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 more than 20 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. Prior to Intellia, Eliana spent eight 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 CMC strategy, product supply and life cycle management for Biogen’s entire portfolio of clinical and commercial products. 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 manufacturing, supply chain, CMC strategy, process and analytical development, genomics operations and quality. She holds a B.E. and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the Universidad Nacional del Litoral, Argentina, and has graduated from the Greater Boston Executive Program at MIT Sloan School of Management.

Ed brings more than 20 years of combined finance, business development and corporate strategy experience to Intellia. Most recently, he served as CFO of Fate Therapeutics. Prior to that role, Ed spent numerous years at Celgene (now Bristol Myers Squibb), a leading global biopharmaceutical company, where he held multiple positions including as vice president, Business Development & Strategy. Prior to Celgene, he worked as a biopharmaceutical equity research analyst at Barclays Capital and Lehman Brothers and in corporate finance at Pfizer.

He holds a Bachelor of Pharmacy from the University of Pittsburgh and an 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.

Birgit Schultes oversees all platform and pipeline research activities across in vivo and ex vivo (engineered cell therapy) areas as Intellia’s chief scientific officer. With over two decades’ experience in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry, Birgit 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.

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.

Maria Natale brings more than 20 years of biopharmaceutical experience leading the commercialization of rare disease and specialty medicines. She has a proven track record of successfully launching innovative medicines across numerous therapeutic areas, including hereditary angioedema.

Most recently, she served as the global franchise head of Immunology & Inflammation at Galderma, a leading dermatology company. In this role, she spearheaded the global buildout of a specialty biologics organization and drove the global launch preparations for NEMLUVIO® (nemolizumab) in highly competitive markets.

Prior to this, Maria held various commercial leadership positions at companies specializing in rare diseases, including Alexion (head of New Product Strategy & Business Development), Takeda/Shire (U.S. launch lead for TAKHZYRO® for hereditary angioedema) and Baxalta/Baxter in the U.S. and Brazil.

Maria holds a PharmD from Universidade de São Paulo and an MBA from Fundação Getulio Vargas in Brazil.

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.

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.

Kristy Wood oversees process and analytical development, and internal manufacturing for Intellia’s gRNA, mRNA, LNP, AAV, cell therapy and small molecule platforms. Kristy joined Intellia in 2017 and was initially responsible for developing Intellia’s LNP platform and overseeing delivery technologies for therapeutic applications of CRISPR/Cas9.

Kristy has more than 18 years of industrial experience in developing novel drug delivery systems for the delivery of nucleic acids and proteins. Her interest in nucleic acid delivery began as a scientist at Baxter Healthcare and has led her to work on projects to deliver ASO, siRNA, and mRNA through various routes of administration across many therapeutic areas. Kristy has been involved in small-scale formulation development, process scale-up and analytical characterization, and tech transfers moving drug substance and drug product processes from research into clinical manufacturing.

Prior to Intellia, she was focused on the manufacturing and delivery of mRNA as a therapeutic using lipid nanoparticle delivery systems at Moderna, Pfizer, and Shire. Kristy has been issued a number of U.S. patents in the RNA & LNP fields.

She received her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and her B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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.