Samuel Murphy is co-founder and CEO of Salubris Biotherapeutics, a clinical-stage biotech in Gaithersburg, Maryland developing complex biologics for cardiovascular, oncology, and neurodegenerative disease. A Penn-trained virologist who did his postdoc in the lab that became Spark Therapeutics, he spent a decade in pharma strategy consulting and life-sciences investment banking before joining Salubris in 2017 and taking the CEO seat in 2020. His lead program, JK07, is the first clinical-stage selective ErbB4 agonist aimed at being a disease-modifying biologic for heart failure. He also runs international business development for the company's Chinese parent, Shenzhen Salubris Pharmaceuticals.
BreezeBio (formerly GenEdit) is a Brisbane, California-based biotechnology company that develops precision genetic medicines using its proprietary NanoGalaxy platform - a library of polymer nanoparticles capable of delivering genetic payloads like mRNA, siRNA, and CRISPR components to specific tissues without triggering immune responses. Unlike viral vectors that can only be dosed once and often provoke dangerous immune reactions, BreezeBio's non-viral approach allows repeat dosing, broad payload flexibility, and tissue selectivity across immune cells, heart, lung, and CNS. Founded in 2016 out of UC Berkeley by CEO Dr. Kunwoo Lee and CTO Dr. Hyo Min Park, the company rebranded from GenEdit in early 2026 following its $60M Series B, signaling a shift from delivery-platform licensor to full therapeutic developer with a lead program (BRZ-101) targeting Type 1 Diabetes.
Frank D. Lee is the Chief Executive Officer and Board Director of Pacira BioSciences, a specialty pharmaceutical company pioneering non-opioid pain management solutions. A 30-year industry veteran who immigrated to the United States from South Korea, Lee built his career across Eli Lilly, Janssen, Novartis, and a 13-year tenure at Genentech where he oversaw $11 billion in global product sales. Before joining Pacira in January 2024, he led Forma Therapeutics through a transformative journey from drug-discovery startup to clinical-stage biotech, culminating in a $1.1 billion acquisition by Novo Nordisk in 2022. At Pacira, Lee is executing the '5x30' strategy - five bold objectives to transform the company into an innovative biopharma powerhouse by 2030, including advancing the PCRX-201 gene therapy for knee osteoarthritis, which has already earned FDA Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy (RMAT) designation.
Francisco Leport is the co-founder and CEO of Gordian Biotechnology, a South San Francisco-based company pioneering high-throughput in vivo drug discovery for age-related diseases. Trained as a physicist at Stanford, Leport pivoted from particle physics and energy tech into biotech, driven by a lifelong fascination with longevity sparked by his mother's fruit fly research. Gordian's signature 'mosaic screening' platform uses gene therapy vectors and single-cell RNA sequencing to test hundreds of therapies simultaneously in single animal models, with an AI system called Pythia scoring results against human disease signatures - achieving 80% accuracy in predicting clinical outcomes. The company raised a $60M Series A in April 2024, backed by Founders Fund, Gigafund, and The Longevity Fund, and in early 2026 announced a research collaboration with Pfizer to accelerate obesity drug discovery.
Kunwoo Lee is the CEO and Co-founder of BreezeBio (formerly GenEdit), a Brisbane, California-based biotech company pioneering non-viral gene delivery through its proprietary NanoGalaxy platform. A Siebel Scholar and Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree who earned his PhD from UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Program in Bioengineering, Lee co-founded GenEdit in 2016 alongside Professor Niren Murthy and fellow researcher Hyo Min Park, building out a polymer nanoparticle library of thousands of chemically distinct compounds capable of delivering diverse genetic payloads to specific tissues. The company has raised over $118 million including a $60M Series B in February 2026, struck a landmark $644M collaboration deal with Genentech, and rebranded to BreezeBio to signal its pivot from platform company to clinical-stage therapeutics developer advancing BRZ-101 for Type 1 Diabetes.
Trevor Martin is the co-founder and CEO of Mammoth Biosciences, the CRISPR company he built alongside Nobel laureate Jennifer Doudna and two of her graduate students. A Princeton-trained computational biologist who earned his PhD at Stanford, Martin turned a cold email to Doudna into a $465M-funded platform company developing ultracompact CRISPR systems - including NanoCas, the first efficient extrahepatic gene editor - aimed at permanently curing genetic diseases.
Nessan Bermingham, Ph.D., is a serial biotech entrepreneur and Operating Partner at Khosla Ventures who has co-founded eight biotechnology companies including Intellia Therapeutics - one of the first public CRISPR gene editing companies - which he built from concept to IPO in under two years. A child of an Irish Army officer raised on a military base in Co. Kildare, he traded academia for Wall Street, Wall Street for venture capital, and venture capital for founding the companies reshaping genetic medicine. Today he shepherds a portfolio of cutting-edge biotech companies at Khosla Ventures while pursuing 155-mile ultra-marathons and aspiring to race at Dakar.