Chris Viehbacher

Chairman of the Board of Directors

Chris Viehbacher is the managing partner of Gurnet Point Capital, a Boston based investment fund associated with the Bertarelli family and has a $2 billion capital allocation. He is also the chairman of PureTech’s board of directors. Chris is the former CEO and member of the board of directors of Sanofi and was also the chairman of the board of Genzyme in Boston.

Prior to joining Sanofi, he spent over 20 years with GlaxoSmithKline in Germany, Canada, France and, latterly, the U.S. as president of its North American pharmaceutical division. He began his career with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and qualified as a chartered accountant. Chris currently serves on the boards of Alladapt, BEFORE Brands, Corium, Crossover Health, Boston Pharmaceuticals, Zikani, York River Holdings, Gurnet Point Capital LLC and as chairman of Vedanta. He is also a trustee of Northeastern University and a member of the board of fellows at Stanford Medical School.

Chris has been a strong advocate for the healthcare industry. Past advocacy roles include: former co-chair with Bill Gates of the CEO Roundtable on Neglected Diseases; chairman of the CEO Roundtable on Cancer; chairman of the board of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America in Washington; and president of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations in Brussels. He has served on various advisory groups at MIT, Duke University and Queen’s University at Kingston, Ontario. At the World Economic Forum at Davos, Chris was a chair of the Health Governors and co-chaired an initiative to create a Global Charter for Healthy Living. He was also a member of the International Business Council. He has received the Pasteur Foundation Award for outstanding commitment to safeguarding and improving health worldwide and received France’s highest civilian honor, the Legion d’Honneur. He received his bachelor’s degree in commerce from Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada.

Bernat Olle, Ph.D.

Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Olle is a co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Vedanta Biosciences. He has been a member of the founding teams of several companies of the PureTech portfolio and served as a member of the Board of Directors of Vedanta Biosciences and Follica Biosciences.

In 2013 Dr. Olle was named "Innovator of the Year" in MIT Technology Review Spain's "Innovators under 35" awards. He also received the 2019 Barry M. Portnoy Immigrant Entrepreneur Award from The Immigrant Learning Center.

He completed his doctoral work at the Chemical Engineering Department at MIT, where he developed a novel method for large-scale bacterial culture. During his graduate work, Dr. Olle was awarded the "la Caixa" fellowship. Dr. Olle received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Universitat Rovira i Virgili, in Catalonia, his M.S. and PhD. in Chemical Engineering Practice from MIT, and his M.B.A. from the MIT Sloan School of Management. He has published his work in journals including Nature and Nature Biotechnology.

Ending the War on Microbes | Bernat Olle | TEDxCambridge

Ben Shapiro, M.D.

Board Member

Ben Shapiro, M.D., is a co-founder of PureTech and a member of the R&D Committee. As executive vice president at Merck Research Laboratories of Merck & Co., Dr. Shapiro initially led Worldwide Basic Research and was responsible for all the basic and preclinical research activities at Merck. He later led Worldwide Licensing and External Research and was responsible for Merck’s relationships with the academic and industrial biomedical research community. His leadership resulted in the discovery, development and registration of approximately 25 drugs and vaccines. 

Previously, he was professor and chairman of the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Washington and is the author of over 120 papers on the molecular regulation of cellular behavior. Following an internship in Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital, he was a Research Associate at the NIH, then a Visiting Scientist at the Institut Pasteur in Paris and returned to the NIH as Chief-Section on Cellular Differentiation in the Laboratory of Biochemistry prior to joining the University of Washington. Dr. Shapiro has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and a Visiting Professor at the University of Nice. He currently serves as a member of the board of directors of VBL Therapeutics. Dr. Shapiro previously served as a director of Celera Corporation. He also is a director of the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative and the Mind and Life Institute. Dr. Shapiro received a B.S. in Chemistry from Dickinson College and his M.D. from Jefferson Medical College.

John LaMattina, Ph.D.

Board Member

John LaMattina, Ph.D., is an independent non-executive director at PureTech. Dr. LaMattina was previously president of Pfizer Global Research and Development and held positions of increasing responsibility during his 30-year career at Pfizer, including vice president of U.S. Discovery Operations in 1993, senior vice president of Worldwide Discovery Operations in 1998 and senior vice president of Worldwide Development in 1999.

Dr. LaMattina serves on the board of directors of Ligand Pharmaceuticals, Zafgen, Inc. and Immunome Inc. and is chairman of the board of directors of Alivio Therapeutics, Inc. He also serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of Frequency Therapeutics and is a trustee associate of Boston College. During Dr. LaMattina’s leadership tenure, Pfizer discovered and/or developed a number of important new medicines including Tarceva, Chantix, Zoloft, Selzentry and Lyrica, along with a number of other medicines currently in late stage development for cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and pain. 

He is the author of numerous scientific publications and U.S. patents. In addition, Dr. LaMattina is the author of Devalued and Distrusted: Can the Pharmaceutical Industry Restore Its Broken Image, Drug Truths: Dispelling the Myths About Pharma R&D, and an author of the Drug Truths blog at Forbes.com. Dr. LaMattina was awarded an honorary doctor of science degree from the University of New Hampshire in 2007 and in 2010 was the recipient of the American Chemical Society’s Earle B. Barnes Award for Leadership in Chemical Research Management. Dr. LaMattina received a B.S. in chemistry from Boston College in 1971 and received a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of New Hampshire in 1975. He then moved on to Princeton University as a National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Fellow in the laboratory of Professor E. C. Taylor.

Sue Dillon, Ph.D.

Board Member

Dr. Sue Dillon, PhD is co-founder, President and CEO of Aro Biotherapeutics, a start up biotech focused on developing and commercializing Centyrins, a proprietary protein drug platform with the potential to revolutionize delivery of diverse drug classes, including nucleic acids and genetic therapies.  

Sue has 30 years in executive leadership roles at pharmaceutical and biotech companies. She retired from her role as Global Therapeutic Area Head for Immunology at Janssen/J&J in 2017.  During her 16+ year tenure at J&J, Sue led global Immunology R&D, and achieved numerous regulatory approvals for innovative antibody products for autoimmune diseases including REMICADE^®, SIMPONI^®, STELARA^® and TREMFYA^® that delivered combined end-user sales in excess of $10B. During her tenure, Sue built a robust Immunology development portfolio through internal discovery, and external licensing, and championed research into the emerging areas of the microbiome and immune repertoire profiling. Multi-disciplinary teams under Sue’s leadership were twice recognized with the Prix Galien Award for PROMACTA^® and STELARA^®, each first in class medicines.

Sue received her PhD in Immunology from Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Immunology at Duke University.  Sue was named by FierceBiotech as one of the “Top Women in Biotech”.  Currently Sue is CEO of Aro Biotherapeutics, and serves on the Board of Directors of the Wistar Institute.

Bharatt Chowrira, J.D., Ph.D

Board Member

Bharatt Chowrira, Ph.D., J.D., is the president and chief of business and strategy at PureTech. Prior to joining PureTech, Dr. Chowrira was the president of Synlogic, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing synthetic microbiome-based therapeutics, from September 2015 to February 2017, where he oversaw and managed corporate and business development, alliance management, financial, human resources, intellectual property and legal operations.

Prior to joining Synlogic, Dr. Chowrira was the chief operating officer of Auspex Pharmaceuticals Inc., from 2013 to 2015, which was acquired by Teva Pharmaceuticals in the Spring of 2015. Previously, he was president and chief executive officer of Addex Therapeutics Ltd., a biotechnology company publicly traded on the SIX Swiss Exchange, from 2011 to 2013. Prior to that, Dr. Chowrira held various leadership and management positions at Nektar Therapeutics (chief operating officer), Merck & Co, or Merck (vice president), Sirna Therapeutics (general counsel; acquired by Merck) and Ribozyme Pharmaceuticals (chief patent counsel). Dr. Chowrira is a member of the board of directors of Vor Biopharma, Inc. 

Dr. Chowrira received a J.D. from the University of Denver’s Sturm College of Law, a Ph.D. in molecular biology from the University of Vermont College of Medicine, an M.S. in molecular biology from Illinois State University and a B.S. in microbiology from the UAS, Bangalore, India.

Troy Ignelzi

Board Member

Troy A. Ignelzi joined Karuna Therapeutics as Chief Financial Officer in March 2019, bringing more than 25 years of experience supporting companies in finance, business development and operations. He joins Karuna from scPharmaceuticals where, in his role as Chief Financial Officer, he helped oversee development from a privately-held clinical-stage company to a publicly-traded biopharma preparing for commercial launch. Prior to scPharmaceuticals, Mr. Ignelzi was a senior executive at Juventas Therapeutics, Esperion Therapeutics, and Insys Therapeutics, helping raise public/private capital, expand development pipelines through licensing/acquisition and advancing critical therapies, several of which are currently approved by the FDA. He also brings relevant commercial experience, having launched and promoted CNS therapies while at Eli Lilly. Mr. Ignelzi is a member of the board of directors at Vedanta Biosciences.

Mr. Ignelzi holds a bachelor’s degree in Accounting from Ferris State University.

Chris Chen

Board Observer

Chris Chen is a Principal at the Gates Foundation Strategic Investment Fund (SIF), which manages a $2.5 billion fund within the Gates Foundation. Chris leads debt, equity, and guarantee investments that support the Gates Foundation’s programs in global health and economic development.

Before joining the foundation, Chris was a Vice President on Bain Capital’s private equity investment team, where he invested in and provided operational support to companies across the healthcare, services, and industrials sectors.

Chris received an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a bachelor’s degree in Ethics, Politics, and Economics from Yale University.

Atsushi Shiota

Board Observer

Atsushi Shiota is a fellow at JSR Corporation, where he leads life science research in collaboration with Keio University School of Medicine. In this position, he oversees the company’s programs involving human microbiomes, organoids, stem cell biology, regenerative medicine, and cancer precision medicine. He is also an adjunct professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Keio University School of Medicine.

Atsushi joined JSR Corporation in 1989 and has since served in a variety of roles. He most recently served as a General Manager of Bioprocessing Products, where he led the introduction of the company’s antibody drug production and service business lines, which later became core areas of JSR’s life science business unit. He also held positions such as Associate Director of Corporate Planning, Executive Officer and R&D Manager of BEOL Process Materials Development, among other roles.