Tony KulesaWe are thrilled to announce that John Casey is joining Pillar as a Venture Partner.
John brings a wealth of experience in venture creation, scientific strategy, and innovation in biotechnology startups. John joins us from his most recent role as cofounder and Head of Business Development at Senda Biosciences (now Sail Biomedicines), which programs medicines by integrating insights from nature into its unique platform for efficiently developing more targeted and efficacious RNA therapeutics.
John was previously at Flagship Pioneering, where he played a critical role in shaping the scientific direction of numerous startups. John cofounded Kintai Therapeutics to leverage a novel orally bioavailable drug chemistry he invented alongside discovery insights from first-in-class metabolomic and metagenomic profiles of the gastrointestinal system. He also cofounded Inari Agriculture, a leading crop sciences company developing transformative seed technologies to yield higher productivity and sustainability in our food system.
John earned his doctorate in biological engineering at MIT, developing a novel class of thermostable de novo-designed enzymes. John received his B.S. in biological engineering from Louisiana State University, with a research focus on modified RNA nucleosides.
A three-time founder, John will work as a Venture Partner to found new biotechnology companies, with more to be announced soon!
John embodies all the qualities of a great entrepreneur as well as a great human being and we are incredibly excited to have him on the team. Welcome John!
