AMBRIDGE, Mass.– Flare Therapeutics, a biotechnology company targeting transcription factors to discover precision medicines for cancer and other diseases, today announced the appointment of Daphne Karydas as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer, and Michaela Bowden, PhD, as Senior Vice President of Biology and Translation.
“We are thrilled to be growing Flare’s executive team with the appointment of these two outstanding and accomplished industry leaders, deepening our expertise in areas of business and science and positioning Flare for growth,” said Abbie Celniker, PhD, interim Chief Executive Officer of Flare and partner at Third Rock Ventures. “Daphne’s decades of experience in a range of financial leadership roles in the biopharma industry and her proven skills in developing and executing growth strategies will be invaluable as we evolve Flare and grow as an oncology platform and pipeline company. Michaela brings her own deep experience and a critical set of skills to lead successful biology and translational research, enabling multidisciplinary R&D strategies to bridge our leading edge oncology drug discovery to high-impact precision medicines in the clinic.”
Daphne Karydas, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer
“I couldn’t imagine a more exciting time and opportunity to join Flare,” said Ms. Karydas. “I feel fortunate to have the opportunity to work with such a talented team focused on pioneering a dramatically new way to target transcription factors and bring new medicines to cancer patients in need. I look forward to using my experience building and leading finance teams and my operations capabilities to help a growing organization execute on its strategy, goals and mission to impact the lives of patients.”
Daphne Karydas brings to Flare over 20 years of financial and operations experience in the biopharmaceutical industry, most recently as Chief Financial Officer for Syndax Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: SNDX.) Previously, she worked at Allergan in roles as Senior Vice President of Corporate Financial Planning & Analysis and Strategy, where she oversaw the company’s long-term financial and business strategy until its acquisition by AbbVie in May 2020, and as Senior Vice President of Global Investor Relations and Strategy. Prior to joining Allergan, she served as Executive Director and Senior Healthcare Analyst at J.P. Morgan Asset Management and as a Portfolio Manager and Senior Healthcare Analyst at The Boston Company Asset Management, a BNY Mellon company. Earlier, Ms. Karydas was a Vice President at Goldman Sachs Asset Management focused on healthcare, as well as a member of Goldman Sachs’ healthcare investment banking team. Before joining Goldman Sachs, she was a Project Chemical Engineer at Merck & Co. where she focused on process development for novel vaccines. She currently serves on the board of Eucrates Biomedical Acquisition Corp. and LogicBio Therapeutics, each of which is a publicly traded company, and Elicio Therapeutics, a privately held biotechnology company. Ms. Karydas received a BA and MS in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Michaela Bowden, PhD, SVP of Biology and Translation
“It is a privilege to be joining Flare at a time when there is an opportunity to develop and shape our R&D strategies to enable a ground breaking new approach to targeting transcription factors through the switch site,” said Dr. Bowden. “Flare’s innovative approach gives us the potential to create highly promising precision medicines for cancer, and I look forward to bringing my own unique perspective and R&D expertise to the amazing team at Flare.”
Michaela Bowden, PhD, is an accomplished scientist and leader with over 15 years of experience building multidisciplinary research teams at drug discovery organizations of all sizes. Dr. Bowden joins Flare from Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) where she served as executive director of translational biology and led teams at research sites in Cambridge, Mass., and New Jersey focused on immuno-oncology drug development. Prior to BMS, she served in scientific leadership roles at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, as well as at a startup life sciences company in her native Ireland. Dr. Bowden has expertise in elucidating patient phenotypes associated with tumor heterogeneity and the tumor microenvironment, which have led her to developing novel biomarker approaches that define high risk patient segments unmet by current treatment regimens. She has technical experience from developing biotechnology platforms to leveraging state-of-the-art disruptive technologies to address key translational hypotheses that impact drug discovery, casting a broad collaborative net across a diverse network of oncology experts at the intersection of clinic, biopharma and biotechnology. Dr. Bowden was a post-doctoral research fellow at Tufts University in the areas of assay development, multiplexed diagnostics and next-generation sequencing. She has a BSc and PhD in Analytical Science and Microfluidics from Dublin City University.
