Experienced Founders & Operators to Lead First Wave of Internally Incubated Scion Startups
Scion Life Sciences (“Scion”), a venture capital firm dedicated to founding and building exceptional biotechnology companies, today announced the appointment of Lalo Flores, Ph.D., Huw Nash, Ph.D. and Romesh Subramanian, Ph.D. as Venture Partners to lead the buildout of three undisclosed portfolio companies. These founders and builders bring deep domain expertise to Scion and seasoned operational leadership to the promising portfolio companies they have joined the firm to build.
“We are thrilled to welcome Lalo, Huw and Romesh to the Scion family,” said Samuel Hall, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Scion Life Sciences. “All three are exceptional leaders, innovators and builders with proven track records of building great companies and embody Scion's science-forward approach to company-building and dedication to therapeutic innovation with clinically transformational or curative potential.”
Scion is actively engaged in the incubation and operational buildout of each portfolio company investment and the Venture Partner hires announced today greatly expand Scion's ability to support its portfolio operationally. Scion's Venture Partners frequently serve as founding management of Scion portfolio company investments, bringing deep domain expertise and visionary leadership to bear during the formative phases of each company's maturation.
“Lalo, Huw and Romesh join Scion at an incredibly exciting time, as our first portfolio companies begin to take flight in earnest,” said Aaron Kantoff, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Scion Life Sciences. “Each of them joined Scion to help build a portfolio company of exceptional potential that we believe is well-suited to their individual experience and domain expertise.”
Collectively, over $140million in funding has been committed by Scion and its syndicate partners to the first wave of Scion portfolio companies with critical milestones unlocking more capital for each in the next 12-18 months.
Details of Scion's growing portfolio will be disclosed in future announcements.
About Scion's New Venture Partners
Lalo Flores, Ph.D.Lalo Flores brings over 30 years of entrepreneurial and R&D leadership experience in the biopharmaceutical industry to his role as Venture Partner at Scion Life Sciences. After beginning his career at Tularik (acquired by Amgen), he advanced multiple drug candidates at Merck and Johnson & Johnson. Dr. Flores co-founded Novira Therapeutics-acquired in 2015-and later served as founding CEO of Century Therapeutics, which he took public in 2021. He earned his doctorate in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Rutgers University and completed postdoctoral work at the Salk Institute.
“Scion's approach to hands-on company building is an excellent platform for sharing my experience as both an entrepreneur and R&D executive,” remarked Dr. Flores.
Huw Nash, Ph.D.Huw Nash is a deeply experienced founder and company builder and brings to Scion more than 25 years of experience as an entrepreneur, operator and investor in the life sciences.
Prior to joining Scion, Huw served as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Business Officer of Stoke Therapeutics, Inc. Huw worked in close collaboration with Scion Managing Partners Sam Hall and Aaron Kantoff to lead the incubation of Stoke during his tenure as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Apple Tree Partners (ATP) and served as the company's founding CEO from 2014-2017. Over the past decade, Huw has played a crucial role in leading all stages of Stoke's buildout from mere idea to publicly-traded company on the cusp of advancing the first potentially disease-modifying therapy for Dravet syndrome, a devastating neurodevelopmental disorder, into Phase 3 clinical trials.
Earlier in his career, Huw co-founded Aileron Therapeutics to pioneer intracellular peptide therapeutics targeting protein-protein interactions and served as the company's Vice President of Corporate Development. Huw also was a member of the founding scientific team of NeoGenesis Pharmaceuticals, where he coinvented the ALIS high-throughput affinity-selection mass spectrometry platform and served as a Vice President of External Collaborations until the company's acquisition by Schering-Plough. Huw received his B.A. in Biochemical Sciences from Harvard College and his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Harvard University.
“I look forward to partnering again with Aaron and Sam to build transformative biotechnology companies, and I am excited to be part of the talented and growing Scion team to help develop the next generation of groundbreaking therapies,” said Dr. Nash.
Romesh Subramanian, Ph.D.Dr. Subramanian offers over two decades of experience in pharma and biotech as a scientist, founder, and executive. Before joining Scion, he was President and CEO of Ascidian Therapeutics, developing RNA exon editing medicines. Previously, he was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Atlas Venture and founding CEO of Dyne Therapeutics. While at Atlas, he also co-founded and led R&D at RaNA Therapeutics-later Translate Bio-acquired by Sanofi. He began his career leading mRNA and antibody therapeutics at Alexion and nucleic acid therapies at Pfizer. Dr. Subramanian earned his B.S. from Loyola College, M.S. from Duke University, and Ph.D. from Emory University.
“It's an honor to join such a dynamic team at Scion and work with Aaron on another company build. I look forward to leveraging my background in generating novel therapeutics using well-validated modalities to help drive innovation across the Scion portfolio” said Dr. Subramanian.
About Scion Life SciencesScion Life Sciences is a life sciences venture capital firm committed to meaningfully improving human health through long-term ownership of clinically transformative therapies. Our team of experienced innovators, company-builders and investors is founding and building exceptional biotechnology companies to discover, develop, and commercialize clinically transformational or curative new medicines. We aim to support impactful and sustainable advancements with a strategic and pragmatic approach to investment and innovation. For more information, please visit www.scionlifesciences.com.
Investor Contact:Dave KatonaHead of Business Development & Investor Relationsdkatona@petrichorcap.com
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