About

After a 30-year career in pharmaceutical R&D, John Leonard retired from his position as chief scientific officer and senior vice president of Research and Development at AbbVie in 2013. Inspired by the opportunity to work with a new therapeutic modality and form a new company, he returned to his life’s passion and joined the Intellia team to direct the research and development effort to make CRISPR/Cas9 technology into a therapeutic reality.

John is among the leading R&D executives who have led breakthrough medicines through their discovery, development and launch into blockbuster drugs. While serving as the global head of Pharmaceutical R&D at Abbott Laboratories, John oversaw the development of numerous novel therapeutics. His ground-breaking work with HIV protease inhibitors Norvir® and Kaletra® led to new treatment paradigms for AIDS, his years of work with Humira® made it the all-time top-selling drug worldwide and he led significant growth of the R&D pipeline at Abbott and Abbvie. John’s teams were twice recognized with the prestigious Prix Galien Award for excellence in pharmaceutical research.

In addition to serving on the Board of Directors of Intellia, John serves on the Board of Directors of IQVIA (NYSE: IQV) and 3T Biosciences. He received his M.D. from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and completed his residency in Internal Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine followed by a fellowship at the National Institutes of Health.

James Basta serves as executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary. He joins Intellia from Kura Oncology, where he most recently served as chief legal officer. With more than 25 years of combined in-house corporate and law firm experience, he also served as senior vice president, chief corporation counsel at Biogen, where he managed the legal representation for Biogen’s securities filings, board of directors, business development, finance and tax, corporate affairs, employment and information technology. Prior to joining Biogen in 2006, he was partner, Corporate and Securities Practice Group at Baker & McKenzie.

James Basta serves on the Executive Advisory Board of the Chemistry Life Processes Institute at Northwestern University. He earned his J.D. from Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law and his B.A. in economics from Northwestern University.

Eliana Clark brings to Intellia nearly 20 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. Prior to Intellia, Eliana spent seven years in many leadership roles at Biogen, including vice president of Product Development and Portfolio Management, vice president of International Manufacturing Operations and vice president of Global Manufacturing Sciences. In her most recent role, she led the team responsible for product strategy, supply and lifecycle management for their entire product portfolio. Before Biogen, Eliana spent many years at Sanofi/Genzyme, where she held leadership roles in formulation development, technical services and CMC regulatory. Prior to working in industry, Eliana was a professor at Tufts University in the Chemical and Biological Engineering Department for nearly 15 years.

As chief technical officer at Intellia, Eliana is responsible for building out our manufacturing capabilities and CMC to support the necessary requirements for clinical trials and global regulatory filings. She holds a B.A. and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the Universidad Nacional de Litoral in Santa Fe, Argentina, and has graduated from the Greater Boston Executive Program at MIT Sloan School of Management.

Glenn Goddard has nearly two decades of experience leading business and financial operations for public and private companies in the biotechnology industry. Prior to joining Intellia, Glenn served as the chief financial officer at Generation Bio Company, where he led all financial functions, investor relations, information technologies and certain operational functions. During his time at Generation Bio, he closed a $100 million private financing and a long-term lease deal for 75,000 square feet of lab and office space. Before joining Generation Bio, Glenn served as senior vice president of Finance and Principal Financial Officer of Agios Pharmaceuticals, where he led the company’s strategic financings efforts raising more than $700 million in equity financings, including a private crossover financing, an initial public offering and several subsequent follow-on offerings. In addition, Glenn was responsible for all financial functions of the company, including strategic planning and analysis, investor relations, treasury, tax, finance and accounting. He also was responsible for information technologies, certain operational functions and supporting strategic partnering efforts.

Previously, Glenn held various senior-level financial management positions at both Archemix, a privately held oligonucleotide platform-based biopharmaceutical company, and Immunogen, a publicly traded oncology-focused biopharmaceutical company. Earlier in his career, Glenn was an audit supervisor at Ernst & Young LLP and a business advisory manager at Feeley & Driscoll, P.C. Glenn is a graduate of Bentley College, where he earned a B.S. in Accountancy and is a Certified Public Accountant in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Derek brings more than 25 years of combined business, leadership and biotechnology experience to Intellia, having most recently served as head of Business Development at Spark Therapeutics. While at Spark, he was responsible for business development strategy, search and evaluation, licensing, and key partnership activities. Prior to this role, Derek spent 18 years at Pfizer in a variety of business and corporate development roles, culminating with his position as vice president, Corporate Development, World-Wide Business Development.

As chief business officer at Intellia, Derek is responsible for our overall corporate strategy, portfolio planning, and developing new business and strategic partnerships. He holds his B.S. and M.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of Connecticut and MBA from Indiana University, Kelley School of Business.

Dr. David Lebwohl’s career spans three decades in the biopharmaceutical industry, successfully bringing novel medicines through all phases of clinical trials and global regulatory approvals. During his career, he has overseen multiple full-scale development programs with more than 200 clinical studies across myriad indications.

Before Intellia, David was chief medical officer at Semma Therapeutics Inc., a subsidiary of Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc., where he was leading the company’s regenerative medicine efforts using stem-cell-derived pancreatic islets to cure type I diabetes. Prior to his role at Semma Therapeutics, David held numerous senior-level positions leading drug development at the global healthcare company, Novartis Pharmaceuticals Inc. There, he was most recently senior vice president and franchise global program head, CAR-T, Promacta and SEG101 Global Program Teams, responsible for the development of the breakthrough therapy Kymriah® (tisagenlecleucel), approved for the treatment of B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia and diffuse large B cell lymphoma. During his time at Novartis, David was responsible for numerous oncology drug development programs. Under his leadership, the blockbuster drug, Afinitor® (everolimus), was approved for five indications, including metastatic breast, neuroendocrine and kidney cancer and a rare genetic disease, tuberous sclerosis. Prior to working at Novartis, David spent five years at Bristol Myers Squibb Inc., where he led oncology development teams at the company’s Pharmaceutical Research Institute.

He is a well-recognized medical oncologist, with certifications in hematology and internal medicine. David received an undergraduate degree in Biochemical Sciences from Harvard College and an M.D. from the Yale University School of Medicine. He completed his fellowship training at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and his residency in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. David has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed publications and is a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Laura Sepp-Lorenzino oversees all platform and pipeline research activities across in vivo and ex vivo (engineered cell therapy) areas as Intellia’s chief scientific officer. Before joining Intellia, she was vice president, Head of Nucleic Acid Therapies, Research, and member of the External Innovation team at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Inc. She also served as vice president, entrepreneur-in-residence at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a leader in the development of RNAi Therapeutics. At Alnylam, she was responsible for the Hepatic Infectious Disease Strategic Therapeutic Area, championed extra hepatic siRNA delivery, and was active in licensing and partnering.

Laura spent 14 years at Merck & Co., most recently having served as executive director and department head, RNA Therapeutics Discovery Biology. In this role, she was responsible for identification and optimization of siRNAs and delivery vehicles, advancement of preclinical candidates, and development of an siRNA-conjugate platform to expand the repertoire of tissues accessible to in vivo siRNA delivery. Laura also has expertise in oncology drug discovery and development acquired earlier in her career by leading the Cancer Research Department at Merck West Point and working as an assistant lab member and assistant attending molecular biologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

She received her professional degree in Biochemistry from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina and both her M.S. and Ph.D. in Biochemistry from New York University. Laura holds professional affiliations with key scientific organizations, including the American Society for Gene and Cell Therapy, the European Society of Gene and Cell Therapy, and the New York Academy of Sciences, as well as a number of oncology societies. She is a member of the board of directors of Taysha Gene Therapies, the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine and the Oligonucleotide Therapeutics Society and sits on the scientific advisory boards of Thermo Fisher Scientific, the U.K. Nucleic Acid Therapy Accelerator, Arsenal Capital Partners.  Laura is also member of the Editorial Board of Nucleic Acid Therapeutics.

Marika St. Amand brings a wealth of experience to the Human Resources team at Intellia, as she has a broad understanding of technical, strategic and operational aspects of HR, including strategic workforce planning, organizational and leadership development, and talent development.

Prior to joining Intellia, Marika was senior director of Human Resources at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals and was part of the leadership team that built Alnylam’s HR infrastructure. She was also responsible for implementing numerous programs for the first time, including building Alnylam’s manager curriculum, development planning, the post-doctoral program and the first-ever recognition program. In addition, she held the role of lead business partner to the Global Technical Operations and Quality functions. Prior to joining Alnylam, she spent 10 years at Biogen Idec, where she held various positions of increasing responsibility including roles in HR operations and as a business partner to the R&D organization.

At Intellia, Marika provides strategic human resources leadership at a critical phase of growth for Intellia. She is responsible for strategic initiatives regarding culture, collaboration, innovation, career development and further embedding Intellia’s core values as the company evolves. She earned her B.A. in History from Tufts University and holds certifications in MBTI and DISC from the Center for Creative Leadership in 360 Assessment.

With over 20 years of experience in life sciences intellectual property law, Mary leads Intellia’s Intellectual Property team. She provides strategic legal advice and direction for protecting all aspects of Intellia’s technology.

Prior to joining Intellia, Mary was a partner at the Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garret & Dunner law firm. Her practice there focused on patent litigation and intellectual property counseling for branded and innovative biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies.

After receiving her J.D. from the University of Washington School of Law, Mary clerked at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. She received her B.A. in Biochemical Sciences from Harvard University, and her Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California at Berkeley.

Ian Karp brings a wealth of experience to Intellia with more than 20 years of pharmaceutical and biotech experience across investor relations, corporate communications, corporate development and product commercialization. Ian has successfully led global teams at several leading biopharmaceutical companies, with a particular focus in the areas of oncology and orphan diseases. In his role at Intellia, he will lead the Company’s corporate communications activities, including investor and media relations.

Before joining Intellia in July 2021, Ian served as senior vice president, Investor and Public Relations at Karyopharm Therapeutics, an oncology-focused pharmaceutical company. In this capacity, he led the communications strategy surrounding the company’s first set of regulatory submissions and approvals in both the U.S. and international markets. Prior to his role at Karyopharm, Ian held several positions with increasing responsibility at Shire plc, culminating in his role as vice president and head of Global Investor Relations. In addition, Ian served as Shire’s head of commercial assessment and played a critical role in Shire’s corporate acquisition strategy, which resulted in company acquisitions totaling more than $40B, including the acquisitions of ViroPharma, Dyax, and Baxalta. Before joining Shire, Ian served as senior director for Global Marketing, Emerging Oncology Brands at MedImmune, an AstraZeneca company. Prior to his time at MedImmune, Ian held a variety of sales and marketing positions at Johnson & Johnson’s Centocor division as well as at Pharmacia (now part of Pfizer).

Ian received a Bachelor of Science degree in biology from Emory University and an MBA from Rutgers Business School with a concentration in pharmaceutical management.

With over two decades’ experience in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry, Birgit Schultes brings deep immunology and cell therapy expertise to Intellia. She manages a multidisciplinary team focused on ex vivo applications of CRISPR/Cas9 to generate novel cell therapies for oncology and autoimmune indications. Prior to joining Intellia, Birgit served as senior director, In Vivo and Exploratory Immunology, at Unum Therapeutics (now Cogent Biosciences, Inc.), where she was responsible for its In Vivo team and leading its exploratory immunology efforts. Earlier in her career, Birgit held a variety of translational research roles in biology and immunology at Momenta Pharmaceuticals, United Therapeutics and AltaRex Corp. Additionally, Birgit co-founded and served as scientific advisor at Advanced Immune Therapeutics, a company working to develop novel cancer therapeutics.

Birgit received her M.S. in Biology and Ph.D. in Immunology from the University of Bonn, Germany, and a degree in Advanced Management Development from Boston University.

Aron has over 35 years of product development experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry, having responsibility for multiple drug approvals at both large and small companies. Prior to joining Intellia, Dr. Stein was the vice president of Global Regulatory Affairs at Sangamo Therapeutics, where he was responsible for the development and implementation of global regulatory strategies for all gene and cellular therapies.

At Intellia, Aron provides the vision, strategic direction and corporate regulatory approach for all company products. He is responsible for the analysis and evaluation of U.S. and global regulatory requirements, as well as provides strategic insights to translate regulatory requirements into practical, workable global plans for timely and scientifically valid regulatory submissions. He is a toxicologist by training and received his Ph.D. from Texas A&M University and was a NIEHS postdoctoral fellow at the University of Kansas Medical Center.

Yuanxin brings more than 25 years of biotechnology and pharmaceutical experience to Intellia. As senior vice president, Early Development and Translational Medicine, she is responsible for pharmacology, toxicology, drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics, as well as bioanalysis.

Prior to joining Intellia, Yuanxin spent five years at Alnylam, where she led bioanalytical sciences for RNAi development to support preclinical and clinical programs. Prior to Alnylam, she spent 13 years at Sanofi most recently serving as senior scientific director. While there, she supported clinical studies on biologics, antibodies, small molecules, as well as cell and gene therapies.

Yuanxin received her B.M. from Peking University Health Science and her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Iowa State University. She also holds a certificate in Organizational Leadership from Harvard Publishing.