Andrea is an international executive, entrepreneur, founder and investor, with more than 20 years of experience in the industry. Since June 2024, she has been Senior Executive Board Director overseeing the development division at JCR. She is also an investor, supporting new innovative startups, an Independent Board Member at Bloomsbury Genetic Therapies and an adviser for Rarity PBC, a non-profit dedicated to turning gene therapy discoveries into practical treatments that truly benefit patients. Andrea was co-founder, president and CEO and executive board member of a discovery stage start-up, Rejuvitas Inc, based in NYC with focus on neurodegeneration. She Co-founded and was CMO of Orchard Therapeutics, while taking the company to IPO with a valuation of $1.2B; she led the development and registration and commercialization of Libmeldy™, for metachromatic leukodystrophy and Strimvelis® for adenosine deaminase severe combined immunodeficiency (ADA-SCID), as well as the development of other neurometabolic diseases like MPSI and MPSIIIA. She was VP and Medicine Development Leader at the GSK Rare Diseases Unit, leading the metabolic pipeline and early development of IZCARGO® for MPSII, in collaboration with JCR Pharmaceuticals, and the Pulmonary Artery Hypertension pipeline that developed and registered Flolan ph12 and Volibris® in collaboration with Gilead. She worked as global medical director at Takeda R&D in the metabolic and cardiovascular unit and at Hammersmith Medicine Research (HMR), a phase I/II unit, as a Research Physician, in London UK. She worked as a pediatrician before moving to the industry.
Andrea is a Physician and Pediatrician, Specialist in Pharmaceutical Medicine. Fellow of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine in UK (FFPM). Graduated from Columbia University Business School Emeritus Program in venture capital and private equity. Member of the Board of Examiners of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine, London, UK. Andrea was nominated by BioBeat as an Alumni on Patient impact in 2020, Nominated by NGP Capital as one of the most well-funded venture-backed women founder’s companies in the US, Europe, and China in 2020; Movers and Shakers in BioBusiness 2020; one of the 2018’s Fiercest Women in Life Sciences and as one of the UK 50 movers and shakers more influential women in the industry in 2016.
Dr. Picaud has over 30 years of experience as an inventor, researcher, and entrepreneur. He is the Director of the successful Paris based life science incubator Vision Institute and is also aProfessor at the University Sorbonne in Paris.
Dr. Picaud has founded several biotech companies including Pixium Vision (retinal electronic implant, IPO Euronext), GenSight Biologics (gene therapy platform, IPO Euronext), Fovea Pharmaceuticals (drug discovery platform, acquired by Sanofi and Gamut Therapeutics (gene and cell therapy, acquired by Sparing Vision).
In addition, having held positions at the University of Berkeley and the Max Planck Institute Dr. Picaud also holds over 20 patents and has over 400 academic publications. He has a PhD in Neuroscience and holds a BA in Biochemistry from University Paris Saclay.
Guillen brings an interdisciplinary background, with over 15 years of experience in venture capital, technology, and life sciences entrepreneurship. He holds an MBA from the London School of Business and has studied biomedical engineering at Paris Sciences Lettres University.
Before transitioning to venture capital, Guillen was a co-founder of Mindback Therapeutics, and previously he worked in R&D in bioengineering, AI, and robotics.
Guillen was also a corporate tech strategy executive and a researcher at the French Space Agency. He was commissioned by the United Nations’ UNESCO and ITU task forces to find technologies to mitigate the impacts of disasters.
GenSight Biologics (IPO) is in the final registration phase of what could be the 2nd gene therapy ever approved for an ophthalmic condition. In addition, GenSight has been the 1st company to ever perform an optogenetics technology-based clinical trial in humans.
Quethera was acquired by Astellas (Takeda) for its clinical pipeline to treat glaucoma using Gene Therapy technology, which also has potential applications to treat CNS diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Takeda will be starting first-in-human clinical trials for glaucoma soon and is exploring the therapy for neurodegenerative diseases.
Orchard Therapeutics (IPO) development programs focus on restoring normal gene function in primary immune deficiencies and metabolic diseases. Orchard’s pioneering technology uses a sample of the patient’s own stem cells, which are modified with a functioning copy of the missing or faulty gene before being transplanted back into the patient’s body.
