Dr Paul Bolno appointed Chair of Board at ExpressionEdits
Dr. Bolno has also become an independent director, bringing more than two decades of leadership experience in the life sciences industry to the University of Cambridge spin-out.
He has served as President and CEO of Wave Life Sciences since 2013 and oversaw the company’s initial public offering in 2015. During his tenure as President and CEO, Dr. Bolno has grown Wave into a leading RNA medicines company, overseen the development of the company’s proprietary PRISM® platform, and built a diversified pipeline of clinical and preclinical programs supported by scalable, in-house manufacturing capabilities.
Dr. Bolno also currently serves as Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Group for the Nucleic Acid Therapy Accelerator (NATA) in the UK.
Prior to joining Wave, Dr. Bolno held key leadership roles at GlaxoSmithKline including Vice President, Worldwide Business Development – Head of Asia BD and Investments, as well as Head of Global Neuroscience BD.
He also served as a Director of Glaxo Wellcome Manufacturing, Pte Ltd. in Singapore. He joined GSK as Vice President, Business Development for the Oncology Business Unit, where he helped establish GSK’s global oncology business and served as a member of the Oncology Executive Team, Oncology Commercial Board and Cancer Research Executive Team. Earlier in his career, Dr. Bolno served as Director of Research at Two River LLC, a healthcare private equity firm.
Dr. Kärt Tomberg, CEO and Co-Founder of ExpressionEdits said: “Paul’s experience in drug development, business strategy, and company building will be instrumental as we translate our innovative intronisation technology into novel therapeutics that address key production challenges and unlock previously infeasible opportunities.”
Dr. Bolno added: “I am honoured to have the opportunity to work with Dr. Tomberg and the ExpressionEdits team to help realise their potential. The proprietary Genetic Syntax Engine has incredible capabilities beyond protein-based therapeutics, including in the field of gene therapies.
“For gene therapy, Expression Edits has the potential to boost potency and precision by creating in-cDNAs with optimal sites and introns, leading to increased protein production without altering core designs. I’m very excited about the future of this platform to solve big challenges in genetic medicines.”
ExpressionEdits raised $13 million seed funding earlier this year in a round co-led by Octopus Ventures and redalpine, with participation from BlueYard Capital, Wilbe Capital, Acequia Capital, Amino Collective, and Hawktail.
Founded in 2021 on pioneering research from the University of Cambridge, ExpressionEdits specialises in optimising transgenes through intronisation. The company combines AI-driven insights with cutting-edge innovations to redefine how genes are designed for therapeutic applications.