Human Genome Sciences Alumni:
Where Are They Now?

Human Genome Sciences (HGS) sits at the center
of the BioHealth Capital Region’s (BHCR)
origin story.

Founded in 1992, and acquired by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in 2012, HGS played a critical role in advancing the genomic sciences and sparked the evolution of what is now one of the largest and most vibrant life sciences clusters in the world.

HGS alumni recently gathered to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the GSK acquisition at an alumni reunion event sponsored by Kymanox and BioIT Solutions, two renowned companies founded by HGS Alumni. The event brought together 140 alumni, including a veritable “who’s, who” of BHCR entrepreneurs, founders and key thought leaders that once called HGS home and then went on to new heights.

We thought it an apt moment to showcase HGS’s rich legacy by checking in to see how these alumni are shaping the future of modern medicine, as well as our growing life sciences ecosystem.

David Hilbert

Former VP of Research at HGS
Former Founder, CEO and Chief Technical Officer of Arcellx, Serial Entrepreneur
Current Independent Consultant

Hilbert has spent the past 20+ years combining his disciplined approach to science with the business of effective drug development and corporate management. Hilbert founded Arcellx, a company focused on the development of regulated immune cell therapies for treatment of human disease, which went public in 2022.

From 2009-2014, Hilbert was the CSO at Zyngenia, Inc., and led the company’s development of multi-specific antibody-based therapeutics.  From 2006 to 2009, he consulted with leading scientists, executives, and venture firms in assisting startup biotech companies with the many strategic and operational challenges associated with early stage drug development. In 2004, he served as Vice President of Research at Cellective Therapeutics, a start-up antibody company acquired by MedImmune in October 2005.  Hilbert began his biotech career in 1996 at Human Genome Sciences (HGS) where he spent 8 years guiding the preclinical development of antibodies and genomics-based therapeutics. (Source: BioHealth Capital website.)

Jason Bock

Former Senior Scientist, Process Development at HGS
Founder and CEO, CTMC, A Joint Venture between Resilience and MD Anderson Cancer

Bock is the CEO of CTMC, a joint venture between Resilience and MD Anderson Cancer Center. Formed in May 2022 to bring together innovative academic science with industrial drug development and advanced manufacturing capabilities to rapidly enable cell therapies that impact patients.

In 2019, Bock was recruited by MD Anderson from Teva Pharmaceuticals to build the Biologics Development group. The group purchased a 60,000 SF facility and has since formed multiple partnerships with both MD Anderson faculty and biotech firms to bring their products through the IND process. Previously Bock was Site Head and VP of Global CMC Biologics in the Specialty R&D Division of Teva Pharmaceuticals. He joined Teva through the acquisition of CoGenesys, a private biotech firm as a spinoff from Human Genome Sciences (HGS) where he worked after completing a PhD at Stanford University in Molecular & Cellular Physiology. (Source: Sonnetbio.)

Mike Fannon

Former HGS CIO, one of its first few employees
Current President and CEO of BioIT Solutions

Fannon has over 20 years of direct experience in the design, development and management of systems focused on Biotechnology research, development, clinical trials and product manufacturing. He is the chief architect of the BioIT Solutions Portal Products that provides a suite of services for capturing, presenting and analyzing information along the full biotech product lifecycle.

Fannon was Vice President and Chief Information Officer of Human Genome Sciences, Inc. from 1994 through September 2005. He managed the design and implementation of computerized systems to support HGS’s high-volume laboratory data collection, biological research, clinical data management, product development, manufacturing and business operations.

Fannon is an author of publications in scientific journals and business magazines; he is co-inventor on two patents for microbial genomes. (Source: BioIT Website)

Stephen Perry

Former Senior Process Engineer at HGS
Current Kymanox CEO

Perry has over two decades of experience in biopharmaceutical manufacturing with an emphasis on design engineering, scale-up, start-up, and regulatory approval. He has participated in the FDA commercial approval of more than two dozen unique drugs, devices, biologics, and combination products. He has extensive cGMP experience as a Process Engineer, Technical Project Manager, Quality Manager, Regulatory Auditor, and Information Technology Strategist.

In 2004, Perry created Kymanox as a professional services firm specializing in commercializing modern medicine. Starting with a small investment and large commitment, he has strategically grown Kymanox into a nationally recognized organization serving companies in combination products, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and beyond. Prior to Kymanox, Perry had various leadership roles supporting commercialization at M+W Group, Abbott Laboratories, FujiFilm Diosynth Biotechnologies and Human Genome Sciences.

Perry graduated with high honors with a bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame and studied at the graduate level at Purdue University. (Source: Kymanox website)

Victor Roschki

Former Executive Director, Clinical Immunology and Antibody Development
Serial Entrepreneur, Co-founder, CSO and Head of R&D at Neuraly

Roschke has a deep history of leadership and entrepreneurial roles in the BHCR that begins with his nearly 10-year run at Human Genome Sciences (HGSi) as Executive Director, Clinical Immunology and Antibody Development. Roschke helped lead HGSi’s only spin-out, CoGenesys, and played a critical role in the due diligence that led to the company’s acquisition by Teva Pharmaceuticals, where he eventually became VP of Biopharmaceutical Research. After Teva, Roschke joined Zyngenia as VP of Research and Development and a board member to lead the development of the company’s technology platform. Roschke also led the acquisition process that resulted in its purchase by PharmEco and then acted as Interim CEO during the integration process.

In July 2015, he co-founded Theraly Fibrosis, a company focused on developing treatments for fibrotic disease variants based on the work of co-founder and Johns Hopkins Associate Professor, Seulki Lee. A year later, he co-founded Neuraly as a sister company to Theraly based on research led by Johns Hopkins’ Ted Dawson, M.D., PhD, the Leonard and Madlyn Abramson Professor in Neurodegenerative Diseases andirector of the university’s Institute for Cell Engineering.

Shiva Fritsch

Former HGS Director of Talent Management
Current Chief People Officer at Regenxbio

Fritsch brings over two decades of experience in research, development and human resources in the biopharmaceutical industry to her role as Chief People Officer at REGENXBIO, a leading gene therapy company. When you examine the REGENXBIO org chart, you’ll notice that she also brought many of her past colleagues from HGS with her as well.  For the past decade, Fritsch has been a leader in different organizations where she focused on Leadership and Organization Development.

Prior to joining REGENXBIO, Fritsch was the Senior Director of Talent Management with Novavax, Inc. Before Novavax, she held senior human resources roles with Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Human Genome Sciences, Inc. In her prior roles, Fritsch served as a member of HR Leadership teams, where she directed activities related to Talent Acquisition, Organization and Leadership Development, and implemented HR Business Partner models.

Fritsch holds an MBA from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, College Park, as well as a BA in Biology and Neurobiology from Bryn Mawr College. (Source: REGENXBIO website.)

Randy Maddux

Former VP of Manufacturing Operations at HGS
Current COO at iBIO

Maddux has more than 20 years of global biologics drug development and manufacturing, business development and relationship management experience. Before joining iBio in December 2020, he was SVP and Chief Manufacturing Officer at Aptevo Therapeutics. Previously, Maddux was VP and Site Director at GlaxoSmithKline, where he led the largest biopharmaceutical development and manufacturing site within the GSK manufacturing network and was instrumental in launching a successful contract development and manufacturing (CDMO) services business. Prior to GSK, he was VP Quality and Operations at Human Genome Sciences and held positions of increasing responsibility within Biogen’s Quality organization. During his career, Mr. Maddux has served in key roles supporting the licensure and commercial launch of several biopharmaceutical products. He holds an MBA in Operations and Statistics from Duke University, Fuqua School of Business and a BS Professional in Analytical Chemistry from East Carolina University. (Source: iBio website.)

In addition to some of those listed above, several Alumni have taken an entrepreneurial route and co-founded or are leading innovative early stage biohealth companies…

Samneang Samnang

Former Bioprocess Associate at HGS

Spent six years with GSK and 12 years with AstraZeneca before becoming the Head of Gene Therapy Manufacturing at FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies in Texas.

James Bingham

Former Section Head, In Process Technologies at HGS

Serial Entrepreneur, Founder of “Stealth mode NewCo”, previously founding member of NextCure and former VP at Amplimmune.

Ken Carter

Former Senior Scientist at HGS

Serial Entrepreneur, Co-Founder and Chairman of Noble Life Sciences and Global Head of Corporate Development & President of US Operations, Innoforce Pharmaceuticals. Previously Carter has been involved in the formation and early stage development of several companies as a co-founder, consultant, or a member of the board of the directors including Avalon Pharmaceuticals, Inc., NexImmune and Neuralstem, which became Seneca BioPharma before and then Palisades Bio after a merger.

Alain Cappeluti

Former VP of Finance at HGS

Serial Entrepreneur, co-founder of Noble Life Sciences in addition to several other biotech companies including CoGenesys (which spun out of HGS), O-Traces, Inc. and NexImmune, in addition to being a BioBuzz Leadership Award Finalist.

Darryl Sampey

Former Bioprocess Engineer III at HGS

Current President and CEO of BioFactura which he co-founded in 2004 and has guided over the past 15 years from start-up through incubator stages to become a clinical-stage biosimilars product development and clinical manufacturing company.

Jerry Parrott

Former VP of Corporate Affairs and Public Policy at HGS

Current President, CEO and Director at BioMarker Strategies LLC since 2009, and additionally served as a Director of Noxilizer Inc.

Stephen Garvey

Second employee at HGS

Serial entrepreneur and executive with companies such as Avalon Pharmaceuticals. Co-founder of Noble Life Sciences where he served as vice president of laboratory animal resources and services. He is now a Director of Lab Animal Management at Johns Hopkins.

Henrik Olsen

A founding employee at HGS

Currently the VP of Drug Discovery at Gliknik and previously a Director at Artesian Therapeutics and then at Celera. Henrik is a named inventor on 62 issued U.S. patents.

Luis Branco

Former Stable Cell Generation Group Manager at HGS

Current Managing Director and Co-founder, Zalgen Labs, LLC.

Kevin McRaith

Former VP of Sales and Marketing at HGS

Current CEO at WellDoc®

Others are now executives leading some of the top companies in the field…

• Tom Spitznagel, VP BioPharmaceutical Development and Manufacturing, MacroGenics
• Curran Simpson, SVP, Technical Operations, REGENXBIO
• Sarah Thomas,Vice President, Quality, REGENXBIO
• Michele Fiscella, Vice President, Preclinical Development and Bioanalytical Sciences, REGENXBIO
• Michele Wales, General Council, Adaptive Phage Therapeutics
• Jennifer Manning, SVP, Global Strategic Partnerships, Center for Breakthrough Medicines
• Samneang Samnang, Head of Gene Therapy Manufacturing, FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies
• Paul Moore, Chief Scientific Officer, Zymeworks
• Rutul Shah, Head of Operations, Precigen
• Shashi Kaithamana, Vice President Protein Sciences, Arcellx
• Stephen Hubert, Sr. Director of Manufacturing, Synthetic Biologics, Inc.
• Daniel Bednarik, Senior Vice President, Molecular Engineering and Protein Design, NexImmune
• Mark Stacey, Strategic Partnerships Director, AstraZeneca
• Kathleen Huddleston, Associate Director of Quality Operations, Lentigen Technology
• Qinghua (Jenny) Zhao, Executive Director, Forecytebio
• Nathan Forrest, Principal, Managing Partner, ABIO
• Patrick Cronin, Vice President, Clinical Operations, Spectrum Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
• Jeff Herpst, Senior Director, Clinical Development, Gliknik, Inc.
• Lisa Richardson, Vice President, Business Development, Vir Biotechnology, Inc.
• Lisa Cozza, Chief Operating Officer, Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, LP
• Clem Purcelll, Associate Director, Cell and Gene Therapy, Novartis
• Edward Fix, Vice President of Manufacturing, Theradaptive
• Tom Rohrer, Senior Director of Manufacturing, Lonza
• Anthony (Tony) S. Murabito, R.Ph., M.S., VP of Information Technology, Wave Life Sciences

This is just an abridged list of the many HGS Alumni across the field who have continued on to successful careers and have made tremendous contributions to the industry through their work. 

If we missed you on the list please feel free to reach out and so we can consider you for future publications. (Contact: [email protected].)