genetic-medicine
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Brian McVeigh Built a Career in the Space Between Science and the Deal
After 25 years at GSK and more than 100 transactions, the Philadelphia biotech executive made a founder's bet: the next leap in genetic medicine may depend less on the cargo than on the way it travels.
Joel Schneider
Joel Schneider is the founder, president and CEO of Carbon Biosciences, a Waltham, Massachusetts biotech building gene therapies from parvovirus-derived vectors rather than the more common adeno-associated viruses. He launched the company out of stealth in 2022 with a $38 million Series A led by Agent Capital, pairing his operating background with the science of gene therapy pioneer Robert Kotin. Trained as a stem cell biologist with a Rutgers Ph.D. and a Harvard postdoc, Schneider was the first employee at Solid Biosciences before founding Carbon to push vectors that carry larger genetic payloads, target specific tissues such as the lung, and sidestep the pre-existing immunity that limits current gene therapies. Carbon's lead program targets cystic fibrosis.
Tuyen Ong
Tuyen Ong is a physician-turned-biotech executive who spent four years as CEO of Ring Therapeutics, the Flagship Pioneering company trying to turn anelloviruses - harmless viruses that already live in nearly everyone - into a redosable delivery system for genetic medicines. Trained as an ophthalmologist at University College London with an MBA from NYU Stern, he built his career on gene therapy for rare eye disease at Nightstar, Biogen, PTC, Bausch & Lomb and Pfizer before betting on a virus most scientists had written off as biological junk. In 2025 he co-founded PharmasMarket, a drug-development consultancy.
Akin Akinc
Akin Akinc is the founding CEO of Aera Therapeutics, a Cambridge, Massachusetts biotech building a new way to deliver genetic medicines using human protein nanoparticles derived from the body's own retroelements. A chemical engineer by training, he spent nearly two decades at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, where he helped invent the lipid nanoparticle delivery that produced ONPATTRO, the world's first approved RNAi therapeutic, and later ran the Givlaari and fitusiran programs. Recruited by CRISPR pioneer Feng Zhang, Akinc launched Aera out of stealth in 2023 with $193 million to tackle what he calls genetic medicine's single greatest unmet need: delivery.
David Lockhart
David J. Lockhart, Ph.D. is President and Chief Scientific Officer of ReCode Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotech pioneering nonviral lipid nanoparticle (LNP) delivery of mRNA and gene-editing payloads to the lungs for genetic respiratory diseases including cystic fibrosis and primary ciliary dyskinesia. With more than 25 years in drug discovery and genomics — from co-founding Ambit Biosciences to leading science at Amicus Therapeutics — Lockhart brings rare-disease chops and deep genomics expertise to ReCode's SORT LNP platform, which has raised $345M and dosed its first patients in a Phase 1 PCD trial.