Longview Innovation Portfolio Company Optimeos Life Sciences Appoints Two Prominent Biotechnology Leaders to its Board
These appointments bring a significant level of commercialization and pharma development experience to the Optimeos team
Wilmington, DE, March 25, 2024—Hard science investment firm Longview Innovation announces the appointment of Joe Nolan, CEO of Jaguar Gene Therapy, and Benjamin Doranz, PhD, MBA, President and CEO of Integral Molecular, to the board of its portfolio company Optimeos Life Sciences. Optimeos has developed a novel technology to deliver therapeutic biologics and gene therapies to address a range of human diseases.
Joe Nolan is an innovative and successful pharma leader with over three decades of experience building high-performance teams, driving operational efficiency, and scaling products in competitive pharma markets. He has held senior commercial positions in several major biopharma companies, including Abbott, Lundbeck, and AveXis Gene Therapy, where he was instrumental in achieving corporate growth through revenue generation, fundraising, and M&A. He served on the executive team at AveXis, driving the commercial launch of one of their proprietary gene therapy products. Following its $8.7 billion acquisition by Novartis, Joe remained after the integration but was recruited by investors to run Jaguar Gene Therapy, where he remains CEO. Deerfield Management backed the company, and Joe successfully convinced Eli Lilly to invest – Arch Capital and Goldman Sachs followed suit.
Ben Doranz is an established life science entrepreneur who co-founded Integral Molecular in 2001. He has led all aspects of the company’s growth since its inception, advancing five technologies from inception to market and growing the company into a profitable commercial entity. He is an inventor on over 10 of the company’s patents, the principal investigator on over 30 NIH grants, and an author on over 100 publications, including articles published in Cell, Science, and Nature. He earned a PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology from the University of Pennsylvania, where he led the discovery of the coreceptor CCR5 for HIV. He holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, where he won the Wharton business plan competition, and a B.A. from Cornell University.
“The addition of two accomplished biotechnology leaders serves as a valuable endorsement of the technology being built at Optimeos,” said Jason Smith, Managing Director, Investment Partner at Longview Innovation. “Ben and Joe bring deep knowledge of the science, practical experience in technology commercialization, and successful scaling of groundbreaking biotechnology. Having this invaluable resource will help the Optimeos team accelerate through the next stage of program development to deliver the full potential of their technology.”
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About Longview Innovation
Longview is a hard science investment firm whose mission is to bring novel science and technology to commercial use. Longview discovers and builds early-stage companies emerging from some of the most productive university research and national laboratories in North America. For more information, visit – www.longviewinnovation.com.
About Optimeos Life Sciences
Optimeos Life Sciences (optimeos.com) has developed a novel, highly differentiated, non-viral gene therapy and biologics delivery platform (iFNP), with lead programs advancing GLP-1 agonists for obesity and nonviral gene therapies for in vivo CAR-T and rare metabolic diseases. The technology is a patented and scalable polymeric drug delivery system developed and refined in Professor Prud’homme’s lab at Princeton University that overcomes key challenges associated with current lipid nanoparticle technologies. Optimeos’ technology has been validated by ongoing industry partnerships.
Media Contact: Frank DeMaria – frank@purposefuladv.com +1 347 647 0284