Team
Leadership:
Xianglin Shi is our Chief Technology Officer. He has over two decades of industry experience including 15 years at Biogen leading small molecule medicinal chemistry and nucleic acid process development, tech transfer, scale-up and manufacturing across all stages of development. He holds a Ph.D. in organic chemistry and organometallics from Emory University, a Master of Science in organic chemistry from Auburn University, and a Master of Science in natural products and organic synthesis from the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Eduardo Paredes is our Vice President of CMC. He has extensive experience in all aspects of CMC operations and project management, process/analytical development, control strategy and validation, and CMC regulatory filings. Previously, Eduardo led Process Innovation, Process Transfer and Process Development at Nitto Denko Avecia. Eduardo has been in the oligonucleotide field for over a decade in many facets including basic research, CMO operations and now drug development. He holds a Ph.D., M.S, and B.S in Chemistry from the Center for Nucleic Acid Science and Technology at Carnegie Mellon University. Eduardo is originally from Mexico but has lived in the US for over 20 years.
Herve Rhinn is our Senior Vice President of Discovery & Bioinformatics. He has deep expertise in human genetics, bioinformatics and neurodegenerative diseases and a rich experience in CNS drug development with different modalities. Herve previously led the Target Discovery, Functional Genomics and Immuno-Neurology groups at Alector and was in charge of Bioinformatics and Discovery at Prevail Therapeutics. Herve spent 10 years at Columbia University, in Asa Abeliovich’s lab, holding an Assistant Professor position in the Pathology Department. There he worked on generating and integrating large-scale omics datasests to elucidate the effect of the disease-associated genetic variants in neurodegenerative disorders and developed innovative analysis methods that identified genetic determinants of human brain aging. Prior to this, he worked in Daniel Scherman’s lab on non-viral gene therapy for CNS lysosomal storage disorders and on traumatic brain injury and cerebral ischemia models. An engineer by training (Master of Engineering, Ecole Polytechnique, France) he holds a Ph.D. in Biology (Pierre and Marie Curie / Sorbonne University, Paris, France).
Laura D. Heckman is our Vice President of Translational Sciences. She has extensive experience in a range of neurological disorders, including neurodevelopmental, neurodegenerative, and neuropsychiatric, and in CNS therapeutics drug development. Prior to joining Leal, she led preclinical development for CNS therapeutics programs at Prevail Therapeutics and Spark Therapeutics, advancing multiple therapies into the clinic for neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental disorders. She holds a B.A. in Biology from the University of Pennsylvania, a Ph.D. in Molecular and Human Genetics from Baylor College of Medicine, and completed her postdoctoral training at The Rockefeller University.
Lawrence Severt is our Vice President of Clinical Development. He has extensive experience in clinical neurodegenerative diseases. Lawrence began his medical career in a large academic movement disorders practice in the Mount Sinai system in New York, where he treated patients with complex neurological diseases and served as principal investigator for numerous clinical trials. When he moved to industry, he joined the clinical development teams at Allergan/AbbVie to bring two oral CGRP-receptor antagonists from early phase to market (Ubrelvy and Qulipta). Lawrence holds an M.D./Ph.D. degree from the Medical College of Virginia, a Graduate Diploma in Neuroscience from the Australian National University, and a Bachelor’s degree in East Asian Studies from Princeton University. Outside of Leal, Lawrence enjoys getting his hands dirty in his vegetable garden and getting his feet dirty on adventures with his dog, Jack.
Hong Jiang is our Vice President of Analytical Science and Development. She joined Leal with more than two decades of industry experience spanning from drug discovery to commercialization in the field of analytical science and development. Her past roles include serving as Head of Oligonucleotide Analytical Development at Biogen and as a Scientist in Cardiovascular & Metabolic Disease and the DMPK platform at Novartis. She obtained her Master of Science degree from University of Texas at Austin.
Board of Directors:
Asa Abeliovich brings more than 25 years of academic and industry experience in CNS disorders. Asa was the Chief Executive Officer and Founder at Prevail Therapeutics, which was acquired by Eli Lilly in 2021. Prior to that, Asa was Co-Founder of and consulting Chief Innovation Officer at Alector. Asa was a tenured Associate Professor of Pathology, Cell Biology, and Neurology at Columbia University, as well as a member of the Taub Institute for Alzheimer’s Disease and the Aging Brain. He served as an Attending Physician in Neurology at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital and the New York Psychiatric Institute. Asa holds M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), respectively, and Bachelor’s degrees in life sciences and humanities from MIT.
Athena Countouriotis is the Chair of Leal’s Board of Directors. She is co-founder, President, CEO and Chairperson of Avenzo Therapeutics. Previously she led Turning Point Therapeutics as President and CEO through its IPO in 2019 to its acquisition by Bristol Myers Squibb in 2022; during that time period, she and her team raised more than $1.2 billion across multiple equity financings. With over 20 years of industry experience, Dr. Countouriotis has served as an officer in both public and private companies, led multiple initial public offerings and acquisitions, and guided several development programs to approval in the U.S. and Europe. Dr. Countouriotis earned a B.S. from the University of California, Los Angeles, and an M.D. from Tufts University School of Medicine. She received her initial medical training in pediatrics at the University of California, Los Angeles, and additional training at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in the Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Program.
Carl L. Gordon is a founding Partner and Co-Head of Global Private Equity at OrbiMed. For seven years (2014 to 2020) Forbes® Magazine named Dr. Gordon one of the top 100 venture capitalists in the world when it placed him on the “Forbes Midas List”. He received a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1993) and a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Harvard College (1987), and was a Fellow at The Rockefeller University from 1993 to 1995.
Mona Ashiya is a Partner on the private equity team at OrbiMed. Prior to OrbiMed, she covered the biotechnology industry as a member of J.P. Morgan’s biotechnology equity research team. Mona co-founded Prevail Therapeutics. Her previous experience includes positions at the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development and the Harvard Business School. She has also published scientific articles in various peer reviewed journals. She earned a B.A. degree from the University of California at Berkeley, a Ph.D. in Cellular, Molecular, and Developmental Biology from the University of Pittsburgh, and was a post-doctoral fellow at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute where her research focused on mechanisms of programmed cell death.