Jim Audia, Ph.D.

Founding Scientist

Jim Audia is Executive Vice President, Drug Discovery and Early Development, and a Founding Scientist for Flare Therapeutics. He is an industry veteran and expert in small molecule drug discovery and early drug development, bringing more than 30 years of experience primarily focused in oncology and neuroscience.

Previously, he had a seven-year tenure as chief scientific officer of Constellation Pharmaceuticals, where he oversaw the successful evolution of the company’s R&D efforts from a strong scientific expertise in chromatin biology into a robust pipeline of novel clinical-stage small molecules and pre-clinical programs. His accomplishments at Constellation include the discovery and development of Pelabresib, now in Phase 3 clinical development for the treatment of myelofibrosis. He later served on Constellation’s board of directors, chairing the R&D committee. Prior to Constellation, Dr. Audia had a highly productive 23-year tenure in leadership roles in drug discovery at Eli Lilly and Company. As a Distinguished Lilly Scholar, the highest level of the company’s scientific ladder, he made seminal technical and strategic contributions to the Lilly drug pipeline, and at the time was the most prolific inventor in company history with more than 100 issued US patents.

Dr. Audia currently serves as a senior advisor for Karuna Therapeutics and a consultant at Third Rock Ventures. He serves as an independent board director for Enzyme by Design and for Ribon Therapeutics, where he also chairs their scientific advisory board. He serves as a scientific advisor for the Alzheimer’s Association, the Rainwater Charitable Foundation and Faze Medicines.

Over the course of his career, Dr. Audia has authored more than 70 papers in top-tier journals and holds a visiting scholar appointment at Northwestern University and an adjunct faculty appointment at the University of Illinois, Chicago. He received his Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry from the University of South Carolina and completed postdoctoral research at Yale University.

Abbie Celniker, Ph.D.

Board Chair

Abbie Celniker is a partner at Third Rock Ventures, and brings 30 years of experience in R&D and senior leadership roles. Abbie focuses on the formation, development and strategy of Third Rock’s portfolio companies. Prior to joining Third Rock Ventures, she served as president and CEO of Eleven Biotherapeutics. Previously, she was the president and CEO of Taligen Therapeutics until the company was acquired by Alexion Pharmaceuticals; following the acquisition, she served as Alexion’s executive vice president, translational medicine. She has served as the global head of biologics of Novartis AG, the senior vice president of R&D strategy and operations of Millennium Pharmaceuticals, and the vice president of protein technologies of the Wyeth Research facilities.

Dr. Celniker is the chair of MassBio’s board of directors, a member of the board of ImaginAb, where she was previously the chair, and a member of the scientific advisory board for Adimab. She currently serves as a board member of Cedilla Therapeutics, Goldfinch Bio and Rheos Medicines. She is also a member of the board of directors of the nonprofit Unitio and T1D.

Dr. Celniker has a B.A. in Biology from the University of California, San Diego, and a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Arizona.

Aaron Davis

Board Member

Aaron Davis is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Boxer Capital, LLC. In 2005, after joining Tavistock Group as Portfolio Manager, Mr. Davis scaled Tavistock Group’s public healthcare investing activities and formed Boxer Capital. Mr. Davis also serves as Chief Executive Officer and a director of BCTG Acquisition Corp. (NASDAQ: BCTG), a special purpose acquisition company sponsored by Boxer Capital. He is currently Chairman of the Board of CiVi Biopharma and is board member of iTeos Therapeutics (NASDAQ: ITOS), Mirati Therapeutics (NASDAQ: MRTX), Odonate Therapeutics (NASDAQ: ODT), and Rain Therapeutics (NASDAQ: RAIN).

Prior to joining Tavistock Group, Mr. Davis worked in the Global Healthcare Investment Banking and Private Equity Group at UBS Warburg, LLC, where he led strategic transactions for public and private biotechnology and medical device companies throughout their growth, advising on financing and mergers and acquisitions. Having also served in various roles with biotechnology and venture capital firms, Mr. Davis has extensive expertise in investment analysis and in overseeing in-licensing activities within the pharmaceutical sector.

Mr. Davis holds a M.S. in Biotechnology from Columbia University and a B.A. in Business Administration from Emory University.

Craig Gordon

Board Member

Craig D. Gordon, M.D., is the founder of GordonMD Global, a private and public long-biased global biopharmaceutical investment firm. Prior to establishing his own firm, he was an Equity Investment Analyst at The Capital Group for over ten years with research and investment responsibilities for U.S. and Japanese biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. Before joining Capital, he was a biotechnology equity research analyst and associate for the Cowen Group in New York. He holds an MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business; a doctor of medicine (with research distinction) and Medical Resident Teaching Award from the University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine and Jackson Memorial Hospital, respectively; completed his rheumatology training at Duke Medical Center; and holds a bachelor’s degree (with distinction) in economics from Cornell University. Craig lives in Los Angeles.

Lorence Kim, M.D.

Board Member

Dr. Kim has an A.B. in Biochemical Sciences from Harvard University, an M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and an M.B.A. in Healthcare Management from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Mitchell Lazar, M.D., Ph.D.

Founder

Dr. Lazar is the Willard and Rhoda Ware Professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a pioneer for his modern approach to understanding the linkage between genetic, environmental, and circadian mechanisms to transcriptional regulation of metabolism and disease. Among his notable discoveries are linking circadian rhythms and metabolism via the nuclear receptor REV-ERB, the hormone resistin, and the importance of PPARg in adipocytes.

Dr. Lazar is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Sciences.  He is also a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians. For his work in the field of endocrinology, Dr. Lazar has received multiple career honors and awards from scientific and medical societies throughout the world.  Dr. Lazar served for many years as Chief of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism, and is Founding Director of Penn’s Institute for Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism. He trained in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and in Endocrinology at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Lazar received an SB degree in Chemistry from MIT, and M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford University.

Jakob Loven, Ph.D.

Board Member

Jakob Loven, Ph.D., is a Managing Partner at Nextech Invest with over 20 years of experience in cancer research and translational medicine. An accomplished oncology-focused entrepreneur and life science venture capitalist, Dr. Loven has extensive experience in creating, launching and building early stage therapeutic-focused biotechnology companies and was a co-founder of Relay Therapeutics (NASDAQ: RLAY) and Syros Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: SYRS). He currently serves as a board director of A2 Biotherapeutics, Arrakis, IconoVir, Kronos (NASDAQ: KRON), and Vividion. He is a former board member or observer of Arvinas (NASDAQ: ARVN), Kinnate Biopharma (NASDAQ: KNTE). Turning Point Therapeutics (NASDAQ: TPTX) and Autolus (NASDAQ: AUTL).

Dr. Loven holds a B.A. in Biomedical Sciences from the UK, earned his Ph.D. in Medical Sciences focused on oncology from the Karolinska Institute, and conducted his postdoctoral fellowship at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Steven L. McKnight, Ph.D.

Founder

Dr. McKnight is Professor at the University of Texas, Southwestern, and he serves as the chair of the Flare scientific advisory board. He is a transcription factor pioneer and member of the National Academy of Sciences. His notable work includes the discovery of leucine zipper transcription factors, unlocking the druggability of the non-nuclear receptor transcription factor HIF2A, and co-discovery the phenomena of phase separation by low-complexity domains.

Dr. McKnight’s previous positions as an academic research scientist include roles at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and the Carnegie Embryology Department. He is also a successful serial entrepreneur, co-founding the transcription factor companies Tularik (acquired by Amgen) and Peloton (acquired by Merck). He has been recognized with the NAS award in Molecular Biology, the Newcomb-Cleveland prize from Science, the Eli Lilly award from the ASM, the co-recipient of the Wiley Prize in biology for work on the hypoxia response pathway, and the Welch Foundation Award in Chemistry.  He received his Ph.D. in biology from the University of Virginia and his undergraduate degree in biology from the University of Texas.

Irena Melnikova

Board Member

Irena Melnikova, Ph.D. is a Partner at Pfizer Ventures. She is an accomplished biopharma and finance executive with over 20 years of experience in equity financings in both public and private markets, corporate strategy, business development, and operations. Prior to Pfizer Ventures, Dr. Melnikova served as the Chief Financial Officer at Umoja Biopharma where she was a senior member of the executive team responsible for all aspects of financial strategy and operations of the company.

Prior to Umoja, Dr. Melnikova served as a Managing Director, Biopharma Investment Banking at SVB Leerink (now SVB Securities), where she provided critical advice to biopharma companies and their boards on equity financing strategies, completing over 80 transactions raising over $9 billion for clients. Earlier in her career, she held leadership positions at Sanofi and TVM Capital; the latter – a global life sciences venture capital firm.

Dr. Melnikova holds a Ph.D. in Molecular Medicine/Molecular Biology from the University of Texas.

Steven M. Paul, M.D.

Board Member

Steven Paul, M.D., is a physician-scientist, psychiatrist, neuroscientist and expert in drug discovery and development. Dr. Paul currently serves as chairman of the board, president and chief executive officer of Karuna Therapeutics (NASDAQ: KRTX) and he is a venture partner at Third Rock Ventures. He spent 17 years at Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY), including roles as Executive Vice President for Science and Technology and President of the Lilly Research Laboratories. Prior to Lilly, he spent 18 years at the National Institute of Health (NIH) and served as the Scientific Director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Dr. Paul is a co-founder and board member of Sage Therapeutics (NASDAQ: SAGE), a co-founder of Voyager Therapeutics (NASDAQ: VYGR) where he served as President, Chief Executive Officer, and a member of the board of directors at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ALNY). Dr. Paul is the former director of the Appel Alzheimer Disease Research Institute at Weill Cornell Medical College and is currently a Professor of Psychiatry at Washington University of St. Louis School of Medicine.

Dr. Paul has authored or co-authored more than 550 papers and book chapters. He has been elected to many national medical societies, including the National Academy of Medicine and the Science Board of the U.S. FDA, and has received many awards and honors for his scientific research.  He has a B.A. in Biology and Psychology from Tulane University, and an M.S. and M.D. from the Tulane University School of Medicine.

Amit Rakhit, M.D., MBA

President and CEO

Amit is a physician and healthcare executive with more than 20 years of leadership, clinical and operational experience in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry.

His core motivation is and has always been to enhance teams and companies defining new treatment approaches for patients in need. Amit has launched and grown start-up biotechnology companies and led global clinical development, medical affairs, and post-marketing development teams in therapeutic areas including rare disease, neurology, oncology and cardiology. He oversaw clinical development and commercialization strategy in roles as CEO of Sporos BioVentures and President and Chief Medical Officer of Ovid Therapeutics. Earlier in his career, he led global development, launch and commercialization initiatives teams for Spinraza® and Plavix®. Before turning his attention to the industry, he was a pediatric cardiologist on staff in the cardiac transplant service at Boston Children’s Hospital.

Fraydoon Rastinejad, Ph.D.

Founder

Dr. Rastinejad is Wellcome-Trust Senior Investigator and Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Oxford and a world leader in the structure and function of transcription factors. Dr. Rastinejad has blazed a new understanding of how transcription factor complexes associate and cooperatively interact to facilitate DNA recognition. His laboratory at Oxford currently studies structures and small-molecule binding properties of transcription factors that act as nutritional, hormonal, and environmental sensors.  For his work on nuclear receptors and mammalian bHLH-PAS proteins, Dr. Rastinejad has received multiple career honors, including Glaxo Wellcome Chemistry Scholar award, Established Investigator award from the American Heart Association, and Fellow of Royal Society in Biology.

He trained as a postdoctoral fellow with Paul Sigler at Yale University, where he began his interests in structural characterization of gene-regulatory complexes.  He received dual Bachelor degrees from Northwestern University in Mathematics and Biochemistry, and a Ph.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania in Biophysics.

Jigar Raythatha

Board Member

Jigar Raythatha is a venture partner with Third Rock Ventures. Prior to joining Third Rock, he served as president and chief executive officer of Constellation Pharmaceuticals, Inc. from 2017 until its acquisition in 2021. Jigar also led the corporate development function at Constellation from 2009 to 2013. Jigar re-joined Constellation from Jounce Therapeutics Inc., where he held the role of chief business officer from the inception of the company through its IPO. Previously, Jigar worked with Red Abbey Venture Partners, initially, as a Kauffman Fellow and later as a principal and venture partner. Earlier in his career, Jigar held roles of increasing responsibility at Biogen and A.T. Kearney. He earned an MBA from Columbia University and a B.A. in biochemistry and economics from Rutgers University. Jigar is currently chair of the board of directors at Jounce Therapeutics (JNCE) and Triana Biomedicines.  He is also a member of the board the American Cancer Society New England Area.

Robert Sims, Ph.D.

Founder

With more than 20 years of experience in the transcription field, including 10+ years in the drug discovery of gene control, Dr. Sims is passionate about working with diverse and talented teams to discover and develop novel transcription factor medicines. He most recently served as senior vice president of research of Constellation Pharmaceuticals where, as a founding scientist, he contributed to nearly all aspects of company creation— from concept to becoming a public company, with multiple programs in clinical development. While at Constellation, he led the discovery and translational efforts for Pelabresib, a BET bromodomain inhibitor now in phase 3 clinical development for the treatment of myelofibrosis.

Dr. Sims has authored more than 30 scientific publications in top-tier journals, including Science, Nature, and Cell.  He has a Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Biology and a B.S. in Microbiology from the University of Texas at Austin.

Jacob Stuckey, Ph.D.

Founding Scientist

Jacob Stuckey is Senior Director, Biochemistry and Chemical Biology, and a Founding Scientist of Flare Therapeutics. He has a track record of bringing expert skills to the drug discovery process, blending mechanistic biochemistry with state-of-the-art drug discovery and chemical biology approaches. As one of the architects of Flare’s switch site approach, Dr. Stuckey is excited to help drive the discovery of the next wave of medicines targeting transcription factors. Prior to helping to establish Flare, he was a senior scientist at Constellation Pharmaceuticals where he contributed to numerous drug discovery efforts, including co-invention of CPI-0209, Constellation’s second generation EZH2 inhibitor that is currently in clinical trials.

Dr. Stuckey earned his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his B.S. in chemistry from Lenoir-Rhyne University. His research at UNC focused on technologies to help with drug discovery of potential epigenetic cancer therapies.

Stephen Frye, Ph.D.

Advisor

Dr. Frye is Fred Eshelman Distinguished Professor and co-director of the Center for Integrative Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery (CICBDD) at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. He additionally co-directs the Molecular Therapeutics program in the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. Through the CICBDD, Dr. Frye has helped foster numerous collaborative academic drug discovery projects, including one program progressing through multiple clinical trials. In addition, his Center has established a leading program in the area of chemical biology of chromatin regulation and Dr. Frye has published more than 70 papers in this field.

Prior to joining UNC, Dr. Frye was the worldwide vice president of Discovery Medicinal Chemistry at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) where he managed five departments and more than 200 chemists in the U.S. and U.K. developing global protein target-class chemical science. During his 20-year career at GSK, the teams led by Dr. Frye successfully developed three FDA approved drugs: Avodart, Tykerb and Pazopanib.  He has a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from UNC and a B.S. in Chemistry from North Carolina State University.

Robert Tepper, M.D.

Advisor

Bob serves as an R&D advisor to the scientific team at Flare.

In over thirty years of working in the industry, Bob has made it his mission to turn scientific breakthroughs into new treatments for patients. He holds an A.B. in Biochemistry from Princeton and an M.D. from Harvard.

When he is not hard at work solving scientific problems, he enjoys growing his own food, caring for two shelter dogs, and spending time with his kids and grandkids.