BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The JDRF T1D Fund (“T1D Fund” or “the Fund”), a venture philanthropy fund focused on curing type 1 diabetes (T1D), today announced the promotion of Yury Kukushkin to Managing Director. In his expanded role, Dr. Kukushkin will lead new investments as well as continue to support the T1D Fund’s large and diverse set of existing investments.
Dr. Kukushkin has a decade of life sciences investment experience, and since joining the T1D Fund in 2019, he has played a critical role in expanding the T1D Fund’s investment activities into a variety of biologics, cell therapy, and gene therapy companies. Dr. Kukushkin serves as an observer on the Board of Directors of Code Biotherapeutics, Egle Therapeutics, IM Therapeutics, and Inversago Pharma, and he is also actively engaged with Kyria Therapeutics and Veralox Therapeutics.
“Yury’s elevation marks the first time we have promoted a Managing Director from within and is a real testament to the Fund’s growth and our continued focus on attracting and developing talented people who share our commitment to finding a cure for type 1 diabetes,” said Chairman Sean Doherty. “We congratulate Yury on his much-deserved promotion and look forward to his continued key contributions to advance the Fund’s mission to accelerate life-changing solutions and act as a catalyst for scale commercial investments to cure, prevent, and treat T1D.” Dr. Kukushkin will continue to work alongside Managing Directors Steven St. Peter, M.D., and Katie Ellias and other members of the investment team to advance and broaden the T1D Fund's investment activities and capabilities.
Before joining the T1D Fund, Dr. Kukushkin was a Principal at 4BIO Capital, a London-based fund investing in public and private life sciences companies where he focused on gene and cell therapies, PROTACs, RNA medicines, and targeted therapies. Prior to that, he was an Associate at RBV Capital, an early-stage life sciences venture fund, and worked at Abercade, a consulting firm supporting transactions involving venture-backed biotech companies.
“I am excited and honored to take on these additional responsibilities, and to work with such a talented and driven team,” said Dr. Kukushkin. “There is truly no other fund like ours in terms of scale and mission-driven impact and I look forward to collaborating closely with Steven and Katie as we work to bring cure-oriented therapies to T1D.”
Dr. Kukushkin received an M.S. in Biochemistry with a specialization in virology from Moscow State University with honors, and a Ph.D. in Cellular Biochemistry from Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry Martinsried, Germany.
About the JDRF T1D Fund
Launched in December 2016 and now with $175 million in assets under management, the JDRF T1D Fund (www.t1dfund.org) is the first scale, mission-driven venture philanthropy fund accelerating life-changing solutions and acting as a catalyst for scale commercial investments to cure, prevent, and treat type1 diabetes (T1D). Thus far, the T1D Fund has made investments in over 30 early-stage innovative companies with T1D programs and has attracted more than $600 million of additional private venture capital to these programs, reinvesting any realized gains into new investments to further its mission. Through its investments in partnership with private capital, including venture capital, corporations and foundations, the T1D Fund seeks to attract the capital and focus necessary to advance drugs, diagnostics, and devices into the hands of those living with T1D. The T1D Fund invests in areas strategically aligned with JDRF, the leading global organization funding T1D research, with an exclusive focus on supporting the best commercial opportunities.
