bluebird-bio
(3)
Joanne Smith-Farrell
Joanne Smith-Farrell is the President and CEO of Be Biopharma, a Cambridge, Massachusetts company building a new class of medicines from engineered B cells - the body's own protein factories. A physicist by training who moved into drug development, she has spent more than 25 years leading teams tackling cancer and rare diseases, most notably building bluebird bio's 400-person oncology cell therapy business behind the CAR-T therapy Abecma. Since taking the helm at Be Bio in early 2021, she has steered the company through more than $350 million in funding as it works to turn B cells into durable, in vivo sources of therapeutic proteins.
Jason Cole
Jason F. Cole is the founding CEO and board member of Zag Bio, a Cambridge, Massachusetts biotech that launched in October 2025 with $80 million to develop thymus-targeted medicines for autoimmune diseases, starting with Type 1 diabetes. A lawyer by training with a J.D. from Columbia and an A.B. in Government from Dartmouth, Cole has spent more than two decades in biotech operations and finance. At bluebird bio he helped grow the company from roughly 100 to 1,200 employees, raised over $3.7 billion in equity financings, and helped deliver multiple first-in-class gene and cell therapies to patients. He most recently led SalioGen Therapeutics as CEO and Board Chair, and serves as Vice Chair of the MassBio board.
Robert Ross
Robert Ross is a medical oncologist turned biotech executive and the founding CEO of Clasp Therapeutics, a Baltimore-based clinical-stage immuno-oncology company building bispecific T cell engagers that target mutated cancer driver peptides presented by HLA with what the company calls absolute specificity. Launched in March 2024 with a $150 million Series A from Third Rock Ventures, Novo Holdings and Catalio Capital, Clasp is commercializing science from Johns Hopkins legends Bert Vogelstein and Drew Pardoll. Ross previously ran Surface Oncology through its acquisition by Coherus, led oncology at bluebird bio, and trained as a physician at Columbia, Harvard, Stanford and UCSF.