mit-chemical-engineering
(2)
Armon Sharei
Armon Sharei is the founder and CEO of Portal Biotechnologies, a cell-engineering platform company in Watertown, Massachusetts that builds devices to push genetic and molecular cargo into living cells without killing them. He earned a chemical engineering PhD at MIT, where he invented the membrane-squeezing CellSqueeze technique, then founded SQZ Biotechnologies, raised more than $300M, struck a billion-dollar Roche partnership, and took the company public on the NYSE in 2020 before being ousted and watching it liquidate in 2024. After a sabbatical spent drawing comics about immune cells, he returned with Portal, choosing this time to sell tools rather than develop drugs, and has built a network of 100+ customers including most of the top 10 global pharma companies plus an $8M DARPA contract.
Rick Batycky
Rick Batycky is a chemical engineer turned biotech founder who has spent two decades coaxing medicines into the lungs. As President and CEO of Nocion Therapeutics, he is developing a new class of charged sodium channel blockers built to silence overactive sensory neurons and finally quiet refractory chronic cough. Before Nocion he co-founded Civitas Therapeutics, revived a dormant inhalation platform, and carried the dry-powder levodopa therapy Inbrija through to FDA approval as Acorda's CTO.