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**Company applauds recent advances and ongoing development of Prime Editing**


**Cambridge, Mass.**—October 19, 2021—Prime Medicine, Inc., a company founded to deliver on the promise of Prime Editing, today announced the addition of capabilities to its platform based on recent scientific research. 

“We are very excited to see improvements emerging that will further increase Prime Editing’s feasibility as a therapeutic approach,” said Keith Gottesdiener, MD, CEO of Prime Medicine. “These advancements, on top of an already groundbreaking foundational technology, are likely to increase the efficiency of Prime Editing, and will broaden the areas where Prime Editing might work, potentially extending our reach to additional diseases that no gene editing approach has yet been able to address.”

With these new advances made by external scientists, and with Prime Medicine’s ongoing efforts by its internal development team, the company expects to further optimize Prime Editing’s versatility, precision, and efficiency. Capabilities described in recent papers in *Nature Biotechnology* and *Cell* could enable the development of more efficacious therapeutics through improved gene editing activity. 

One advance involves an optimized Prime Editing guide RNA (pegRNA). Prime Editing uses a pegRNA molecule to find the gene target and to direct the desired repair or edit. In a paper [published in Nature Biotechnology](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-021-01039-7) on October 4, 2021, authors led by David R. Liu, one of Prime Medicine’s founders, showed that optimized, engineered pegRNAs (epegRNAs) can improve the efficiency of the editing process several-fold. 

The company is also pursuing recently described strategies for improving efficiency by modulating a specific DNA repair pathway. In a paper [published in Cell](https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(21)01065-5#%20) on October 14, 2021, authors led by Liu and Britt Adamson identified a specific DNA repair pathway, called the mismatch repair pathway, that powerfully enhances prime editing efficiency. They showed that editing activity could be increased several-fold, and undesired by-products could be decreased several-fold, by modulating the mismatch repair pathway through several approaches.  

Prime Medicine holds commercial rights from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard to use Prime Editing for human therapeutic purposes, while scientists and companies around the world continue to make use of Prime Editing for research purposes and other applications. 


**About Prime Medicine**

Prime Medicine, Inc. is a biotechnology company founded to deliver on the promise of Prime Editing, a versatile gene editing technology that can truly “search and replace” to restore normal genetic function and address the fundamental causes of disease. Prime Medicine envisions a world where Prime Editing can cure, halt, and ultimately prevent genetic diseases, providing lifelong benefit to patients and shaping the future of gene editing. For more information, visit [www.primemedicine.com](www.primemedicine.com) or [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/prime-medicine).

**Investor Contact**

Hannah Deresiewicz

Stern Investor Relations, Inc.

212-362-1200

[hannah.deresiewicz@sternir.com](mailto:hannah.deresiewicz@sternir.com)

**Media Contact**

Morgan Warners

Finsbury Glover Hering

202-295-0124

[morgan.warners@fgh.com](mailto:morgan.warners@fgh.com)


Prime Medicine Announces Addition of Capabilities to Prime Editing Platform

[text](link)**Industry veteran brings wealth of experience in process development and manufacturing for innovative medicines**

**Cambridge, Mass.**—October 13, 2021— Prime Medicine™, a company delivering on the promise of Prime Editing to provide lifelong cures to patients, today announced the appointment of Ann L. Lee, PhD, as Chief Technical Officer.  Dr. Lee will develop innovative CMC and manufacturing strategies, and oversee process and analytical development, supply chain, quality, and manufacturing operations in partnership with the company’s research teams. 

“I am very excited to help advance this groundbreaking technology to the clinic and move closer to helping patients suffering from serious diseases,” said Lee. “I believe deeply in the power of teamwork to innovate powerful new medicines, so I am eager to join the great team at Prime. It is a true privilege to develop the technologies, capabilities, and infrastructure needed to advance Prime Editing therapeutics for patients.”

Dr. Lee is an accomplished biotech executive with extensive experience in the development and manufacturing of engineered cell therapies, vaccines, biologics, and small molecule drugs.  She led Technical Operations at Juno Therapeutics, which transitioned into leading roles at Celgene and then Bristol Myers Squibb. In those roles she built a global Cell Therapy Development and Operations organization responsible for developing new manufacturing processes and technologies, production, quality, facility design, global supply chain network, and digital systems to commercialize autologous, genetically engineered cell therapies.   

“Ann is one of the absolute best in the business when it comes to manufacturing and process development for new therapeutic modalities, and we couldn’t be happier to welcome her to Prime Medicine,” said Keith Gottesdiener, MD, CEO of Prime Medicine. “Ann’s passion for helping patients, developing talent, and advancing new technologies will make Prime an even more special place to work.”

Over the course of her career, Dr. Lee has contributed to the licensure and commercialization of 25 new vaccines and medicines, with the most recent being two CAR T cell therapies. At Genentech, in 2005 she was VP of Process R&D and became SVP and Head of Global Technical Development at Roche in 2009, where she was responsible for delivering Roche’s global R&D pipeline as well as tech transfer and technical support for all commercial products.  Prior to Genentech, she spent 14 years at Merck Research Laboratories where she advanced through several leadership positions in vaccine development before becoming Vice President of Chemical Technology and Engineering in the Manufacturing Division.  

Dr. Lee is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering.  She is the recipient of many scientific and engineering awards and has served on several professional, academic, and company boards.  She holds a BS in chemical engineering from Cornell University and a PhD in biochemical engineering from Yale University.   

**About Prime Medicine**

Prime Medicine is a biotechnology company founded to deliver on the promise of Prime Editing, a versatile gene editing technology that can truly “search and replace” to restore normal genetic function and address the fundamental causes of disease. Prime Medicine envisions a world where Prime Editing can cure, halt, and ultimately prevent genetic diseases, providing lifelong benefit to patients and shaping the future of gene editing. For more information, visit [www.primemedicine.com](www.primemedicine.com) or [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/prime-medicine).

**Investor Contact**

Hannah Deresiewicz

Stern Investor Relations, Inc.

212-362-1200

[hannah.deresiewicz@sternir.com](mailto:hannah.deresiewicz@sternir.com)

**Media Contact**

Morgan Warners

Finsbury Glover Hering

202-295-0124

[morgan.warners@fgh.com](mailto:morgan.warners@fgh.com)



Prime Medicine Appoints Ann L. Lee as Chief Technical Officer

In the News

The Endpoints 11: They've got mad money and huge ambitions. It's time to go big or go home

***Company is pioneering true “search and replace” gene editing to address the fundamental genetic causes of disease, restore normal gene function, and potentially provide patients with long-lasting cures***

***Company led by Chief Executive Officer Keith Gottesdiener, MD, Chief Scientific Officer Jeremy Duffield, MD, PhD; scientific founders are David R. Liu, PhD and Andrew Anzalone, MD, PhD***

**Cambridge, Mass.** – July 13, 2021 – Prime Medicine™, a company delivering on the promise of Prime Editing to provide lifelong cures to patients, today announced its launch with $315 million in financing. 

The financing comprised a $115 million Series A; based on the rapid progress of the science and the company, Prime Medicine expanded its syndicate support with a $200M Series B financing approximately nine months after the company began operations. Investors in the Series A included ARCH Venture Partners, F-Prime Capital, GV, and Newpath Partners. The Series B included all Series A investors, plus Casdin Capital, Cormorant Asset Management, Moore Strategic Ventures, Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP Investments), Redmile Group, Samsara BioCapital, funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., and a number of additional, unnamed life sciences investment funds. 

“Prime Editing is a wonderful example of the revolution in genetic medicine that we are living through,” said Robert Nelsen, co-founder and Managing Director of ARCH Venture Partners. “When mature, gene editing technologies like this could totally change our conception of what’s possible in treating disease.”

“This is an opportunity to take a giant step toward cures for a much wider range of diseases than previously possible,” said Stephen Knight, MD, President and Managing Partner of F-Prime Capital.

The funds raised will be used to continue building the company, rapidly advance towards clinical indications, expand the capabilities of the platform, and to further enhance the exceptional promise of Prime Editing. By the end of 2021, Prime Medicine expects to employ more than 100 people full-time. 

“Prime Editing represents an opportunity to do what no gene editing approach has yet been capable of – correcting nearly all types of pathogenic gene mutations, correcting multiple mutations at once, and bringing durable cures to patients across multiple disease areas, potentially with a single ‘once and done’ treatment approach,” said David Schenkein, MD, General Partner at GV. “We are tremendously excited about the potential of this technology, and about the talented team at Prime working to bring it to patients.”

Prime Editing is a next-generation gene editing technology that acts like a DNA word processor to “search and replace” disease-causing genetic sequences at their precise location in the genome, without resulting in double-strand DNA breaks that cause unwanted cellular changes. It is versatile, with the potential to address more than 90 percent of known disease-causing mutations, and works in a variety of dividing and non-dividing primary human cells, as well as in animals. Prime editing has been shown by multiple independent laboratories to make genome edits with high fidelity, making edits precisely at the desired location with minimal or no editing in other parts of the genome. Together, these features overcome several technical barriers attributed to earlier gene editing technologies. 

“Prime Editing is a transformative technology that we believe will make a significant impact by addressing the fundamental causes of genetic disease,” said Keith Gottesdiener, MD, CEO of Prime Medicine. “Since Prime began operations in the summer of 2020, we have continued to make great progress in advancing the performance of Prime Editing, which allowed us to close our Series B financing nine months later. We are operating from a position of financial strength, and look forward to further developing the technology and progressing our preclinical programs toward the clinic, with the hope that they may cure or halt the progression of genetic diseases for patients.”


**Scientific Approach**

Prime Editing was developed by scientific founders David R. Liu, PhD and Andrew Anzalone, MD, PhD, at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Dr. Liu is the Richard Merkin Professor, director of the Merkin Institute of Transformative Technologies in Healthcare, core institute member and vice chair of the faculty at the Broad Institute, and a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard University. Dr. Anzalone conceived of Prime Editing and brought it to Dr. Liu’s laboratory, where it was developed. Dr. Anzalone is now advancing Prime Editing as Head of Prime Editing Platform at Prime Medicine.

Prime Medicine is currently advancing multiple drug discovery programs targeted at liver, eye, ex-vivo hematopoietic stem cell, and neuro-muscular indications. 

A study describing Prime Editing’s ability to “search and replace” to restore normal genetic function almost anywhere in the genome was first published in [*Nature*](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6907074/) in 2019. The technology was immediately and widely recognized as a major advance in gene editing, with the potential to overcome fundamental barriers that have prohibited existing gene editing approaches from addressing many genetic diseases. Since then, Prime Editing has been validated in numerous laboratories around the world and dozens of peer-reviewed articles. 

The technology works by using a prime editor protein comprising a Cas nickase domain and a reverse transcriptase domain, together with a prime editing guide RNA (pegRNA) that carries both a targeting sequence and a template for a replacement sequence. The prime editor searches for the specific DNA sequence that needs to be edited. Once located, the prime editor uses the pegRNA’s “replace” sequence to activate the reverse transcriptase domain, which makes a DNA copy of the template carried by the pegRNA, creating a corrected DNA sequence. The corrected sequence then preferentially replaces the original genomic DNA, resulting in a permanent edit of the DNA at the target location.

Prime Medicine also benefits from a relationship with Beam Therapeutics. Prime and Beam are separate companies that both emerged from the laboratory of Dr. David R. Liu. Sharing many common interests, Prime and Beam have built a partnership to form a collaborative approach to fighting disease and accelerating the development of Prime Editing to deliver therapies for patients. In the areas of partnership, Prime Medicine and Beam share research, expertise, and intellectual property for assays, know-how, delivery, and manufacturing.

The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard has extended a license for prime editing technology to Prime Medicine for human therapeutic uses under the Broad Institute’s inclusive innovation model.


**Leadership team**

Biotech veteran Keith Gottesdiener, MD is president and chief executive officer of Prime Medicine. Dr. Gottesdiener helmed Rhythm Pharmaceuticals, Inc. for nine years, leading the company to FDA submission of IMCIVREE (setmelanotide), the first treatment for rare genetic diseases of obesity, which was rapidly followed by FDA approval. Over the course of Dr. Gottesdiener’s tenure, Rhythm raised approximately $700 million through both private and public financings, as well as licensing deals, and grew from 3 employees to 100. Before joining Rhythm in 2011, Dr. Gottesdiener spent 16 years at Merck Research Laboratories, where he held positions of leadership across Merck’s early and late clinical development organizations. 

The Prime Medicine leadership team brings significant company building, scientific and drug development experience and also includes: 

•	Jeremy Duffield, MD, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer  
•	Meredith Goldwasser, ScD, SVP, Strategy and Corporate Operations  
•	Andrew Anzalone, MD, PhD, Co-founder and Head of Prime Editing Platform  
•	Karen Brown, PhD, JD, SVP Intellectual Property and Legal Affairs

The company’s investors and board members are life sciences leaders with extensive experience building biotech companies pioneering novel technologies, including: 

•	Keith Gottesdiener, President and CEO, Prime Medicine  
•	Stephen Knight, President and Managing Partner, F-Prime Capital    
•	Robert Nelsen, Co-founder and Managing Director, ARCH Venture Partners   
•	David Schenkein, MD, General Partner, GV  
•	John Evans, Chief Executive Officer, Beam Therapeutics
 


**About Prime Medicine**

Prime Medicine is a biotechnology company founded to deliver on the promise of Prime Editing, a versatile gene editing technology that can truly “search and replace” to restore normal genetic function and address the fundamental causes of disease. Prime Medicine envisions a world where Prime Editing can cure, halt, and ultimately prevent genetic diseases, providing lifelong benefit to patients and shaping the future of gene editing. For more information, visit [www.primemedicine.com](http://www.primemedicine.com/) or [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/prime-medicine/https:/www.linkedin.com/company/prime-medicine/).

**Investor Contact**  

Hannah Deresiewicz   

Stern Investor Relations, Inc.   

212-362-1200
  
[hannah.deresiewicz@sternir.com](mailto:hannah.deresiewicz@sternir.com)

**Media Contact**  

Morgan Warners  

Finsbury Glover Hering  

202-295-0124  

[morgan.warners@fgh.com](mailto:morgan.warners@fgh.com)

Prime Medicine Launches with $315 Million Financing to Deliver on the Promise of Prime Editing

Startup Prime Medicine emerges with $315m to pioneer a new type of gene editing

This Gene Editing Startup Raised $315 Million For A Next Generation Crispr Tool To Cure Rare Diseases

Prime Medicine’s Keith Gottesdiener on the Promise of Gene Editing

David Liu takes the wraps off $315M launch round for Prime Medicine and new CRISPR tech that gave Bob Nelsen a 'holy crap' moment

If everyone already knows about a new biotech startup, why does it ‘launch’?

Prime Medicine uncloaks with $315M to push 'search and replace' gene-editing treatments

Video Presentation: Prime Editing Precise and Versatile Genome Editing without Double-Strand Breaks or Donor DNA 

Versatile Genome Editing

Scientific Publications

Genome editing with CRISPR–Cas nucleases, base editors, transposases and prime editors

Super-precise CRISPR tool enhanced by enzyme engineering

Prime Time for Genome Editing?

You had questions for David Liu about CRISPR, prime editing, and advice to young scientists

stat

Prime editing promises to be a cut above CRISPR

Search-and-replace genome editing without double-strand breaks or donor DNA

about

Keith Gottesdiener, MD is President and Chief Executive Officer of Prime Medicine and has served as a member of our Board of Directors since July 2020. 

From October 2011 until March 2020, Dr. Gottesdiener served as the Chief Executive Officer and a director of Rhythm Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company that develops therapeutics in rare genetic obesity.  During that time, Rhythm submitted a New Drug Application for setmelanotide in two indications, for which setmelanotide was subsequently approved.  

Dr. Gottesdiener joined Rhythm after 16 years at Merck Research Laboratories, where, starting in 1995, he held positions of increasing responsibility, including serving as a leader of Merck’s late clinical development organization from 2006 to 2011 and leading Merck’s early clinical development across all therapeutic areas from 2001 through early 2006. In such roles, Dr. Gottesdiener oversaw, led, or played a lead role in the development of most of Merck’s approved therapeutics and vaccines. 

Dr. Gottesdiener received his B.A. from Harvard College and his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He completed his residency and fellowship at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital-Beth Israel Medical Center-Dana Farber Cancer Institute Children’s Hospital programs. After his fellowship, Dr. Gottesdiener did postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Dr. Jack Strominger at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.  He then joined the faculty as an assistant professor at Columbia University, where he started an independent research laboratory with NIH RO-1 funding, ending his academic career as Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine at the time he left to join Merck in 1995.

Dr. Gottesdiener is also a director at Intercept Pharmaceutics, and at Cardurion Pharmaceuticals.   


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Keith Gottesdiener

President and CEO

Jeremy Duffield, MD, PhD, FRCP, is the Chief Scientific Officer of Prime Medicine. He has many years of drug discovery experience at Vertex Pharmaceuticals and Biogen Inc. preceded by a distinguished career in academic medicine. 

Dr. Duffield has held several leadership roles, with focus in the fields of human genetics, innate immunity and regenerative medicine.  He served as Global Head of Human Biology at Vertex Pharmaceuticals and as Vice President of Business Development where he and his team played important roles in discovering and advancing candidates to clinical studies in rare diseases including cystic fibrosis, a1-antitrypsin deficiency, sickle cell disease, FSGS and muscular dystrophies. Several candidates are now approved therapies. He was instrumental in building Vertex Cell and Genetic Therapies.		
 
At Biogen, Dr. Duffield served as Senior Research Fellow and Vice President with responsibilities in early research programs, as joint Head of Innate Immunity and Regenerative Medicine therapeutic area, and as Head of the Biogen Post-Doctoral program. There he contributed to advancing integrin inhibitors, TNF superfamily inhibitors and IRAK inhibitors to clinical evaluation for pulmonary fibrosis and autoimmune diseases.  

Prior to joining the leadership at Biogen, Dr. Duffield had a distinguished academic career on the faculty at University of Washington and Harvard Medical School as Head of the National Institutes of Health/National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences/American Heart Association-funded Laboratory for Innate Immunity and Regeneration. His laboratory used contemporary genetic methods to study cell and molecular function in innate immune and vascular cells in disease. Inventions from the laboratory contributed to the creation of several biotech companies, two of which advanced candidates now in late clinical trials. Additionally, Dr. Duffield practiced Internal Medicine and Nephrology at Massachusetts General Hospital until 2019.

Dr. Duffield served on NIH study sections, several company scientific advisory boards, is a member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation and received many scientific awards including the ASN-AHA Young Investigator Award and the NIH Early Career Investigator/Scholar Award.

Dr. Duffield received his B.A. and M.D. (B.M., B.Ch.) from Oxford University and a Ph.D. in Immunology from the University of Edinburgh in the laboratory of Sir John Savill.  


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Jeremy Duffield

Andrew Anzalone joined Prime Medicine in 2020 as the head of the prime editing platform, where he currently leads efforts to advance technological developments in prime editing for human therapeutic applications.

Dr. Anzalone received his Sc.B. degree in chemistry from Brown University, where he performed undergraduate research in synthetic organic chemistry. He completed his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees at Columbia University as part of the Medical Scientist Training Program. Dr. Anzalone’s thesis research in Virginia W. Cornish’s laboratory focused on the design and synthesis of fluorescent probes for biological imaging applications, and on the investigation and engineering of RNA-dependent protein translation reprogramming mechanisms in eukaryotes. After completing his graduate studies, Dr. Anzalone pursued postdoctoral research as a Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund Postdoctoral Fellow in the laboratory of David R. Liu at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. In the Liu laboratory, Dr. Anzalone pioneered the development of prime editing, a novel search-and-replace gene editing technology that has the potential to correct the majority of known human genetic variants associated with disease.


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Andrew Anzalone

Co-founder and Head of Prime Editing Platform

 John Evans is Chief Executive Officer of Beam Therapeutics. Mr. Evans was previously a Venture Partner with ARCH Venture Partners and an early employee and member of the leadership team at Agios Pharmaceuticals. At Agios, he helped develop IDHIFA and TIBSOVO, two IDH inhibitors for the treatment of AML, helped initiate and lead Agios’ landmark alliance with Celgene, and co-led Agios’s expansion into rare genetic diseases. Prior to Agios he worked for Infinity Pharmaceuticals and McKinsey & Company. Mr. Evans holds an M.B.A. in Healthcare Management from Wharton, a Masters in Biotechnology from the University of Pennsylvania, and a B.A. in English with distinction from Yale University.

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John Evans

Board Member

Stephen Knight joined F-Prime Capital in 2003 where he serves as President and Managing Partner. He has worked in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries for over 25 years and invests broadly across healthcare.  Steve serves on the Board of Directors of Atalanta Therapeutics, Beam Therapeutics (NASDAQ: BEAM), Ensoma, Geneception, Genomics plc, Iora Health, Leyden Labs, Pulmocide and Sana Biotechnology.  Steve previously served on the boards of several private and public health care companies including Blueprint Medicines (NASDAQ: BPMC), Denali Therapeutics (NASDAQ: DNLI), FoldRx Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Pfizer), Innovent Biologics (1801.HK), (Ironwood Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: IRWD), NextWave Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Pfizer), Proteostasis Therapeutics (NASDAQ: PTI), Respivert, Ltd (acquired by J&J) and Semma Therapeutics (acquired by Vertex).

Prior to joining F-Prime Capital, Steve held various senior management roles in private and public biotechnology and consulting companies. He also was a researcher at AT&T Bell Laboratories, the National Institutes of Health, and Yale University. He holds an M.D. from the Yale University School of Medicine, an M.B.A. from the Yale School of Organization and Management and received a B.S. in biology from Columbia University, graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa.


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Stephen Knight

Robert Nelsen is a co-founder and a Managing Director of ARCH Venture Partners. He joined ARCH at its founding and played a significant role in the early sourcing, financing, and development of more than 100 companies, including twenty-seven which have reached valuations exceeding $1 billion. His seed and early-stage investments include Illumina (ILMN); Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (ALNY); Juno Therapeutics (JUNO); Sana Biotechnology (SANA), Unity Biotechnology (UBX); Sienna Biopharmaceuticals (SNNA); Vir Biotechnology(VIR); Agios Pharmaceuticals (AGIO); Sage Therapeutics (SAGE); GRAIL; Ikaria; Kythera Biopharmaceuticals (KYTH); Receptos (RCPT); Aviron (AVIR); Denali Therapeutics (DNLI); Prime Medicine; Beam Therapeutics (BEAM); NetBot; Bluebird Bio (BLUE); R2 Technology; XenoPort (XNPT); Caliper Life Sciences (CALP); Trubion Pharmaceuticals (TRBN); Adolor (ADLR); deCODE Genetics; Array BioPharma (ARRY); Editas (EDIT); IDUN Pharmaceuticals; Classmates.com; Hua Medicine; Fate Therapeutics (FATE); Rubius Therapeutics (RUBY); KSQ Therapeutics; WuxiNextCODE; and Everyday Learning Corporation.
 
Mr. Nelsen is a director of Vir Bio, GRAIL, Sana Biotechnology, Beam Therapeutics, Prime Medicine, Resilience, Lyell, RBNC, Revolution Healthcare Acquisition Corp., Denali Therapeutics, Karuna Therapeutics, insitro, Maze Therapeutics, Inc., and serves as Chairman of Hua Medicine, among others. He previously served as a Trustee of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Institute, the Institute for Systems Biology, and was a director of the National Venture Capital Association. Mr. Nelsen holds an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago and a B.S. from the University of Puget Sound with majors in Economics and Biology.

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Robert Nelson

Dr. David Schenkein is a general partner at GV, where he co-leads the life science investment team. Previously, Dr. Schenkein spent ten years as chief executive officer and a member of the board of directors at Agios Pharmaceuticals, where he remains chairman.

Dr. Schenkein has been a hematologist and medical oncologist for 30 years. He currently serves as an adjunct attending physician in hematology at Tufts Medical Center. Prior to joining Agios, Dr. Schenkein was the senior vice president, clinical hematology/oncology at Genentech, where he was responsible for numerous successful oncology drug approvals and leading the medical and scientific strategies for their BioOncology portfolio. While at Genentech, he served as an adjunct clinical professor of medical oncology at Stanford University School of Medicine.

Prior to joining Genentech, he served as the senior vice president of clinical research at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, overseeing the clinical development and worldwide approval of Velcade, a first-in-class cancer therapy now approved to treat multiple myeloma and non-Hodgkins lymphoma. He serves on the board of directors of Denali Therapeutics.

Dr. Schenkein holds a B.A. in chemistry from Wesleyan University and an M.D. from the State University of New York Upstate Medical School.


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David Schenkein

David R. Liu is the Richard Merkin Professor and director of the Merkin Institute of Transformative Technologies in Healthcare, vice chair of the faculty at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, the Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences at Harvard University, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator. Liu’s research integrates chemistry and evolution to illuminate biology and enable next-generation therapeutics. His major research interests include the engineering, evolution, and in vivo delivery of genome editing proteins such as base editors to study and treat genetic diseases; the evolution of proteins with novel therapeutic potential using phage-assisted continuous evolution (PACE); and the discovery of bioactive synthetic small molecules and synthetic polymers using DNA-templated organic synthesis and DNA-encoded libraries. Base editing—the first general method to perform precision gene editing without double-stranded breaks, and a Science 2017 Breakthrough of the Year finalist—as well as prime editing, PACE, and DNA-templated synthesis are four examples of technologies pioneered in his laboratory. These technologies are used by thousands of laboratories around the world and have enabled the study and potential treatment of many genetic diseases.

Liu graduated first in his class at Harvard College in 1994. During his doctoral research at UC Berkeley, Liu initiated the first general effort to expand the genetic code in living cells. He earned his PhD in 1999 and became assistant professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard University in the same year. He was promoted to associate professor in 2003 and to full professor in 2005. Liu became a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator in 2005 and joined the JASONs, academic science advisors to the U.S. government, in 2009. In 2016 he became a Core Institute Member and Vice-Chair of the Faculty at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and Director of the Chemical Biology and Therapeutics Science Program.

Liu has been elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. National Academy of Medicine, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has earned several University-wide distinctions for teaching at Harvard, including the Joseph R. Levenson Memorial Teaching Prize, the Roslyn Abramson Award, and a Harvard College Professorship. Liu has published more than 200 papers and is the inventor on more than 75 issued U.S. patents. His research accomplishments have earned distinctions including the Ronald Breslow Award for Biomimetic Chemistry, the American Chemical Society David Perlman Award, ACS Chemical Biology Award, the American Chemical Society Pure Chemistry Award, the Arthur Cope Young Scholar Award, the NIH Marshall Nirenberg Lecturer, and awards from the Sloan Foundation, Beckman Foundation, NSF CAREER Program, and Searle Scholars Program. In 2016 and 2020 he was named one of the Top 20 Translational Researchers in the world by Nature Biotechnology, and was named one of Nature’s 10 researchers in world and to the Foreign Policy Leading Global Thinkers in 2017. He is the founder or co-founder of several biotechnology and therapeutics companies, including Beam Therapeutics, Prime Medicine, Editas Medicine, Pairwise Plants, Exo Therapeutics, and Chroma Medicine.


media

Press Releases

10_19_21

Prime Medicine Announces Addition of Capabilities to Prime Editing Platform

Company applauds recent advances and ongoing development of Prime Editing

10_13_21

Prime Medicine Appoints Ann L. Lee as Chief Technical Officer

Industry veteran brings wealth of experience in process development and manufacturing for innovative medicines

7_13_21

Prime Medicine Launches with $315 Million Financing to Deliver on the Promise of Prime Editing

Company is pioneering true “search and replace” gene editing

In the News

9_22_21

Endpoints News

The Endpoints 11: They've got mad money and huge ambitions. It's time to go big or go home

Prime is selected to the Endpoints 11 2021 list

7_13_21

The Boston Globe

Startup Prime Medicine emerges with $315m to pioneer a new type of gene editing

The Cambridge company was founded by David Liu, a researcher at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard

7_13_21

Forbes

This Gene Editing Startup Raised $315 Million For A Next Generation Crispr Tool To Cure Rare Diseases

The gene editing technology Crispr may have been Nobel Prize-worthy, but Andrew Anzalone was convinced he could make it even better.

7_13_21

David Schenkein, GV

Prime Medicine’s Keith Gottesdiener on the Promise of Gene Editing

Keith and his team of physician-scientists are driven by their motivation to help people with genetic diseases.

7_13_21

Endpoints

David Liu takes the wraps off $315M launch round for Prime Medicine and new CRISPR tech that gave Bob Nelsen a 'holy crap' moment

Prime is emerging with ambitions to apply the new technology across the body,

7_13_21

Stat News

If everyone already knows about a new biotech startup, why does it ‘launch’?

On Tuesday, the belle of the launch ball was gene editing company Prime Medicine.

Scientific Publications

6_22_20

Nature Biotechnology

Genome editing with CRISPR–Cas nucleases, base editors, transposases and prime editors

Andrew V. Anzalone, Luke W. Koblan & David R. Liu

1_30_20

New England Journal of Medicine

Prime Time for Genome Editing?

Fyodor D. Urnov, Ph.D.

10_19_19

Nature

Search-and-replace genome editing without double-strand breaks or donor DNA

Andrew V. Anzalone, Peyton B. Randolph, Jessie R. Davis, Alexander A. Sousa, Luke W. Koblan, Jonathan M. Levy, Peter J. Chen, Christopher Wilson, Gregory A. Newby, Aditya Raguram & David R. Liu

prime_

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