Lovisa Afzelius is an origination partner at Flagship Pioneering and the former SVP of Strategy & Operations at Flagship-founded Cogen Immune Medicines, now known as Repertoire Immune Medicines. A computational scientist by training, she has two decades of leadership experience and a passion for data-driven drug discovery, from early inception to clinical development across multiple therapeutic areas.

Previously, Lovisa built and led Pfizer’s systems immunology function and served as executive director of clinical programs. In this role, she launched several Phase II studies across autoimmune indications and as a member of the Inflammation & Immunology Research Unit leadership team, Lovisa co-managed the portfolio from early target discovery to Phase II clinical trials across all immunological assets. In addition, she served on Pfizer’s Worldwide R&D Data Strategy Committee.

In 2017, Lovisa co-founded Elsa.science, a digital health company in the rheumatoid arthritis space where she serves as chairman of the board. She also serves on the board of the Swedish New England Chamber of Commerce. Before moving to the US in 2013, Lovisa was CEO of BioChromix Pharma.

Lovisa began her career at AstraZeneca as Project Director, Global In Vitro Metabolism Leader and Computational Chemist across cardiovascular, metabolic, and neurodegenerative diseases.

Lovisa has received numerous accolades for her work: she was included in the top 100 ​“most influential persons under age 40 in Sweden” by Affärsvärlden, and ​“scientist of tomorrow” at the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations’ 30th anniversary. Lovisa received the Rosenön Award for best thesis of the year within the field of pharmacodynamics/​pharmacokinetics in Sweden.

Lovisa holds a Ph.D. in computational chemistry from Uppsala University, a Master of Science in integrative pharmacology from Gothenburg University as well as an M.B.A. from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Theonie is a principal at Flagship Pioneering where she conceives, builds and grows the science, intellectual property and business strategy that form the foundation of Flagship’s next breakthrough startups. She co-founded Alltrna and serves as its chief innovation officer. 

Prior to joining Flagship, Theonie completed her graduate studies in cell and molecular biology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focused on replication fork dynamics in the context of cancer development and therapeutics. Theonie has received several awards and has been granted multiple fellowships for her academic work, including an NIH NRSA Predoctoral Fellowship. During her graduate studies, Theonie held multiple leadership positions on Executive and Curriculum Committees. She also completed a Wharton Business Foundations Specialization and was a mentor at the yearly Larta Institute NIH CAP FeedForward Sessions. 

Theonie is a Business Advisory Board member of the Harvard Institute for RNA Medicine and a member of the Bioscience & Investor Inclusion Group (BIIG) Diverse Talent Network Group. Theonie’s work has resulted in multiple pending patents and publications, including articles in Nature Biotechnology, Molecular Cell and Journal of Biological Chemistry.

91. tRNA therapies, Lovisa Afzelius, Founding CEO, Theonie Anastassiadis, Co-founder & CIO, Alltrna

Disclaimer: Anything that is express in the following conversation are Michael's views and not necessarily those of Roche / Genentech.

Synopsis: 

Michael Rosenblatt is the Vice President of Clinical Operations at Roche, leading their organization to reduce hierarchy, embrace agility, and increase engagement. Michael has spent the last 11 years between regulatory and clinical operations in late stage development at Roche/Genentech and is currently leading its GI indications from an operational standpoint. He provides his perspective on the clinical operations landscape now and what’s changed over the last five-seven years. He shares the technology he’s excited by that has the potential to transform R&D and clinical operations. He discusses his role at Roche and some of the transformation underway bringing more treatments and better outcomes to patients everywhere!

Biography:
Michael Rosenblatt is a Vice President in Roche’s late stage clinical operations group (PDG). In this role he is responsible for registrational clinical trials for Roche’s Gastroenterology and Hepatology portfolio. He also acts as a mentor and coach for the countries in Roche’s Asian operational footprint. In this role he helps to ensure that Roche is taking full advantage of the talent and capabilities in that region. 

Michael is also part of the team leading the transformation of Roche’s Clinical Operations function, moving from a siloed hierarchical structure to a flatter, more agile organization. In this transformation Roche has helped rethink Clinical Operations, enabling talent flow across disease areas and cross-functional projects and empowering teams to make decisions closest to the work and takes. This work is unleashing significant efficiencies and helping Roche reach its goal of bringing new medicines to patients faster. In earlier roles at Roche, Michael oversaw
key infrastructure for both the Clinical Operations and Regulatory groups at Roche and helped pioneer early eTMF processes and technology.

Prior to joining Roche, Michael was a consultant in IBM’s life sciences consulting and business process management practices working with multiple pharmaceutical companies to introduce processes and technology designed to streamline and simplify work across finance, commercial, regulatory and other business units. He has also held numerous consulting, sales, marketing, and operational roles for several other US-based enterprises.

Michael is an avid runner and swimmer. He resides near San Francisco, CA with his wife and two boys.

Envisioning people focused clinical trials, Michael Rosenblatt, VP of Clinical Operations, Roche

Biotech2050 Podcast is a think tank chronicling the disruptions changing the biotech industry over the next 50 years.

Envisioning people focused clinical trials, Michael Rosenblatt, VP of Clinical Operations, Roche

Biotech2050 Podcast

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