Laura Berner, JD, MBA

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Laura Berner brings 20 years of experience across corporate and business development, investor relations, strategy and operations to her role as Chief Operating Officer of TRexBio. Prior to TRexBio, she was VP, Head of Business Development & Investor Relations at Myovant Sciences, where she led the execution of global partnering transactions for the commercialization of the company’s lead products (Myfembree® and Orgovyx®) and supported the company through multiple follow-on financings. Earlier in her career, she was a member of the Transactions team with Roche Pharma Partnering, responsible for leading transactions across the fields of oncology, immunology, neuroscience, infectious and rare diseases. She began her career as a corporate attorney first at Ropes & Gray LLP, and later in the Office of the General Counsel at Harvard University, advising on general corporate, business development and strategic partnering transactions. Ms. Berner serves as an independent director on the Board of Directors of Bolt Biotherapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: BOLT).

Ms. Berner obtained her BA in biology  from Bryn Mawr College, her JD from Stanford Law School, and her MBA from Gies College of Business, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Johnston Erwin

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Johnston Erwin serves as Chief Executive Officer of TRexBio. Before joining the company, he was Vice President, Corporate Business Development – Lilly New Ventures at Eli Lilly and Company. Mr. Erwin spent 36 years at Lilly. Between 2002 and 2014, he led the clinical team which made global regulatory submissions for the brands of Evista and Forteo. Under his leadership, both brands were approved in more than 80 countries and reached “blockbuster” status of greater than $1 Billion in worldwide sales each.

Starting in 2014 and until his retirement in 2021, he led Lilly New Ventures – Lilly’s internal venture capital investment team. During his tenure, the invested capital grew more than five times and was cash-on-cash positive for seven consecutive years. Given the strategic nature of Lilly’s investments, they acquired >10 companies and established collaborations with >20 companies where Mr. Erwin was part of the founding investment team, investor or board member. Upon his retirement, Lilly had >45 direct investments.

Brandon Hants

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Brandon Hants serves as Chief Financial Officer of TRexBio. He brings more than 25 years of experience working in finance, accounting, and other corporate functions within the biotech industry. Prior to TRexBio, Mr. Hants served as Chief Financial Officer at Applied Molecular Transport, a clinical stage biotherapeutics company that developed a pipeline of novel oral biologic product candidates. Prior to that, he held various roles at Singulex, Inc., an immunodiagnostics company, including Chief Financial Officer and Vice President, Finance and Operations. Prior to Singulex, Mr. Hants held roles of increasing responsibility at Novartis Vaccines & Diagnostics and Genentech.

Mr. Hants holds a BS in Cell and Developmental Biology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and an MBA from the University of San Francisco.

Ariella Kelman, MD

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Dr. Ariella Kelman brings nearly 20 years of experience in immunology clinical development to her role of Chief Medical Officer of TRexBio. Previously, Dr. Kelman served as Chief Medical Officer at Biora Therapeutics, and before that, she led clinical development at Human Immunology Biosciences. Prior to that, Dr. Kelman spent 15 years at Genentech/Roche, where she led clinical development programs for several new medicines for inflammatory and autoimmune diseases and subsequently served as global head of bioethics for Roche.

Dr. Kelman was an attending physician for 10 years in the Division of Immunology and Rheumatology at Stanford University Hospital. Dr. Kelman holds a BS from UCLA, and an MD from Tel Aviv University. She completed her residency in internal medicine at Kaiser Hospitals in Los Angeles and Santa Clara and completed fellowships in rheumatology and clinical research at Stanford University Hospital.

Melanie Kleinschek, DVM, PhD

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Dr. Melanie Kleinschek is Chief Scientific Officer of TRexBio and brings 20 years of drug discovery experience in translational immunology spanning target identification through early clinical development. She has a proven track record for developing research insights into innovative therapeutic approaches for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.

Prior to joining TRexBio, Dr. Kleinschek was VP of Science and Innovation Strategy at Theravance, where she led disease area and indication strategy across the inflammation and fibrosis franchises. Before that, as VP of Biology & Pharmacology, she led a large research team to support all preclinical and translational biology activities for Theravance’s respiratory, GI, skin and ocular inflammation programs helping to bring multiple drug candidates to the clinic. Earlier in her career, Dr. Kleinschek held roles of increasing responsibility in the respiratory & immunology franchise at Merck and Schering-Plough with a target identification and drug discovery focus on mucosal immunology and immunoregulation.

Dr. Kleinschek received her PhD in immunology at Leipzig University and her DVM at the Justus Liebig University, Giessen in Germany. Her postdoctoral research at DNAX in the field of cytokine biology in inflammatory diseases founded her career in drug discovery.

Houman Ashrafian, MD, PhD

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Houman Ashrafian, MD, PhD, is a Managing Partner at SV Health Investors and co-founded TRexBio in 2018.

Alongside TRexBio, he has founded five other SV companies: Alchemab, Catamaran Bio, Enara Bio, Mestag and Sitryx. Dr. Ashrafian serves on the Dementia Discovery Fund (DDF) Investment Committee and on the boards of Therini and Imbria.

Previously, Dr. Ashrafian co-founded the services company Cardiac Report in 2003, as well as Heart Metabolics in 2008. He went on to become Vice President and head of the Clinical Science Group at UCB Pharma.

Outside of SV, following completion of his cardiology training, Dr. Ashrafian was appointed as an Honorary Consultant Cardiologist in 2011 at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. He is Visiting Professor and head of Experimental Therapeutics at the University of Oxford. Additionally, he is Co-founder and Chairman of Weatherden, a boutique clinical development company.

Michael Rosenblum, MD, PhD

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Michael Rosenblum, MD, PhD, is a Professor of Dermatology and Vice Chair of Research in the Department of Dermatology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and is one of the world’s leading skin immunologists. Dr. Rosenblum’s research focuses on understanding the fundamental mechanisms of how immune responses are regulated in tissues, and how this knowledge can be exploited to treat human disease. He recently helped to generate and validate a novel therapeutic molecule that selectively activates human regulatory T cells, taken into clinical trials in patients with autoimmune diseases.

Dr. Rosenblum is a recipient of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award for Medical Scientists, the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, the Dermatology Foundation’s Charles & Daneen Stiefel Scholar Award in Autoimmune & Connective Tissue Diseases, as well as multiple NIH R01 & R21 awards. Most recently, he was named the William Montagna Lecturer by the Society for Investigative Dermatology. He has authored over 85 basic science research papers. He is a co-founder of TRex Bio and Sitryx Bio as well as a Scientific Co-founder of Delinia Bio, which was sold to Celgene in 2017.

He received his medical degree and PhD in immunology from the Medical College of Wisconsin. He completed his dermatology residency training at UCSF in the prestigious Physician-Scientist Training Pathway before joining the UCSF faculty in 2012.

Michael Baran, PhD, MBA

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Mike Baran, PhD, has responsibility for growing venture investment transactions and managing equity investments aligned with future directions of Pfizer. He currently has responsibility for Pfizer’s investments in Anjarium Biosciences, Autobahn Therapeutics, ImCheck Therapeutics, ImmunOs Therapeutics, Interius Biotherapeutics, Magnolia Neurosciences, Mediar Therapeutics, Parthenon Therapeutics, and TRex Bio.

From 2017-2018 Mike served as Senior Director of Portfolio Strategy, critically assessing the R&D portfolio from a volume, value, quality, risk and productivity perspective with the ultimate objective of maximizing R&D productivity and value generation. From 2011-2017 Mike was Senior Director, Scientific Affairs for the R&D President’s Office, enabling and communicating the R&D strategic agenda as well as leading colleague development capabilities. Mike joined Pfizer in 2008 in the market access space providing strategic and analytical support around marketing and managed care contracting with commercial and government payers.

Previously, Mike worked within the NIH Protein Structure Initiative’s Northeast Structural Genomics Consortium coordinating protein structure production efforts, including bioinformatics, protein expression/purification and 3D structure determination. Mike is also a co-founder of Nexomics Biosciences, a NJ-based biotechnology company focused on providing gene-2-structure services as well as early-stage drug target validation.

Mike earned his PhD from Robert Wood Johnson Medical School/Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey in biochemistry. He holds a MBA from Rutgers Business School and received his BS in Biochemistry/Information Technology from Syracuse University.

Alexandra Cantley, PhD

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Alexandra joined Polaris Partners in 2019 and serves as a partner in the New York office. She is primarily focused on early stage biotech and healthcare investments.  She currently serves on the Board of Directors of Podimetrics and as a Board Observer to Auron Therapeutics, Engine Bio, and SunBird Bio. Prior to joining Polaris, Alexandra was part of the initial research team at Inzen Therapeutics, where she helped develop their platform technologies. She moved to Inzen from Vertex Pharmaceuticals, where she held a research fellowship. 

 

Alexandra received a PhD in Chemical Biology from Harvard University, where she studied natural product discovery. Alexandra performed her undergraduate studies at New York University.

Carol G. Gallagher, PharmD

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Carol Gallagher, Pharm.D., is an experienced board director currently serving as a director in both public and private companies. As a board director, she has been involved in advising on drug development, commercial strategy, public and private financings, licensing, and mergers and acquisitions.

From 2014 through 2023, Dr. Gallagher held Partner and advisor roles in biopharma venture investing at New Enterprise Associates. She also served as a Venture Partner at Frazier Healthcare from 2013-2014. Prior to her work in venture capital, she had a successful and varied career in both large and small biopharmaceutical companies including being the President and CEO of Calistoga Pharmaceuticals, which was acquired by Gilead in 2011. During her biopharma career, Dr. Gallagher has led commercial, drug development, and business development activities.

Dr. Gallagher studied chemistry at Vanderbilt University and received B.S. and Doctor of Pharmacy degrees from the University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy.