Tales from the Trenches: Lex Rovner, CEO & Co-founder, 64x Bio

About Tales from the Trenches™

MATTER’s signature Tales from the Trenches series is an opportunity to hear the early stories of some of the global businesses we read about in the news — straight from the founders who led them to greatness. This series invites seasoned healthcare entrepreneurs to the MATTER stage to share learnings, stories and key takeaways from their journeys. Tales from the Trenches is free and open to the public.

Lex Rovner, CEO and co-founder of 64x Bio, became aware of biologics manufacturing bottlenecks impacting the biotech industry back in 2018 as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Wyss Institute at Harvard University. As a spinout from her research, Lex co-founded 64x Bio, focusing on innovating the cell and gene therapy space and aiming to become the leading developer of vector manufacturing cell lines for next-generation biomanufacturing and therapeutics. 64x Bio enables pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to bring cell and gene therapies to patients more effectively and efficiently and at greater scale.

On May 16, Lex will join us for a conversation moderated by Jim Sullivan, CEO and co-founder of Vanqua Bio, to discuss her career journey, challenges along the way and how she plans to advance healthcare.

Agenda

2:00–3:00pm CT | Main program

3:00–3:30pm CT | Networking and discussion*

*After the program, join us for networking and discussion via Zoom breakout rooms. If you wish to join, make sure to opt in when you register.

About the speaker:

Lex Rovner

CEO and Co-founder, 64xBio

Lex Rovner, PhD is the CEO and co-founder of 64x Bio, a spinout of Harvard Medical School and the Wyss Institute. Using novel high throughput genome engineering and screening technologies in a design loop with computational tools, 64x Bio is developing highly optimized cell lines for the manufacturing of viral vectors. These fundamental advances enable pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to bring more lifesaving cell and gene therapies to patients by reducing the cost and complexity of manufacturing, a critical bottleneck in this growing market. Lex completed her PhD at Yale University and her postdoc in George Church’s lab at Harvard Medical School, where she co-founded the company alongside George, Pam Silver, Jeff Way and David Thompson. Lex is a Y Combinator alum and a 2022 Endpoints 20 under 40 Next-Generation Biotech Leader.

About the moderator:

Jim Sullivan

CEO and Co-founder, Vanqua Bio

Jim Sullivan, PhD is co-founder and CEO of Vanqua Bio. In addition, he has been a Venture Partner with Orbimed since January 2019. Previously, he was the Vice President of Research at Abbvie where he was responsible for the company’s research efforts in a variety of therapeutic/disease areas including oncology, immunology, neurology, hepatitis C and cystic fibrosis. Jim has advanced more than 100 compounds into clinical development across a number of disease states and technology platforms.

These include products on the market for HCV (Mavyret and Viekira), the first-in-class Bcl2 selective inhibitor, Venclexta, for hematological cancers, a new oral agent for patients with rheumatoid arthritis, RINVOQ, and multiple compounds currently in Phase II or III clinical trials. He has authored/co-authored more than 130 scientific publications and is an inventor on 11 patents. Jim is an adjunct faculty member at Northwestern University and serves on the board of several companies and foundations including Regis Technologies, Genomics Medicine Ireland, Genuity Science, MATTER Healthcare Incubator, Chicago Biotechnology Accelerator and the Pistoia Alliance. He earned his bachelor’s degree and Ph.D. in biochemistry from Trinity College Dublin and conducted post-doctoral research in neurobiology at Northwestern University.