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.

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.