CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oak Hill Bio, a clinical-stage neonatology and rare disease therapeutics company, today announced the promotion of Josh Distler, J.D. to Chief Executive Officer. Additionally, the Company has appointed Sharon Morriss, Ph.D. as Chief Operating Officer and promoted Ike Greenstein, MBA to Chief Business Officer. Oak Hill also welcomed Jiaping Gu, Hussein Al-Mossawi, and Kim Davis to its Board of Directors.
Mr. Distler is a co-founder of Oak Hill Bio and previously served as the Company’s President and Chief Financial Officer. He has extensive experience building and investing in biotechnology companies, having served as Head of Crossover and Quantitative Equity at Athanor Capital, Managing Director at Magnitude Capital, Chief Operating Officer of Global Private Investing for the D. E. Shaw Group, and Chief Operating Officer at Attenuon, a cancer drug development company. Josh earned a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and a law degree from Yale Law School.
“It is a privilege to get to work with our outstanding team to bring these investigational therapies to patients. It is an exciting time as we collaborate with Chiesi Group to advance the Phase 2b clinical study of our lead candidate OHB-607. Sharon is a tremendous addition to the team. She brings deep experience advancing rare disease therapeutics from early clinical development through regulatory approval and commercialization,” said Distler. “I also want to congratulate Ike, who has been core to building Oak Hill and closing our first two deals. He will continue to play a key role as we seek partnerships focused on delivering new medicines for patients.”
Dr. Morriss brings two decades of experience building and leading biotech clinical development teams, most recently serving as SVP, Clinical Development at Lung Therapeutics (now Aileron). In a prior role as SVP, Clinical Development Operations at Apellis Pharmaceuticals, her responsibilities included advancing the company's rare disease and ophthalmology clinical portfolio, and she played a key role on FDA approvals for EMPAVELI®, a targeted C3 therapy for the treatment of paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria, and SYFOVRE® for the treatment of geographic atrophy. She also built and led the global clinical development operations team responsible for advancing programs to registrational clinical studies in hematology, nephrology, neurology, and ophthalmology. Prior to joining Apellis, Dr. Morriss worked in roles of increasing responsibility at Shire Pharmaceuticals (now Takeda), where she oversaw the Global Clinical Program teams supporting the ophthalmology and hematology portfolios. She worked as a clinical researcher early in her career at Sanofi, United Therapeutics, and PPD, after earning her doctorate in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Stirling.
Mr. Greenstein, a co-founder of Oak Hill, previously served as the Company’s Vice President of Corporate Development. Prior to joining Oak Hill, he served as Senior Equity Analyst at Athanor Capital, a global investment firm. Before Athanor, Mr. Greenstein was an analyst at the D. E. Shaw Group, where he focused on equities as a member of the company’s Macro team. He received his MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and his bachelor’s degree in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University.
Oak Hill made the following appointments to the Company’s Board of Directors:
- Jiaping Gu, Ph.D. is a Partner at Takeda Ventures, Inc. (TVI), the corporate investment arm of Takeda. He has served on the boards of various biotech companies and is currently on the Board of Directors at HC Bioscience. Prior to joining TVI, Jiaping was Vice President at Hillhouse Capital, where he was a member of the Bioventure team covering private stage biotech investments in the U.S. and Europe. He began his career as a research scientist focused on neurodegeneration. Jiaping earned a doctorate in Neuroscience from Rutgers University and B.S. in Biological Sciences from Tsinghua University.
- Hussein Al-Mossawi, BMBCh, MRCP, DPhil is a clinician scientist with over 15 years of experience across rheumatology and immunology drug development. He serves as VP of Immunology Research at Immunocore, a biotechnology company, and has held immunology research and clinical development roles at AstraZeneca and UCB. He earned his medical degree and doctorate from the University of Oxford, where he subsequently led a research group in translational immunology studying pathological immune responses in inflammatory disease. He continues to hold an honorary research position at Oxford and is a fellow and lecturer in pathology and immunology at St Edmund Hall.
- Kim Davis, J.D. has over 25 years of legal and compliance experience in the biopharma and healthcare industries and is currently Chief Legal Officer at Zura Bio overseeing all legal, employment, and information technology matters. Prior to Zura, Kim served as Deputy General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer at Arena Pharmaceuticals. Additionally, Kim has held executive positions and built high-performing teams at Kaleo Pharmaceuticals, Impax Laboratories, and Amgen. Before industry, Kim worked in private practice litigating and providing counsel on healthcare matters, intellectual property issues, licensing and business agreements, and other corporate matters.
Said Distler, “We are thrilled to have Jiaping, Hussein, and Kim join our Board and look forward to working closely with them. Their combined drug development experience and diversity of valuable perspectives will help us navigate the next chapter of the Company’s growth.”
About Oak Hill Bio
Oak Hill Bio is a clinical-stage neonatology and rare disease therapeutics company developing life-changing medicines for extremely preterm infants and patients suffering from rare autoimmune diseases. The Company, with operations in the United States and the United Kingdom, is advancing a pipeline of six promising clinical-stage and preclinical investigational therapeutics. For more information on Oak Hill Bio, visit the company’s website at www.oakhillbio.com.
