We’re here to change patients’ lives.

Also, here to change genetic medicine as we know it today.

At iECURE, we believe permanently correcting devastating, “loss of function” diseases is now possible. This is why we are pursuing mutation-agnostic in vivo gene insertion approaches to knock healthy genes into patients’ chromosomes, allowing the expression of a missing gene which may eliminate symptoms and extend life.

Our Story

We were founded to advance the life’s work of James M. Wilson, M.D., Ph.D., Rose H. Weiss professor and director, Orphan Disease Center; professor in Departments of Medicine and Pediatrics, Perelman School of Medicine; and director of the Gene Therapy Program (GTP) at the University of Pennsylvania.

More than 35 years ago, Dr. Wilson was studying ornithine transcarbamylase (OTC) deficiency: a urea cycle disorder and inborn error of metabolism that often presents in newborns, causes toxic ammonia buildup and leads to death in early childhood. Dr. Wilson hypothesized that if science had a way to permanently supply a healthy copy of the gene that codes for OTC, the disorder could be cured, yet technical challenges historically stymied this vision.

Until now.

New gene editing technologies hold the promise of first making a cut in genomic DNA, and then inserting a healthy copy of the disease-causing gene into the chromosome. While this approach is applicable in a broad range of tissues, our team is starting with an initial focus on liver disorders.

iECURE has established a foundational collaboration with the GTP and their 300+ experts in vector engineering, discovery, early-stage development gene therapy and gene editing manufacturing. This expertise is the backbone of our early R&D, and we are poised to assume responsibility from the GTP and advance this vision of mutation-agnostic in vivo gene insertion into the clinic and beyond.

The iECURE Team

Our team is comprised of seasoned experts in biotechnology, gene therapy and liver disorders who have extensive experience in building successful companies.

Joseph Truitt, MBA

Joseph Truitt currently serves as the CEO and Board member of iECURE Inc. Mr. Truitt previously was CEO of BioSpecifics Technologies Corp., which was recently acquired by Endo Pharmaceuticals. Prior to BioSpecifics, Mr. Truitt was CEO of Achillion Pharmaceuticals, which he joined in 2009 and held positions of increasing responsibility throughout his tenure. Mr. Truitt is Chairman of the board at Larimar Therapeutics and serves on the board of Code BioTherapeutics. Mr. Truitt served as a Captain in the United States Marine Corps. He holds an MBA from Saint Joseph’s University and a BS from LaSalle University.

Paul Firuta, MBA

Paul Firuta has nearly 30 years of commercial and operational experience in the biopharma industry, most recently serving as COO of Achillion. Prior, he held the role of chief commercial officer at uniQure, as well as other senior commercial leadership positions at NPS Pharmaceuticals and ViroPharma. Mr. Firuta holds an MBA from St. Joseph’s University and a BS from King’s College, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

Alex Monteith, MBA

Alex Monteith, iECURE chief business officer, has over two decades of experience in the biopharmaceutical space. His most recent position was at BioSpecifics Technologies, where he served as CBO with Mr. Truitt. Prior to BioSpecifics, he was VP of business development for Deerfield Management. He has also served as VP of business development for Achillion. Mr. Monteith holds an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University and a BS from James Madison University.

David Garrett, MBA

David Garrett joins iECURE from Dynacure, where he served as chief financial officer and managed a successful Series C raise of €58 million and led its IPO process. Previously, he held various roles at Nabriva Therapeutics, including vice president, corporate controller and head of investor relations and senior director, business planning and analysis. At Nabriva, Mr. Garrett led all Wall Street-facing activities, completed over $150 million in equity capital raises and oversaw all SEC reporting and compliance functions. He was also responsible for leading Nabriva’s redomicile from Austria to Ireland. Prior to Nabriva, Mr. Garrett held senior-level finance roles at Covis Pharmaceuticals, Auxilium Pharmaceuticals and ViroPharma and was a manager at KPMG. Mr. Garrett received an MBA and B.S. in accountancy from Villanova University and is a certified public accountant in Pennsylvania.

Gabriel M. Cohn, M.D., MBA

Gabriel M. Cohn, M.D., MBA, is the Chief Medical Officer of iECURE. He brings more than 30 years of experience in academic medicine and the biotechnology industry and has contributed to the development of multiple therapeutics for the treatment of rare genetic disorders. Most recently, Dr. Cohn served as the Chief Medical Officer of Homology Medicines where he led the company’s Phase 1/2 gene therapy trial for phenylketonuria (PKU) and supported two investigational new drug (IND) submissions to U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the company’s gene editing programs. Previously, he was Vice President of Clinical Development at AVROBIO, leading clinical programs, protocol design, regulatory filings, FDA and Health Canada interactions, and trial site identification and initiations. Dr. Cohn has also served in executive leadership roles at OvaScience and Shire. He is a Fellow of the American College of Genetics and Genomics (FACMG) and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG), author of more than 40 peer-reviewed publications, and served as the Chief of Clinical and Reproductive Genetics and Medical Director, Genetic Services at Baystate Medical Center and as Assistant Professor at Tufts University School of Medicine. He earned his M.D. from SUNY Health Science Center at Syracuse and MBA from the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He completed a residency in Obstetrics & Gynecology at SUNY HSC at Syracuse and a fellowship in Medical Genetics at the National Institutes of Health.

George Diaz, M.D., Ph.D.

George Diaz, M.D., Ph.D., currently serves as VP, Therapeutic Area Lead for Urea Cycle Disorders (UCDs) at iECURE. Dr. Diaz joins the company with more than 25 years of experience in genetics and pediatrics, particularly in metabolic diseases and monogenic disorders. Most recently, he served as chief of the division of Medical Genetics and professor in the Departments of Genetics & Genomic Sciences and Pediatrics at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. Over his remarkable career at Mount Sinai, Dr. Diaz has collaborated extensively with industry partners to bring novel therapeutics to patients with UCDs and other rare genetic disorders. In addition to his roles at Mount Sinai, he has served as director of the Program for Inherited Metabolic Diseases, a nationally recognized specialty center for the evaluation and care of patients with inborn errors of metabolism. Dr. Diaz earned his B.A. in biology from Cornell University and his M.D. and Ph.D. from State University of New York Health Science Center at Brooklyn.

Ozan Alkan, Ph.D.

Ozan Alkan, Ph.D. is the Head of Research for iECURE. As an accomplished scientist and pharmaceutical research and development leader, he brings more than 20 years of experience in gene therapy platform development and delivery technologies to the role. Most recently, Dr. Alkan worked at Carmine Therapeutics, where he led the support of their red blood cell extracellular vesicle gene therapy platform. Prior to that, he has held several senior leadership positions at major pharmaceutical and biotech companies, including Tidal Therapeutics, Generation Bio, and Merrimack Pharmaceuticals. Before transitioning into the industry, he worked as a research scientist and group leader at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Dr. Alkan holds a Ph.D. in cell biology from the University of Freiburg (Germany) and a M.S. in biology from the Technical University of Braunschweig (Germany). He was a visiting student in Philip Leboulch’s lab and conducted his post-doctoral research in Helen Blau’s lab at Stanford University.

Tom Woiwode, Ph.D.

Tom Woiwode is a managing director at Versant Ventures and has been working there since 2002. He has led multiple investments, including in Crispr Therapeutics, Passage Bio, Audentes Therapeutics, Annapurna Therapeutics, Gritstone Bio, Crinetics Pharmaceuticals, Jecure Therapeutics, Therachon, Anokion, Vividion Therapeutics, Tempest Therapeutics, Aligos Therapeutics and CODA Biotherapeutics. Before joining Versant, he served as a medicinal chemist at XenoPort. He earned his Ph.D. in chemistry from Stanford University and a B.S. in chemistry from University of California, Berkeley.

Joseph Truitt, MBA

Joseph Truitt currently serves as the CEO and Board member of iECURE Inc. Mr. Truitt previously was CEO of BioSpecifics Technologies Corp., which was recently acquired by Endo Pharmaceuticals. Prior to BioSpecifics, Mr. Truitt was CEO of Achillion Pharmaceuticals, which he joined in 2009 and held positions of increasing responsibility throughout his tenure. Mr. Truitt is Chairman of the board at Larimar Therapeutics and serves on the board of Code BioTherapeutics. Mr. Truitt served as a Captain in the United States Marine Corps. He holds an MBA from Saint Joseph’s University and a BS from LaSalle University.

Ray Camahort, Ph.D.

Ray Camahort, Ph.D., partner at Novo Ventures, has over 15 years of combined investment, business, and research experience, with expertise in biochemistry, genetics, and gene therapy/editing. Prior to joining Novo Ventures, Ray worked in business development at the Harvard University Office of Technology Development where his role was to facilitate commercialization of technologies developed in the chemistry and stem cell/regenerative biology departments. He completed a National Institute of Health post-doctoral training fellowship at Harvard University and was a doctoral fellow at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research in Kansas City, Missouri. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Kansas in biochemistry and molecular biology and a B.S. in biological sciences from the University of California Santa Barbara.

Brian Di Donato, MBA

Brian Di Donato has more than 20 years of financial and leadership experience and currently serves as chief financial officer and head of strategy at Immunocore, a late-stage biotechnology company pioneering the development of a novel class of T cell receptor bispecific immunotherapies. Prior to joining Immunocore, Mr. Di Donato served as senior vice president and chief financial officer at Achillion Pharmaceuticals and held leadership roles in several financial services companies, including Morgan Stanley and UBS Securities. Mr. Di Donato holds an MBA from New York University’s Stern School of Business and B.S. degrees in biology from Penn State University and mechanical engineering from Villanova University. Mr. Di Donato also served in the U.S. Navy as an aerospace engineering officer.

Derek Yuan, Ph.D.

Derek Yuan, Ph.D. is a managing director at LYFE Capital and has been working there since the start of the investment team in 2018. He has been involved in multiple investments, including Pliant Therapeutics, Tempest Therapeutics, Cytek Biosciences, Immuneering, Kyverna, ImmuneOnco, and Aspen Neurosciences. Prior to LYFE Capital, Derek worked at Biotech Equity Research at Credit Suisse. He received his Ph.D. degree in chemical biology from the Rockefeller University and his B.S. in chemistry and biology from Tsinghua University.

Tal Zaks, M.D., Ph.D.

Tal Zaks, M.D., Ph.D., is a Partner with OrbiMed. Dr. Zaks was recently the Chief Medical Officer at Moderna, where he led the development of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine and other key programs. Previously, Dr. Zaks held senior leadership positions in drug development at major pharmaceutical companies, including Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline. Dr. Zaks received his M.D. and Ph.D. from the Ben Gurion University and conducted post-doctoral research at the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

Mark J. Semanick

Matthew Hall

Maryann A. Toto, MSN, RAC

Brad Dickerson

John Blackwell

Thomas White

Jane Fisher

Mike Burnham

Karen Kuhn

Dave Lecher

Donna Lutz

Eric Squinto

George Alkire

Christine Rexer

Matthew Firuta Headshot

Matthew Firuta

Sue McGoldrick

Investors