Sam Rasty brings more than 20 years of experience in biopharma R&D, commercial, business development, strategy and operations in leadership roles of increasing responsibility spanning global large pharma, mid-cap pharma and early stage, private biotech companies. Most recently, he served as Chief Operating Officer at Homology Medicines, a genetic medicines company that he helped launch in 2016, having played a key role in transforming the company from a private start-up to an established, fully integrated public gene therapy and gene editing company. Prior to joining Homology as one of its early employees, he was Vice President and Head of New Products at the Rare Disease Business Unit of Shire Pharmaceuticals. His earlier career included roles spanning corporate development at Endo Pharmaceuticals and commercial strategy and portfolio management at GlaxoSmithKline. He received a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Louisiana State University, completed his postdoctoral fellowship in Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and holds an MBA from Villanova University.

Sven Karlsson is the co-founder, chief operating officer and chief business officer of Platelet BioGenesis. He has more than a decade experience in business development and financial analysis. Prior to co-founding Platelet BioGenesis he worked as a merger and acquisition principal at J.P. Morgan, an analyst at a hedge fund, and as a venture capital investor. He earned his M.B.A. from the Stern School of Business at New York University.

Dean Falb has more than 25 years of experience leading research and development teams in start-up biotechnology companies across a broad range of technology platforms and disease indications. Prior to PBG, he was CSO at LogicBio Therapeutics, a gene editing/gene therapy company focused on rare diseases. In 2012 he was an Entrepreneur in Residence at Atlas Ventures where played a central role in founding Synlogic Therapeutics. At Synlogic, he functioned as Chief Technology Officer and led their preclinical programs in rare diseases and oncology. Prior to this he was Vice President of Research and Development at Stryker’s Regenerative Medicine Division. There he led the development of a portfolio of Bone Morphogenetic Protein –based drugs in musculoskeletal and tissue fibrosis indications. Dean was Sr. Vice President of R&D at Praecis Pharmaceuticals where he led the discovery and development of peptide-based drugs in oncology indications. In 1993 Dean was hired as the fourth scientist at Millennium Pharmaceuticals where he started and led Millennium’s program in Cardiovascular Diseases. Dean received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in the lab of Tom Maniatis at Harvard University.

Po-Shun Lee has extensive experiences in early and late stage drug development as an executive as well as a physician-scientist. Prior to joining Platelet BioGenesis, Po-Shun was Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at Proteostasis Therapeutics, a publicly traded company developing rare disease therapeutics. At Proteostasis, he built the clinical organization to support the company transitioning from preclinical to clinical stage and successfully completed an IPO in February 2016. Prior to Proteostasis, he served as Translational Medicine Expert at the Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research leading several programs to successful proof-of-concept. Before Novartis, he served as the Associate Medical Director at Vertex Pharmaceuticals where he supported the clinical development and registration of Kalydeco®. Before joining industry, Po-Shun was as a physician-scientist at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School where he was the scientific co-founder of two biotech companies.

Po-Shun received a B.A. in Biology from the Johns Hopkins University and an M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.

Sandy brings more than 20 years of extensive global Human Resources experience, primarily across the life science and high-tech industries. Prior to joining Platelet, Sandy was the Executive Vice President of People at Emulate Bio, a life science company developing organs-on-chip technology. Prior to Emulate, Sandy led the Human Resources organization at several other start-ups including Kala Pharmaceuticals (focused in the ophthalmology market), OvaScience (a Life Science organization focused on the science of women’s fertility), and Quanterix (a diagnostics company focused in the area of precision health). In each of these roles, Sandy led the HR function to drive key HR strategies for organizational growth and cultural strength. Sandy started the Life Science portion of her career at Millipore, where she spent 8 years in key HR roles including the Global Business Partner for their largest business unit. Prior to joining the Life Science mission, Sandy spent 10 years working in several HR roles at Avid Technology, a high-tech company focused on developing hardware and software for tv, film and audio editing.

Sandy holds a dual Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Business Management from the University of Southern New Hampshire, is a Certified Executive Coach and holds several Human Resources certifications including SPHR (Strategic Professional in Human Resources) and HCS (Human Capital Strategist).

Tom Schulz has extensive experience developing therapeutics from pluripotent stem cells, in roles of increasing responsibility in early stage biotech companies. While at ViaCyte (2004-17) he was responsible for inventing and establishing scalable manufacturing technologies for a therapeutic candidate for type 1 diabetes. ViaCyte advanced to clinical trials in 2014 with the first and only islet cell replacement derived from stem cells. He joined Platelet BioGenesis in 2019 to lead the development and manufacturing of a donor-independent platelet-like cell therapeutic, produced from induced pluripotent cells.

Tom earned his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Adelaide, followed by postdoctoral studies at the University of Tottori (Japan), the NIDDK (Maryland) and the University of Georgia.

Mark is a managing partner of the Qiming U.S. Healthcare Fund. Previously, he served as chief operating officer of UCB Pharma, CEO of PDL BioPharma, CEO of Signature BioScience and COO of Boehringer Mannheim Therapeutics. He serves on the boards of FivePrime Therapeutics, Dermira Inc., and Aimmune Therapeutics. He received his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Joseph Italiano, Ph.D. is an associate professor at Harvard Medical School, where he leads his own lab focused on platelet production. He is also assistant professor in the Department of Surgery at Children’s Hospital Boston. Dr. Italiano earned his Ph.D. in cell biology from Florida State University. He is a co-founder of Platelet BioGenesis and chairman of the company’s scientific advisory board.

Sam Rasty brings more than 20 years of experience in biopharma R&D, commercial, business development, strategy and operations in leadership roles of increasing responsibility spanning global large pharma, mid-cap pharma and early stage, private biotech companies. Most recently, he served as Chief Operating Officer at Homology Medicines, a genetic medicines company that he helped launch in 2016, having played a key role in transforming the company from a private start-up to an established, fully integrated public gene therapy and gene editing company. Prior to joining Homology as one of its early employees, he was Vice President and Head of New Products at the Rare Disease Business Unit of Shire Pharmaceuticals. His earlier career included roles spanning corporate development at Endo Pharmaceuticals and commercial strategy and portfolio management at GlaxoSmithKline. He received a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Louisiana State University, completed his postdoctoral fellowship in Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and holds an MBA from Villanova University.

Sven Karlsson is the co-founder, chief operating officer and chief business officer of Platelet BioGenesis. He has more than a decade experience in business development and financial analysis. Prior to co-founding Platelet BioGenesis he worked as a merger and acquisition principal at J.P. Morgan, an analyst at a hedge fund, and as a venture capital investor. He earned his M.B.A. from the Stern School of Business at New York University.