Boyken
Jerry
Chen
Jenna
Chheav
John
Chukinas
Scott
Boyken
Co-founder & Chief Technology Officer
Scott Boyken, PhD is co-founder and CTO of Outpace Bio. During his postdoctoral work in the Baker lab at the University of Washington, Dr. Boyken pioneered new computational methods to design the first de novo proteins with programmable interaction specificity and moving parts. Applying these methods, he created de novo protein switches and logic gates capable of controlling new biological functions in cells and precisely targeting immunotherapies, resulting in over 20 publications and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award at the Scientific Interface. Based on this technology, he co-founded Lyell Immunopharma, where he led the Protein and Cell Engineering team together with Marc Lajoie, creating new technologies to improve efficacy and safety for anti-cancer T cell therapies. Dr. Boyken earned his PhD from Iowa State University where he was awarded an NSF IGERT Fellowship in Computational Molecular Biology. His dissertation research in the Andreotti and Jernigan labs combined NMR and biochemical assays with computational modeling and MD simulations to study kinase-mediated immune cell signaling. In 2021, Scott was selected for Endpoints 20 under 40. He has authored more than thirty scientific publications and is an inventor on 16 published patent families.
Aaron
Foster
Chief Scientific Officer
As Chief Scientific Officer, Aaron Foster, PhD brings more than 30 years of drug discovery experience to Outpace Bio and a record of leading research teams in the translation of advanced engineered immune cell therapies from discovery into the clinic. Prior to joining Outpace, Dr. Foster was Vice President of T Cell Therapeutics at Sana Biotechnology where he oversaw the development of allogeneic and in vivo gene delivery platforms and also led non-clinical and IND-enabling research for T cell therapy pipeline programs. Prior to Sana, he served as Senior Vice President, Head of Research at Bellicum Pharmaceuticals where he oversaw the company’s research strategy and led discovery and product development for CAR T and CAR NK cell therapies. Prior to joining Bellicum, Dr. Foster was an Assistant Professor at Baylor College of Medicine at the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy, where he led a research group investigating adoptive T cell therapies, cancer vaccines, and nanotherapeutics for the treatment of cancer and infectious diseases. Dr. Foster received his PhD from the University of Sydney and conducted postdoctoral work at both the University of Sydney and Baylor College of Medicine. He is the author of 53 peer-reviewed publications and is an inventor on 12 patent families.
Marc
Lajoie
Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer
Marc Lajoie, PhD is co-founder and CEO of Outpace Bio. Prior to Outpace, Dr. Lajoie co-founded Lyell Immunopharma, where he led a technology development team focused on protein and cell engineering, playing a key role in creating product candidates and overcoming the mechanisms driving T cell dysfunction. Dr. Lajoie completed his postdoctoral studies in David Baker’s lab at the University of Washington, where he helped pioneer the ability to create new biological functions with de novo protein design. He completed his PhD in George Church’s lab at Harvard University, where he created the first genomically recoded organism with a reassigned genetic code and co-founded GRO Biosciences. Dr. Lajoie was named 30 under 30 in science by Forbes Magazine in 2012, 35 Innovators Under 35 by MIT Tech Review in 2019, and Endpoints 20 under 40 in biopharma in 2021. He has authored more than thirty scientific publications and is an inventor on nineteen published patent applications.
Charity
Scripture
Chief Development Officer
Charity is Outpace's Chief Development Officer (CDO) and brings twenty years of oncology drug development experience to the team. Most recently, Charity led several solid tumor CAR T clinical trials as CDO at Bellicum Pharmaceuticals. Prior to that, she was the first employee hired at ACELYRIN and spent a year in the role of VP, Business and Development Operations where she helped to establish the core business capabilities and supported diligence efforts to secure the lead asset. In addition, Dr. Scripture held clinical development leadership positions at AbbVie/Stemcentrx and Pharmacyclics, and spent almost a decade with Amgen in oncology clinical development and medical affairs in the global and international offices (based in Thousand Oaks, California and Zug, Switzerland). Prior to joining industry she worked in clinical practice at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. Dr. Scripture holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Hamilton College, a Master’s Degree in Pharmacology and Toxicology from Dartmouth Medical School, and a Doctorate of Pharmacy degree from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and completed a Clinical Pharmacology Drug Development fellowship at the National Cancer Institute. In her free time, you will find her hiking in the mountains both near and far.
Eric
Soller
Chief Business Officer
As Chief Business Officer, Eric Soller, PhD brings to Outpace Bio more than fifteen years of scientific expertise, company building and transactions leadership in the biotechnology sector. Prior to joining Outpace, Dr. Soller was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Versant Ventures where he co-founded BlueRock Therapeutics, a company with $225 million in initial financing. Dr. Soller led BlueRocks’s corporate development and strategy efforts to create an industry-leading engineered cell therapy platform and pipeline of innovative cell therapies across multiple disease areas. He forged partnerships with leading biotechnology companies, scientists, and academic institutions in the process, and these efforts culminated in the company’s 2019 acquisition by Bayer Pharmaceuticals as the foundation for their cell therapy efforts for a potential value of $1 billion, two and a half years after launch. Dr. Soller also worked as a Junior Partner at McKinsey & Company, where he advised both large and early-stage biotechnology companies on a range of strategic and operational topics. He holds a PhD in mechanical engineering with a biomedical focus from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering from the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.
Scott
Boyken
Co-founder & Chief Technology Officer
Scott Boyken, PhD is co-founder and CTO of Outpace Bio. During his postdoctoral work in the Baker lab at the University of Washington, Dr. Boyken pioneered new computational methods to design the first de novo proteins with programmable interaction specificity and moving parts. Applying these methods, he created de novo protein switches and logic gates capable of controlling new biological functions in cells and precisely targeting immunotherapies, resulting in over 20 publications and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award at the Scientific Interface. Based on this technology, he co-founded Lyell Immunopharma, where he led the Protein and Cell Engineering team together with Marc Lajoie, creating new technologies to improve efficacy and safety for anti-cancer T cell therapies. Dr. Boyken earned his PhD from Iowa State University where he was awarded an NSF IGERT Fellowship in Computational Molecular Biology. His dissertation research in the Andreotti and Jernigan labs combined NMR and biochemical assays with computational modeling and MD simulations to study kinase-mediated immune cell signaling. In 2021, Scott was selected for Endpoints 20 under 40. He has authored more than thirty scientific publications and is an inventor on 16 published patent families.
Marc
Lajoie
Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer
Marc Lajoie, PhD is co-founder and CEO of Outpace Bio. Prior to Outpace, Dr. Lajoie co-founded Lyell Immunopharma, where he led a technology development team focused on protein and cell engineering, playing a key role in creating product candidates and overcoming the mechanisms driving T cell dysfunction. Dr. Lajoie completed his postdoctoral studies in David Baker’s lab at the University of Washington, where he helped pioneer the ability to create new biological functions with de novo protein design. He completed his PhD in George Church’s lab at Harvard University, where he created the first genomically recoded organism with a reassigned genetic code and co-founded GRO Biosciences. Dr. Lajoie was named 30 under 30 in science by Forbes Magazine in 2012, 35 Innovators Under 35 by MIT Tech Review in 2019, and Endpoints 20 under 40 in biopharma in 2021. He has authored more than thirty scientific publications and is an inventor on nineteen published patent applications.
Jake
Simson
Board Member, RA Capital
Jake Simson, PhD is a Partner at RA Capital Management. He works on both public and private investments and serves as a Board Director for Janux Therapeutics, Tyra Biosciences, Bicara Therapeutics, Convergent Therapeutics, and Septerna. Previously, he covered solid tumor oncology landscapes. Dr. Simson holds a SB in Materials Science and Engineering from MIT and a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. In his doctoral research, he investigated clinically translatable treatments for musculoskeletal tissue repair using injectable hydrogels.
Stuart
Peterson
Board Member
Stuart Peterson is the Founder and Managing Partner of ARTIS Ventures. He led early stage investments for the firm in media giant YouTube, targeted cancer therapeutics leader StemCentrx, data storage leaders Cohesity and Nimble, and networking leaders Aruba and Versa Networks. He has been recognized as a Forbes Midas List Investor, TechCrunch VC of the Year, and both NY Times and CB Insights Top 100 VC honoree, and more. Stuart currently sits on the Board of Directors of OPYN Health, Unnatural Products, Conceivable Life Sciences, Versa Networks, TAE Life Sciences, Rad Ai, Affect Therapeutics, and Cohesity. He is Co-Founder of FIG, ONTO Fertility, and more. Stuart received his B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles and M.B.A. in Analytic Finance from The University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business.
Jeff
Kindler
Advisor to the CEO
Jeff Kindler serves as Chief Executive Officer of Centrexion Therapeutics, a company focused on developing safe and effective, non-addictive treatments for chronic pain. Kindler is also a Senior Advisor to Blackstone, one of the world’s leading investment firms, and an Operating Partner at Artis Ventures, a leading venture capital firm. He also serves on the boards of Perrigo, an international manufacturer of private label over-the-counter pharmaceuticals; Precigen, a biotechnology company and Terns Pharmaceuticals, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company. He also serves as a director or advisor to a number of private health care firms. Kindler was formerly the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Pfizer, the world’s largest research-based biopharmaceutical company, which he joined in January 2002. As CEO, Kindler led Pfizer’s $68 billion merger and acquisition of Wyeth, diversified Pfizer’s product portfolio, improved its R&D pipeline, and reshaped the company’s commercial, innovation, and leadership models to drive growth and cultural change. He joined Pfizer as Executive Vice President and General Counsel and, prior to his appointment as CEO in July 2006, he served as a Vice Chairman of the company, responsible for Pfizer’s corporate affairs including worldwide legal, regulatory and patent matters as well as a range of public affairs and communications functions, and serving as a member of the four-person executive committee overseeing global business operations. While at Pfizer, Kindler worked with former President Bill Clinton to help bring medicines to impoverished patients in the developing world through public-private pharmaceutical partnerships. He also represented the pharmaceutical industry in U.S. government healthcare reform efforts, helping to increase access to affordable medicines while preserving an environment in which pharmaceutical firms can discover and develop innovative treatments. In 1996, Kindler joined McDonald’s Corporation as Executive Vice President and General Counsel, responsible for both legal and corporate affairs, and then moved into line management as President of Partner Brands, which included overseeing franchise, operations and marketing efforts for restaurant brands such as Boston Market, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Donato’s Pizza, and Pret a Manger. Before joining McDonald’s Corporation, Kindler was Vice President of Litigation and Legal Policy of the General Electric Company. Prior to GE, Kindler practiced civil and criminal litigation as a partner at the Washington D.C. firm of Williams & Connolly. He began his career as an attorney at the Federal Communications Commission and served as a law clerk to Judge David L. Bazelon of the U.S. Court of Appeals of the D.C. Circuit and later as law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. Kindler earned his BA in 1977 from Tufts University summa cum laude and his JD in 1980 from Harvard magna cum laude, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.
Manya
Deehr
Legal Advisor
Manya has spent close to 30 years strategizing with public and private life sciences companies on ways to maximize the value of company assets. She has experience with companies in all stages of development and with a broad spectrum of product offerings, including animal health, over the counter, diagnostics, pharmaceuticals, biologics, specialty pharma, branded generics, medical devices, as well as a spectrum of drug delivery platforms. Manya focuses her practice on assisting companies navigate transformative events – whether they are acquiring or divesting of products or technologies, entering clinical development, launching a product, entering the US market, establishing their first compliance program, policies and procedures, or organizing and preparing the company for sale. She has lent strategic and operational support for numerous consumer and prescription product launches/relaunches, including specialty pharma, drug delivery technologies, animal health, orphan and pediatric drugs. The heart of her practice resides in structuring and negotiating complex life sciences transactions and exclusivity positions designed to optimize company value. She has extensive experience in developing proprietary positions around products and structuring and negotiating life sciences collaboration transactions. She has negotiated deals for numerous companies at all stages of development – from university technology acquisitions to late stage product candidate divestitures and acquisitions for major pharmaceutical companies – both during her tenure as a partner and member of the life sciences steering committee at Morgan Lewis and Cooley and in building value and orchestrating successful exits as the chief legal officer for each of Eurand Pharmaceuticals and Velcera Pharmaceuticals. Manya has held a number of executive leadership positions and board seats in pharmaceutical companies, including Receptagen, Eurand and Velcera, and has played integral roles in building value through exclusivity strategies, structuring transactions, facilitating IPOs, secondary and debt financings and successful company exits in her tenure with those companies. She received a JD from the University of Wisconsin Law School and an AB in Biochemical Sciences from Harvard University.
Greg
Curhan
Advisor
Greg Curhan joined FLG Partners in 2020 with over 35 years of operational, financial, capital markets and strategic advisory experience in various sectors including Investment Banking, Medical Device/Life Sciences, Internet, Clean Technology, and Investment/Wealth Management. As CFO, Greg has managed Finance, Legal HR, and Investor Relations functions for Public and Private companies. He has raised equity and debt capital for both private and public companies, completed a successful IPO, and executed M&A transactions both acquiring and divesting companies. He has also served in CEO, President and Board of Director capacities. In July 2020, Greg was appointed to the Advisory Board at Specific Diagnostics as the company prepares to launch its Reveal rapid susceptibility testing system in Europe. Greg founded and was President of an investment bank (Merriman Curhan Ford) growing it from pre-revenue startup to 250 employees, $90 million in revenue, profitability, and a Nasdaq listing within 7 years. The investment bank raised over $5 billion dollars for corporate clients (both public and private) during that period in IPOs, Public offerings, PIPE financings and Private Placements, while also executing numerous successful M&A engagements in various Technology, Biotech, Medical Technology and Consumer sectors. Prior to joining FLG, Greg was CFO and SVP Corporate Development of Providence Medical Technology, a venture backed medical device manufacturer whose purpose is to improve clinical outcomes for high-risk patients and prevent surgical failures of the cervical spine. At Providence Greg raised multiple rounds of equity investment, identifying and bringing in a new lead investor in the company’s largest private round to date. He arranged new debt financing facilities, increasing the size and extending the maturity twice in three years. He introduced long term FP&A practices to support strategy formation and capital raising, including budgeting for a multi-year, randomized clinical trial. Prior to that Greg was CEO of Clickworker USA, a US subsidiary of a venture backed German Crowdsourcing platform. He was EVP and CFO of MCF Corporation, the parent company of Merriman Curhan Ford. He was also CFO of WorldRes, a venture backed web-based hotel reservation booking engine. In addition, Greg has worked for various investment banking firms including Merrill Lynch, Montgomery Securities, Volpe Brown Whelan and MLV. Greg earned a BA degree in Economics (summa cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa) from Dartmouth College. He was an Adjunct Professor teaching Entrepreneurial Finance to MBA students at Dominican University and wrote and published a Novel Indomitable Spirit.
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