Who We Are

Daniel Lynch

Executive Chairman of the Board

Dan joined our board of directors in 2012 with more than 25 years of experience serving in management positions in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. Dan spent nearly five years at ImClone Systems, serving as chief executive officer and chief financial officer. As CEO, Dan led ImClone through a significant turnaround, helping to restore the company’s reputation and to secure FDA approval of ERBITUX^® (Cetuximab), a novel cancer treatment. As CFO, Dan led negotiations to form the major partnership between ImClone and Bristol-Myers Squibb. Earlier in his career, Dan served in various financial positions at Bristol-Myers Squibb over a 15-year tenure.

Dan has advised and served as executive chair or member of the board of directors for a number of private biopharmaceutical companies, including Stromedix, Inc. (until its acquisition by Biogen Idec in February 2012); Avila Therapeutics, Inc. (until its acquisition by Celgene Corporation in February 2012); Nimbus Discovery, LLC; Edimer Pharmaceuticals; Ember Therapeutics, Inc. and BIND Therapeutics Inc. He currently serves on the board of directors of Blueprint Medicines, Bluebird Bio, Proclara Biosciences, Surface Oncology and Eleven Biotherapeutics, Inc. Dan received his BA in mathematics from Wesleyan University and his MBA from the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia.

Jean-François Formela, M.D.

Atlas Venture and Translate Bio Cofounder

Jean-François is a partner and cofounder and focuses on new advances in biology and drug-discovery technologies as well as novel therapeutics. He joined our board of directors in 2011 and also serves on the boards of Ataxion, F-star, Intellia Therapeutics and Navitor Pharmaceuticals. He is the chairman of Egalet and Spero Therapeutics. Jean-François has been involved in the formation of companies such as Adnexus (acquired by BMS), ArQule, Annovation Biopharma (acquired by The Medicines Company), Arteaus Therapeutics (acquired by Lilly), Cellzome (acquired by GSK), deCODE (acquired by Amgen), Exelixis, MorphoSys, NxStage, SGX Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Lilly) and ZappRx. He was also an investor in Achillion, CoStim Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Novartis) and Horizon Pharma as well as a board member of BioChem Pharma (acquired by Shire) and Novexel (acquired by AstraZeneca).

Jean-François joined Atlas Venture in 1993 to build the US life sciences franchise. Prior to joining Atlas, Jean-François worked at Schering-Plough, where he directed US Phase IV studies in all therapeutic areas. Before that, he was responsible for the marketing of Intron A, Schering-Plough’s alpha-interferon. Jean-François began his career as a medical doctor and practiced emergency medicine at Necker University Hospital in Paris.

Jean-François is a member of the Massachusetts General Hospital Research Advisory Council and a former trustee of the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art. He received his MD from Paris University School of Medicine and his MBA from Columbia University.

Brian M. Gallagher, Jr., Ph.D.

SR One

Brian joined our board of directors in 2011 and is a partner at SR One Ltd. He established the SR One Boston office in 2010 and is focused on building innovative therapeutic and life science companies. He currently represents SR One on the boards of Aileron Therapeutics, CalciMedica, Constellation Pharmaceuticals, Navitor Pharmaceuticals, Nimbus Discovery, Translate Bio and River Vision. He previously led the firm’s investments in Dicerna Pharmaceuticals and SpringLeaf Therapeutics.

Brian has nearly 20 years of investing, business development, operational and R&D experience in both biotechnology and large pharma companies. He joined SR One from Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, where he was responsible for corporate development, operations and post-merger integration following the $720 million acquisition of Sirtris by GlaxoSmithKline in 2008. Prior to Sirtris, Brian was with Alantos Pharmaceuticals, where he played key roles in the R&D and business development activities and led many aspects of the post-merger integration following the $300 million acquisition of Alantos by Amgen in 2007. He began his career in R&D at the Japanese pharma Eisai, where he was a group leader for multiple programs in the oncology and inflammation/immunology therapeutic areas.

Brian is an inventor on over 25 patents and patent applications and is the senior author of a number of scientific publications. He currently serves on the Industry Advisory Boards for NYU Medical School and the National Brain Tumor Society, as a mentor for MassBio’s MassCONNECT, and as a peer reviewer/editorial board member for numerous journals and research funding authorities. Brian received his MS and PhD degrees in organic chemistry from the University of Michigan and his BS in chemistry from the University of Massachusetts, where he was a Shapiro scholar.

Owen Hughes

Independent Director

Owen Hughes currently serves as the chief business officer and head of corporate development at Intarcia Therapeutics, a late-stage diabetes company. Prior to Intarcia, Mr. Hughes was a director at Bain Capital Public Equity, a multibillion-dollar hedge fund. There, he comanaged public and private healthcare investments, including those in the biopharmaceutical, medtech and services segments. Mr. Hughes has over 16 years of Wall Street experience on both the buy and sell sides and serves on the board of both Radius Health (Nasdaq: RDUS) and Malin PLC (ESM: MLC).

Ronald C. Renaud, Jr.

Chief Executive Officer

Ron has served as our chief executive officer since 2014. Formerly, Ron was with Idenix Pharmaceuticals (2007-2014), where he served as chief financial officer, chief business officer and finally, president and chief executive officer. Under his leadership, Idenix refocused its drug-discovery and development efforts on nucleotide prodrugs to treat hepatitis C virus and streamlined operations to better enable cross-functional collaboration and employee engagement, which culminated in its acquisition by Merck for $3.85 billion in August 2014. Prior to joining Idenix, Ron served as senior vice president and chief financial officer of Keryx Biopharmaceuticals. Before joining Keryx, Ron was a biotechnology equity research analyst at J.P. Morgan, Schwab Soundview and Bear Stearns. He also spent more than five years at Amgen, where he held positions in clinical research, investor relations and finance. Ron holds a BA from St. Anselm College and an MBA from the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. In addition to serving on the Translate Bio board of directors, Ron is currently a board member of Akebia Therapeutics, Chimerix and Axial Biotherapeutics.

Jeannie T. Lee, MD, Ph.D., Cofounder

Jeannie T. Lee is the scientific founder of Translate Bio. She is currently an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and professor of genetics (and pathology) at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). Dr. Lee specializes in the study of epigenetic regulation by long noncoding RNAs (lncRNA). Using X-chromosome inactivation (XCI) as a model, her laboratory has made several contributions to our understanding of RNA-directed chromatin change, including the role of RNA in targeting polycomb complexes and the mechanisms of repression by antisense RNA. She received her A.B. in biochemistry and molecular biology from Harvard University, where she worked on antisense repression of transposition with Nancy Kleckner. She obtained an MD-PhD degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, where she studied epigenetic regulation of X-linked diseases with Robert L. Nussbaum. At the Whitehead Institute/MIT, her postdoctoral work with Rudolf Jaenisch delineated the X-inactivation center. She has served as chief resident of clinical pathology at MGH and received both the Basil O’Connor Scholar Award (March of Dimes) and the Pew Scholars Award (Pew Foundation) as a young investigator.

Dr. Lee has been awarded a Distinguished Graduate Award from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and currently holds a MERIT Award from the NIH. She is also the recipient of the 2010 Molecular Biology Prize from the National Academy of Sciences, USA; is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and serves on the board of directors for the Genetics Society of America.

Daniel Anderson, Ph.D.

Daniel Anderson is the Sam Goldblith Associate Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is appointed in chemical engineering, the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, and the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Science and Technology. He is an intramural member of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT.

Daniel’s lab’s research is centered on developing new materials for medicine. He has pioneered the use of robotic methods for the development of smart biomaterials for drug delivery and tissue engineering. In particular, his work has enabled the rapid synthesis, formulation, analysis and biological testing of large libraries of biomaterials for use in medical devices, cell therapy and drug delivery. The advanced drug delivery systems developed in his laboratory have provided new methods for nanoparticulate and microparticulate drug delivery, non-viral gene therapy, siRNA delivery and vaccines.

Daniel received a B.A. in math and biology from the University of California at Santa Cruz and a Ph.D. in molecular genetics from the University of California at Davis. He has published more than 230 papers, patents and patent applications. These patents have led to a number of licenses to pharmaceutical, chemical and biotechnology companies.