Mark Smith is a Co-Founder and the Chief Executive Officer of Finch Therapeutics. Mark is a recognized leader in the microbiome field, with over 50 peer-reviewed publications focused on the microbiome. Previously, Mark served as President and Research Director of OpenBiome, a nonprofit organization he co-founded for the purpose of expanding safe access to microbiota transplantation and catalyzing research into the human microbiome. He currently serves on the board of directors of Freya Biosciences, a privately-held biotechnology company.

Mark has a BA in biology from Princeton University and a PhD in microbiology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Greg Perry has over 20 years of corporate finance experience in the biopharmaceutical industry, including leading several strategic transactions and raising $1 billion of capital, including an IPO. Prior to joining Finch, Greg held various senior financial leadership roles at several biotech companies including Novelion Therapeutics, Eleven Biotherapeutics, ImmunoGen, Domantis, and Transkaryotic Therapies. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Merus Therapeutics and Kala Pharmaceuticals. He transitioned to the biotech industry after beginning his career at General Electric, where he served in increasingly senior financial roles over fourteen years. He earned a B.A. in Economics and Political Science from Amherst College.

Before co-founding Finch, Dr. Kassam helped co-found OpenBiome, a company that developed and scaled access to microbiota transplants, and previously served as OpenBiome’s CMO. As the CMO at OpenBiome, he played a pivotal role in the establishment of the nation’s first public stool bank and pioneered the development of donor screening protocols that have become the industry standard.

Dr. Kassam previously served as a Scientific Advisory Board Member for the American Gastroenterological Association Center for Gut Microbiome Research & Education, and has authored over 150 peer-reviewed publications and abstracts. He has been involved in more than 25 prospective microbiota transplantation studies, including the first randomized trials in ulcerative colitis, hepatic encephalopathy and obesity. Dr. Kassam has also Co-Chaired the Annual CMO 360 Summit for the past two years.

Dr. Kassam received his Master of Public Health degree from Harvard University with a focus on clinical trials, biostatistics, and epidemiology, and completed post-doctoral training at MIT in microbiome engineering. He received his MD from Western University in London, Canada, and completed his Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology training at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada.

Michelle has over 20 years of experience working in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry as both in-house regulatory support for companies and as a consultant in all phases of the drug development process from discovery through clinical research to licensing. Michelle has extensive experience with rare disease development programs as well as FDA’s Expedited Programs for Serious Diseases and Conditions including Fast Track Designation, Accelerated Approval, Breakthrough Therapy designations, and Priority Review. Prior to joining Finch, Michelle served as an independent regulatory consultant, advising more than 20 companies on strategic regulatory matters across a broad range of therapeutic areas and product modalities, including cell therapy and microbiome-based products. She has assisted clients with successful global development, NDA/BLA approvals, MAA approvals, and regulatory due diligence for investors and/or potential partners interested in acquiring a financial interest in pharmaceutical assets. Prior to becoming a consultant, Michelle served as Vice President of Regulatory Affairs for Chimerix, where she held various positions of increasing responsibility and most recently held the title of Vice President of Regulatory Affairs. She was responsible for building the regulatory affairs and operations function from a department of one overseeing a single first in-human clinical trial to a global department conducting global Phase 3 clinical trials and preparing for simultaneous NDA and MAA submissions. Prior to her time with Chimerix, Michelle served as a Regulatory Authority Liaison at Biolex Therapeutics and EMD Pharmaceuticals, where she was the regulatory submission lead for global development projects, including one of the first products approved by the FDA under the Animal Efficacy Rule.

Michelle has a BS in biochemistry from Case Western Reserve University and a PhD in toxicology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Before co-founding Finch, Andrew helped grow OpenBiome as its Operations Director. Andrew joined OpenBiome after working as a consultant for Bain & Company in Chicago. At Bain, Andrew served clients across several industries, including healthcare, manufacturing, telecom, consumer packaged goods, airlines, retail, and insurance while working across multiple services including growth strategy, performance improvement, negotiations, M&A, and IT. Prior to joining Bain, Andrew worked in investment banking at JPMorgan.

Andrew holds a BBA with High Distinction from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.

Jim has more than 28 years of experience in drug development. At Genzyme, he and his team brought Carticel, the first biologic therapy of its type, from academia all the way through FDA submission, inspection, licensure, and commercialization. At Reprogenesis, he and his team executed a crash re-formulation and pre-clinical model development effort that resulted in the resumption of a Phase III trial less than nine months after suspending the trial. At Acceleron, he and his team completed in-house manufacture of the first clinical drug substance for the company, and the outside manufacture of clinical drug product, less than two years after the company’s initial financing and barely seventeen months after board approval to build the in-house capability. Jim received his BS in Biology/General Studies from Cornell University and his MBA from Harvard Business School.

Joseph has over 20 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry, including experience providing companies with strategic guidance on initial public offerings, equity and debt financings, mergers, acquisitions and divestitures and complex collaboration arrangements. Previously, Joseph held several positions at AMAG Pharmaceuticals, including most recently serving as its Executive Vice President, Chief Business Officer, and General Counsel & Corporate Secretary. Prior to this, he served as Vice President of Legal Affairs and a member of the Management Committee at Flexion Therapeutics. He also served as General Counsel and Secretary of AVEO Pharmaceuticals, and as Director of Corporate Legal Affairs at Oscient Pharmaceuticals Corporation. He began his career as a corporate associate at Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo PC where he represented public biotechnology and technology companies in numerous areas, including securities, M&A and healthcare licensing collaborations.

Joseph has a BA in international relations from Tufts University and a JD from Northeastern University School of Law.

Kris has over 30 years of experience in new drug development in both big pharma and biotech with a highly successful track record in taking products from pre-IND to market approval and commercialization. Over the course of his career, Kris has successfully submitted more than 35 INDs and gained approval of more than 20 NDAs and BLAs. While primarily focused on regulatory affairs, he also has had responsibility for quality assurance and clinical operations throughout his career.

Kris holds a BS in Animal Science and a MS in Physiology from the University of California at Davis.

James is a co-founder of Finch Therapeutics. James is also a co-founder and the former Executive Director of OpenBiome, a stool bank and research institute focused on enabling access to microbiota transplants for C. difficile patients and catalyzing research in the human microbiome. James oversaw the growth of OpenBiome from a tiny lab at MIT to a large-scale operation supplying 1,000 treatments per month across the country and enabling dozens of clinical trials in the microbiome field.

James has a BA in Mathematics from Princeton University and briefly attended the MBA program at MIT Sloan before dropping out to launch OpenBiome. James is a Draper Richards Kaplan fellow, and has previously worked at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, GE, and Bain & Company.

Sonia is an expert at designing NGS-based algorithms for applications in microbial genomics, immunogenomics, and evolution. Prior to joining Finch, she built and managed AbVitro's computational algorithms and infrastructure, supporting high throughput single-cell immune phenotyping and repertoire sequencing technology. This technology platform was acquired by Juno Therapeutics, where Sonia led a multidisciplinary team to harness native adaptive immune responses for developing engineered cell therapies in oncology.

Sonia graduated from Caltech with a B.Sc in Molecular Biology and received her Ph.D. in Biological Engineering from MIT.

Martina has over 15 years of program leadership, strategic alliance and program management experience in academic, pharmaceutical, and biotech settings. Most recently, Martina provided program management support for bluebird bio’s growing oncology franchise and co-led development of bluebird’s lead oncology CAR T cell therapy product bb2121 from research through clinical development in collaboration with Celgene since 2014. Martina was formerly with the Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research where she held senior project leadership positions over a nearly 10-year tenure and provided strategic and operational leadership for multiple Novartis early discovery and development programs in several therapeutic areas. Prior to her time at Novartis, she was overseeing the microarray facility at the Bauer Center for Genomics Research at Harvard University.

Martina holds a PhD from the University in Heidelberg, Germany, and completed her postdoctoral training at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and was Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Boston.

Irina has over 15 years of experience leading translational medicine and biomarker strategy across the drug development pipeline including; candidate identification, clinical development, registration, approval and life cycle management. Prior to joining Finch, Irina lead translational medicine and companion diagnostics strategies in support of a fast growing pipeline in rare diseases, cancer and autoimmune diseases at Rubius Therapeutics. Until 2018, Irina held translational and biomarker leadership positions at the Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research where she supported multiple discovery and development programs ultimately leading to the successful regulatory submission and approval of Cosentyx® (Secukinumab)‎ for the treatment of Psoriasis, Psoriatic Arthritis, and Ankylosing Spondylitis.

Irina has a PhD from the Institute of Cytology and Genetics, Russia and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Danish Institute of Agricultural Sciences Research Center. She then continued as a research scientist working on gene discovery. In 1998 Dr. Koroleva relocated to the University of Iowa where she headed the functional genomics group in the Department of Pediatrics at the School of Medicine.

David has over 15 years of experience in academia and 17 years of experience in industry. Prior to joining Finch, David headed the formulation and analytical effort for a commercial recombinant influenza vaccine at Protein Sciences (now Sanofi). He then led a team at Genocea focused on product and process development for a late-stage therapeutic vaccine for genital herpes and an early stage immune-oncology program, and worked at Rhythm, a virtual company focused on rare genetic disorders of obesity. In his academic career, he was Assoc. Professor of Biotechnology at UConn School of Pharmacy, with a focus on drug-membrane interactions and oligonucleotides.

David has a B.S. in Physics from Bucknell and a Ph.D. in physical biochemistry from UConn. His postdoctoral work in structural biology at UConn Health Center transitioned to an in-residence faculty role and serving as Associate Director of the Biomolecular Structure Analysis Center.

Anne Marie brings over 30 years of clinical development experience in rare diseases (enzyme replacement and gene & cell therapies) along with academic nursing research experience in gastroenterology, neurology, and oncology. Most recently, Anne Marie was Clinical Head of Biologics at PTC Therapeutics where she led the clinical development team for AGIL-AADC gene therapy leading to an MAA submission. Prior PTC, Anne Marie was VP of Clinical Operations at Agilis Biotherapeutics responsible for clinical development operations and pharmacovigilance. Before joining Agilis, Anne Marie founded AMC Consulting, LLC which provided clinical development support to companies. Anne Marie also worked at Shire Human Genetic Therapies (HGT) and Transkaryotic Therapies (TKT) where she held increasingly senior leadership roles including VP of Clinical Development Operations. At HGT, she managed cross-functional teams that submitted four biologic license/new drug application filings with subsequent approvals. Prior to joining TKT, she worked at Tufts Medical Center where she served as the Clinical Trials Manager for the Division of Gastroenterology and as a staff nurse. Anne Marie is a Lecturer at Suffolk University’s Sawyer Business School teaching a graduate course on Healthcare Innovation. Anne Marie holds a BS in Nursing from Boston University and a Master’s in Healthcare Administration from Suffolk University.

Rozanna has over 22 years of global experience in life sciences with expertise in quality and regulatory strategies and drug development life-cycle processes, spanning from clinical development to product launch and commercialization. Prior to joining Finch, Rozanna was in the regenerative medicine, cell and gene therapy space for almost a decade holding senior leadership roles at Incysus Therapeutics, Axogen, Inc. and uniQure, Inc., where she helped achieve major strategic business, regulatory and technical product development milestones. Earlier in her career, Rozanna founded BioCompass, Inc. a consulting firm specializing in program management, quality and regulatory compliance for eight years where she helped companies such as Genzyme and Shire HGT. Across her career, Rozanna has played key roles in the development, scale-up and/or commercialization of products including Glybera, VPRIV, Replagal, Elaprase, Cerezyme, Taxus Paclitaxel-Eluting Stents, and OP-1 Putty.

Rozanna holds a BS in Chemistry from Boston College and an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Dr. Jones joins Finch with more than 14 years of experience in discovery and clinical development of novel therapeutics. Most recently, Dr. Jones provided leadership for translational and clinical development within the Precision Medicine group at Progenity, developing novel oral biotherapeutics and modified release oral combination products to treat metabolic disease and disorders of the gastrointestinal tract. Prior to that, Dr. Jones founded and served as the CMO of Interface, acquired by Progenity, where he was responsible for developing a novel platform sampling technology and multi-omics approach to develop therapeutics acting at the host-microbiome interface. Prior to that, Dr. Jones founded and served as the CSO of Micropharma, acquired by UAS Labs followed by Chr Hansen, where he was responsible for discovery and clinical development of microbiome-based therapeutics for metabolic and inflammatory disease. Dr. Jones has authored over 60 peer-reviewed publications and abstracts and has been an inventor on over 70 patent families and 190 individual applications. He has initiated and directed numerous therapeutic clinical studies in the human-microbiome space, as well as other studies involving orally-delivered combination products.

Dr. Jones received his PhD in Biomedical Engineering, with a focus on developing human-microbiome therapeutics, as well as his MD from McGill University in Quebec, Canada.

Dr. Pugatch brings over a decade of leadership experience to Finch in the clinical development of novel therapeutics. Most recently, he served as Vice President, Clinical Development and GI Therapeutic Area Head at Protagonist Therapeutics where he developed orally-administered GI-restricted peptide therapies for ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease. Prior to that, Dr. Pugatch held clinical development positions of increasing responsibility at Gilead Sciences, PPD and then AbbVie, where he co-developed Mavyret, a curative hepatitis C therapy, across early and late phases of development and subsequent agency approvals from the FDA, EMA and Japan’s PMDA.

Dr. Pugatch has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific articles and abstracts in infectious diseases and GI therapeutics. Prior to entering industry, he was an NIH-funded independent investigator at the Brown University Center for AIDS Research. He is a board-certified pediatrician with sub-specialty training in infectious diseases and a Fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.