pittsburgh-biotech
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Larry Brown
Larry Brown, Sc.D., is Executive Vice President of R&D and Chief Scientific Officer at Noveome Biotherapeutics, the Pittsburgh clinical-stage biopharma he joined in 2012. He is leading the translation of ST266, a cell-free secretome of hundreds of proteins harvested from amnion-derived cells, from proof of principle into the clinic. Trained at MIT under Robert Langer and in Judah Folkman's surgical research lab at Children's Hospital Boston, he spent 35-plus years inventing drug-delivery systems at Baxter, Alkermes and biotech startups, accumulating more than 100 publications and a thick stack of patents along the way.
Ngoc Thai
Ngoc L. Thai, MD, PhD is a transplant surgeon turned biotech founder who built one of the world's largest pancreas programs before chasing a hunch from a cup of his uncle's tea. As founder, co-CEO and CMO of Pittsburgh-based Imagine Pharma, he is developing IMG-1, a polypeptide first isolated from a Vietnamese tea plant, into therapies that coax insulin-producing islet cells to multiply and regenerate. The company raised a $32.5M Series A in October 2023 to advance IMG-1 across oral delivery, therapeutics, and regenerative medicine platforms aimed at type 1 diabetes, wound healing, and other underserved conditions.
Kim Jaffe
Kim Jaffe, PhD, is Chief Business Officer at BlueSphere Bio, a Pittsburgh-based clinical-stage biotech building personalized T-cell receptor therapies for cancer using its TCXpress discovery platform. A bench scientist turned dealmaker, she trained in cell and molecular biology at Northwestern and Princeton, ran cell-line development and R&D at clinical-stage oncology companies, and now leads strategy, partnerships, and business development as the company pushes TCR T-cell candidates toward high-risk leukemias.