Invest in Cures NTX Session 3

Innovation in Rare Diseases

Program

Meet four North Texas-based company founders who are working in the rare disease space to learn about their science, milestones and path to commercialization

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Speakers

Brad Phelan, MBA, Director of Technology Commercialization, UTSW Medical Center
Brad Phelan, Director of Technology Commercialization and Blackstone LaunchPad at UT Southwestern Medical Center (UTSW), focuses on engaging with UTSW faculty and students internally and entrepreneurs, investors and commercialization experts externally to support the advancement of research toward commercial application. Brad previously worked for JP Morgan Chase, on Capitol Hill in Washington DC and more recently launched three companies and advised entrepreneurs and high-net-worth individuals prior to joining UTSW.
Suchi Acharya, PhD, Founder and CEO, AyuVis Research
Dr. Suchismita Acharya is the Founding President of AyuVis Research. Prior to AyuVis, She spent 15 years in various leadership roles with Alcon Labs (Novartis) and led projects from early stage to pre-clinical in glaucoma, AMD and anti-viral diseases. She is an innovative scientist with the ambition of adding first in-class small molecules for ocular as well as anti bacterial/viral diseases to AyuVis’ research and drug discovery portfolio. She is a certified Project Manager and managed drug discovery projects from hit to lead, lead optimization and lead the project through phase-I-III clinical trials in humans.
Pouya Modareszadeh, Co-Founder and CEO, HemePro Therapeutics
Pouya Modareszadeh is co-founder and CEO of HemePro Therapeutics. Founded as a spin-out of UT Dallas research, HemePro Therapeutics is developing novel cancer therapeutics that target tumor bioenergetics and are effective against many cancer subtypes. HemePro Therapeutics’ drug candidates selectively target cancer cells, while leaving healthy cells unaffected. HemePro Therapeutics aims to advance its first-in-class biologics to clinical trials.
Parsa Modareszadeh, Co-Founder and COO, HemePro Therapeutics
Parsa Modareszadeh is co-founder and COO of HemePro Therapeutics. Founded as a spin-out of UT Dallas research, HemePro Therapeutics is developing novel cancer therapeutics that target tumor bioenergetics and are effective against many cancer subtypes. HemePro Therapeutics’ drug candidates selectively target cancer cells, while leaving healthy cells unaffected. HemePro Therapeutics aims to advance its first-in-class biologics to clinical trials.
Sulagna Bhattacharya, MBA, Co-Founder & CEO, NanoScope Therapeutics
Sulagna Bhattacharya has decades of experience in management consulting at Deloitte and Hitachi Consulting with specialties in business intelligence and risk management. Her expertise includes market research, product and business development, planning including budgeting and forecasting. She played a key role in seven full life cycle project implementations including two multi-billion dollar mergers and acquisitions.She is a serial entrepreneur having co-founded several Biotechs and Biomedical device/diagnostic companies. She has authored multiple publications and international patents. She is the winner of Healthcare Heroes award in 2019.
Daniel J. Siegwart, PhD, Advisor & Collaborator at ReCode Therapeutics
Dr. Daniel J. Siegwart is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and a co-founder of ReCode Therapeutics. His research laboratory utilizes materials chemistry to enable targeted delivery of genomic medicines. He has focused on overcoming difficult challenges in nucleic acid delivery. He recognized that although great advances had been made in the delivery of short RNAs, the ideal chemical and formulation composition was poorly understood for longer RNA cargo such as messenger RNA. Their efforts led to an understanding of the essential physical and chemical properties of synthetic carriers required for therapeutic delivery of genomic medicines including siRNA, miRNA, tRNA, pDNA, and mRNA.