Today we are talking to Aofie Brennan, president and CEO of Synlogic. Aoife was trained as a doctor at Trinity College Dublin following which she moved to the US. After completing her postdoctoral research at Beth Israel Aofie joined TolerX focused on developing autoimmune therapies for type I diabetes. Following which Aoife spent 6 years at Biogen ultimately becoming head of Rare Disease Innovation, she was involved in the development of Spinraza, Alprolix and Eloctate. Aoife moved from Biogen to Synlogic where she initially took the CMO role ultimately being elected as CEO and President of the company. She has led Synlogic since 2018. Beyond Synlogic Aoife is on the BoD of Cerevance and Fibrogen having also served on the board of RA Pharma through its acquisition by UCB.

We discuss Aoife’s career trajectory, her experiences at Biogen and decision to join Synlogic. Navigating the failure of their lead program in 2020 as a public company and building a deep pipeline today. In addition we discuss diversity and inclusion in our biotech industry today and ways this could be more impactful.

Please join me in welcoming Aoife.