David L. Lucchino | |
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Born | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania | February 16, 1969
Alma mater | Denison University Syracuse University Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
Years active | 1991 to present |
Title | Co-founder, president and CEO, Frequency Therapeutics [1] |
Board member of | Massachusetts Biotechnology Council Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation |
Parent | Frank J. Lucchino |
David L. Lucchino is co-founder and chief executive officer of Frequency Therapeutics, a biotechnology company based in Lexington, MA. [2] [3]
A Pittsburgh native, Lucchino graduated in 1987 from Central Catholic High School. [4] He is the son of Judge Frank Lucchino and is the nephew of former Boston Red Sox president Larry Lucchino. [5] [6]
Lucchino obtained an MBA degree from MIT Sloan School of Management as an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow. [7] Lucchino also holds a Master of Science degree from Syracuse University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Denison University. [8]
David began in the life sciences in 2000 as a co-founder at LaunchCyte, a biotechnology investment entity backed by the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. [9] LaunchCyte has founded and backed numerous companies. These include a portfolio firm that partnered with Biogen to develop a clinical-stage candidate for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and a contract research organization, Reaction Biology, that was sold in 2022 to a private equity firm. [10] [11]
In 2006, while earning his MBA at the MIT Sloan School of Management, Lucchino joined a team led by Professor Robert S. Langer to create implant surface technology that prevents blood clotting and infection. Based on that work, Lucchino co-founded, along with Langer, Semprus BioSciences. [12] Lucchino secured $28.5 million in venture capital financing and $5.4 million in federal funding to advance the technology and the company. [13] The team ultimately gained FDA marketing and European CE marketing clearance for the medical device. [14] Teleflex (NYSE: TFX) acquired Semprus in 2012. [15]
Lucchino also worked at the Boston-based venture capital firm Polaris Partners, where he focused on healthcare investing. [16]
In 2013 Lucchino co-founded Frequency Therapeutics, first serving as chair and subsequently taking on the president and CEO roles alongside co-founders Langer and biomedical engineer Jeffrey Karp from Harvard Medical School. [17] Frequency Therapeutics is a regenerative medicine company focused on developing therapeutics to activate a person's innate potential to restore function within the body. The company initially focused on cochlear restoration. [18] Lucchino took Frequency public in October of 2019. The company is listed on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol FREQ. [19]
Today, Frequency's lead program is for remyelination in multiple sclerosis (MS) with a focus on developing a therapeutic that activates oligodendrocyte progenitor cells in the central nervous system to generate new oligodendrocytes and regenerate myelin, potentially repairing damage caused by MS. [20]
From 2018 to 2020, Lucchino was chair of MassBio, a 1500-member biotechnology trade association based in Cambridge, MA. During his term, Lucchino led the founding of "Project Onramp", a program that provides internships in life science companies for students from underserved communities. [21] The program has served hundreds of students and has expanded to Philadelphia, San Francisco, San Diego, and New York City. [22]
Former Governor Charlie Baker appointed Lucchino to the Massachusetts STEM Advisory Council; Lucchino is also a member of the College of Fellows for the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering. [23] [24] Lucchino is on the boards of the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation and the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) and was part of a NOLS expedition that summited Denali. [25] [26]
The Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited is a Japanese multinational pharmaceutical company. It is the third largest pharmaceutical company in Asia, behind Sinopharm and Shanghai Pharmaceuticals, and one of the top 20 largest pharmaceutical companies in the world by revenue. The company has over 49,578 employees worldwide and achieved US$19.299 billion in revenue during the 2018 fiscal year. The company is focused on oncology, rare diseases, neuroscience, gastroenterology, plasma-derived therapies and vaccines. Its headquarters is located in Chuo-ku, Osaka, and it has an office in Nihonbashi, Chuo, Tokyo. In January 2012, Fortune Magazine ranked the Takeda Oncology Company as one of the 100 best companies to work for in the United States. As of 2015, Christophe Weber was appointed as the CEO and president of Takeda.
Lawrence Lucchino was an American lawyer and Major League Baseball executive. He served as president of the Baltimore Orioles, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of the San Diego Padres, and president and CEO of the Boston Red Sox. He was also chairman of the Worcester Red Sox, the Triple-A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox; chairman of The Jimmy Fund, the philanthropic arm of the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute; and president and CEO emeritus of Fenway Sports Group, the parent company of the Boston Red Sox and Liverpool F.C. Lucchino played college basketball for the Princeton Tigers.
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Robert Samuel Langer Jr. FREng is an American biotechnologist, businessman, chemical engineer, chemist, and inventor. He is one of the nine Institute Professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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Richard Rox Anderson, FAAD, is a Boston-based dermatologist and entrepreneur.
Remyelination is the process of propagating oligodendrocyte precursor cells to form oligodendrocytes to create new myelin sheaths on demyelinated axons in the Central nervous system (CNS). This is a process naturally regulated in the body and tends to be very efficient in a healthy CNS. The process creates a thinner myelin sheath than normal, but it helps to protect the axon from further damage, from overall degeneration, and proves to increase conductance once again. The processes underlying remyelination are under investigation in the hope of finding treatments for demyelinating diseases, such as multiple sclerosis.
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Brett P. Giroir is an American pediatrician. He was formerly the U.S. assistant secretary for health, a four-star admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and an acting Food and Drug Administration commissioner.
Jeffrey Karp is a Canadian biomedical engineer working as a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women's Hospital, and the principal faculty at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and Affiliate Faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology through the Harvard–MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. He is also an affiliate faculty at the Broad Institute.
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