We’re here to change patients’ lives.
Also, here to change genetic medicine as we know it today.
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
/in BOD, Leadership, Team/by eallisonJoseph 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
/in Leadership, Team/by eallisonPaul 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
/in Leadership, Team/by eallisonAlex 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
/in Leadership, Team/by eallisonDavid 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
/in Leadership, Team/by David AndersonGabriel 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.
/in Leadership, Team/by David AndersonGeorge 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.
/in Leadership, Team/by eallisonOzan 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.