Gary Fanger has 20+ years of experience in the biotechnology industry developing novel therapeutics, establishing drug development alliances, and leading M&A activities. He serves as a director on the boards of Virtici and formerly OncoImmune, where Dr. Fanger helped support the $425M acquisition by Merck in 2020.
In his previous role as Senior Vice President & Chief Operating Officer at Amplimmune, Dr. Fanger helped build this start-up out of Johns Hopkins University and led the $500 million acquisition by Medimmune/AstraZeneca in 2013. Prior to joining Amplimmune, Dr. Fanger was Vice President of Business Development at MacroGenics where he directed partnering activities that included establishing MacroGenics’ strategic alliance with Eli Lilly & Company. Before MacroGenics, Dr. Fanger was responsible for a diverse array of corporate functions at Corixa Corporation, including heading up business development, establishing and directing the therapeutic antibody development program, and managing numerous pharma strategic alliances.
Dr. Fanger has co-authored over 45 articles, book chapters and reviews in peer-reviewed journals in the areas of monoclonal antibody development, cell biology and cancer research. He has also been awarded 35 patents. Dr. Fanger received his MBA from Seattle University, PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology from Dartmouth Medical School, and his BS in Chemistry from Denison University.
Christian Furlan Freguia, PhD, has over 10 years of experience in the biotechnology sector with a successful track record in developing new drugs and translating programs to human clinical trials.
In his previous role as Director of Research at Synthetic Biologics, Christian led the discovery and development activities of a novel oral biological drugs, now in clinical trials. As part of this effort, he was responsible for GMP/GLP analytical development and GMP manufacturing. Prior to Synthetic Biologics, Christian was a Director of Immunology at Imquest Biosciences where he developed a new anti-HIV small molecule, now in the clinic, and novel cancer drugs, which resulted in several successful IND filings. Christian is the inventor of new technologies, some of which resulted in founding of microbiome-based companies. Christian has authored more than 15 research and review articles, and he is an inventor on several patents. He holds a PhD in molecular biology and biochemistry from the University of Ferrara (Italy).
Sathya Janardhanan, MS, has over a decade of experience in setting up drug development programs and progressing those programs into Phase I and Phase II clinical trials. He has successfully contributed to multiple IND applications to the FDA, as well as to the EMA. Sathya specializes in early-stage programs and rapidly accelerating development timelines, cGMP manufacturing planning, facility development, and CDMO management. His background combines chemical engineering that aids with process research and molecular and chemical biology that aids with drug quality method development.
Most recently, Sathya founded and managed Apsis Healthcare, a Process & Analytical Technology startup that worked on design, development and consulting in Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing Technology areas. Here he secured NIH grants and partnerships in the area of online quality attribute detection for biopharmaceutical production processes. Previously, Sathya was a senior scientist at NextCure, where he worked on all aspects of process, analytical and manufacturing development while also leading a team that produced the facility’s Process Automation. Sathya is an active reviewer of biomanufacturing guidance documents at the American Society of Testing Methods (ASTM) and leads consortiums related to process quality detections at National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Sathya secured a Master of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from University of Maryland and a Bachelor’s Degree in Chemical Engineering from National Institute of Technology in India.
Dr. Stephens is a healthcare risk manager by training and has over 30 years of operational experience in the healthcare and medical research fields. Prior to Rise Therapeutics, she held executive management positions in Operations, Quality Assurance, Risk Management, Clinical Trials Management, and Human Resources.
Most recently, Janet was the Health Service Regional Manager and Compliance Auditor for The GEO Group, Inc., where she led and directed health services for >2500 individuals covering 4 different states. Prior to that, she served as Vice President of Quality Assurance/Risk Management for Southern Health Partners, Inc., where Janet established the risk management department. During her role at Healthsouth Corp., she rose through six positions from director to Senior Vice President of Operations ultimately overseeing a staff of 7000 over 30 states. She has held clinical trial project management, operational, and administrative roles in early-stage clinical research organizations, as well as serving as an independent consultant managing clinical operations. She is a Certified Healthcare Risk Manager, a member of RAPS, SOCRA, and ASHRM, and is also a Certified Professional Coach and a Certified Advanced Grief Recovery Specialist. Janet earned a PhD in Philosophy from the AIHT in Birmingham, Alabama.
Sophie brings 25+ years of experience building biotech businesses through product development, partnering and fundraising. Sophie has deep commercialization expertise including sales & marketing, deal making, alliance management, product design, operational delivery, strategic planning and financial management.
Prior to joining Rise, Sophie drove business execution working in roles of increasing responsibilities in high growth companies including Sherlock Biosciences (CRISPR-based diagnostics), Scipher Medicine, where she led the design and development of a blood-based precision medicine diagnostic for rheumatoid arthritis, and a drug target discovery platform in Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Before that, Sophie was President, Clinical Trials at CogState, where she led the division to profitability and best vendor status with leading Pharma companies. At Pfizer, Sophie was responsible for business development, driving search & evaluation, transactions and alliance management for technology platforms across a broad range of indications. Sophie started her career in sales with UCB, where she headed Global Marketing & Sales for its biologics contract manufacturing division. She earned her engineering degree from University of Brussels (ULB, Belgium), her masters in medicinal chemistry from University of Lille (France), as well as executive management certificates from MIT/Sloan, Columbia University and Wharton.