Pharmaceutical, biotech industry senior leaders add insight, perspective
CAMBRIDGE MA., November 9, 2020 – Elicio Therapeutics, a next generation immunotherapy company, has named Daphne Karydas, Chief Financial Officer at Syndax Pharmaceuticals and Carol Ashe, Chief Business Officer at the New York Genome Center, to its board of directors.
“We are pleased to welcome Daphne and Carol to our board during this important next stage of Elicio’s growth,” said Julian Adams, Ph.D., Chairman of Elicio’s Board of Directors. “As industry veterans with broad business strategy, and deep financial, legal and deal-making experience, Daphne and Carol will bring expert guidance to Elicio as we head into the clinic and 2021 financing and business development transactions. Their complementary skill sets will add new strength to Elicio’s board.”
Ms. Karydas has served as CFO of Syndax since 2020. Prior to Syndax, Ms. Karydas served as Senior Vice President of Corporate Financial Planning & Analysis and Strategy at Allergan plc, where she oversaw the company’s long-term financial and business strategy, until its recent acquisition by Abbvie in May 2020. She joined Allergan in April 2017 as Senior Vice President of Global Investor Relations and Strategy at Allergan, leading engagement with the investment community and business strategy development. Prior to joining Allergan, she served as Executive Director and Senior Healthcare Analyst at J.P. Morgan Asset Management. Previously, she was a Portfolio Manager and Senior Healthcare Analyst at The Boston Company Asset Management, a BNY Mellon company. Earlier, Ms. Karydas was a Vice President at Goldman Sachs Asset Management focused on healthcare, as well as a member of Goldman Sachs’ healthcare investment banking team. Before joining Goldman Sachs, she was a Project Chemical Engineer at Merck & Co. where she focused on process development for novel vaccines. Ms. Karydas received a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Science degree in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School.
Ms. Ashe is an accomplished life sciences executive leader with more than 30 years of experience in corporate and business development, venture capital and related patent and legal matters in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. She has extensive depth and breadth of transactional expertise in negotiating and structuring transactions involving biotech and pharmaceutical companies of all stages. Previously, Carol worked at GlaxoSmithKline where her senior roles included partner at SR One Ltd, GSK’s venture capital business, head of GSK’s US Corporate Legal department supporting US-based mergers, acquisitions and equity investments, and head of GSK’s global Business Development Transactions legal team supporting both the pharmaceutical and consumer healthcare business units. She also served as Vice President of Corporate Development for Endo’s branded, generic and platform drug delivery pharmaceutical business units. She currently serves as Chief Business Officer at the New York Genome Center where she is responsible for identifying and executing on revenue generating business development opportunities. Ms. Ashe also serves as a non-executive Director for Aptose Biosciences, a clinical-stage oncology company. Ms. Ashe received a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Pennsylvania State University and her law degree from Villanova University School of Law. She is a registered patent attorney.
About Elicio Therapeutics
Elicio Therapeutics is advancing the Amphiphile technology across immunotherapy platforms to defeat cancers and infectious diseases. By combining expertise in materials science, immunology, and immuno-oncology, Elicio is engineering potent Amphiphile immunotherapies that precisely target and fully engage the lymph nodes, the site in our bodies where the immune response is orchestrated. Elicio is engineering lymph node targeted cell therapy activators, immunomodulators, adjuvants and vaccines for an array of aggressive cancers and infectious diseases. Elicio’s lead Amphiphile vaccine targeting all KRAS-driven cancers will begin initial patient studies in solid tumor patients in early 2021. The Amphiphile platform emerged from laboratories of Darrell Irvine, Howard Hughes Investigator and Professor of Biomedical Engineering in the Koch Institute of Integrative Cancer Research at MIT. For more information, please visit https://elicio.wpengine.com.
Contacts
Elicio Therapeutics: Merina Zeller, 617-482-0042, mzeller@denterlein.com