Juvena’s CEO and co-founder, Dr. Hanadie Yousef, was named among a distinguished short list of Emerging Pharma Leaders by Pharmaceutical Executive, which highlights her personal story and what drives Dr. Yousef’s passion for decoding secreted proteins for better human health
As Juvena continues to welcome a tremendously talented team, we wanted to thank FierceBiotech, Endpoints News, STAT, Longevity.Technology, BioWorld, and BioCentury for highlighting Juvena Therapeutics’ expanded leadership team last week. Juvena is thrilled to have Neil Berkley as Chief corporate development officer, Mo Tabrizi PhD, RPh as VP of preclinical and non-clinical development, and Edward Moler, PhD as VP of data science. Juvena is looking forward to what’s ahead!
BioWorld Features Dr. Yousef’s and Dr. O’Connell’s founding story, showcasing Juvena’s proteomics platform to tackle chronic and age-related diseases by mining hESC-secreted proteins
Fengling Liu, PhD
Dr. Fengling Liu brings over 10 years of industry experience developing multiple biologics. Since 2010 she served as the Protein Biochemistry lead or group lead of Protein Science in multiple biotechs in the bay area including Medimmune (AstraZeneca), Relypsa, Atreca and Arcus Biosciences.
Her protein science-focused research spanned target identification/confirmation, lead optimization, protein purification and engineering to support vaccine development, small molecule and antibody drug discovery in infectious disease and Immuno-Oncology. She was trained in Biochemistry and Structure Biology during her PhD at Georgia State University. She studied the molecular basis of HIV protease drug resistance through enzyme kinetics and X-ray crystal structures. She solved over a dozen super high resolution crystal structures of HIV/drug complexes and discovered a novel drug resistance mechanism.
During her postdoc in the lab of Professor Ted Jardetzky in the Structural Biology Department at Stanford Medical School, Dr. Liu studied human viral glycoprotein interactions to discover viral entry inhibitors.
Besides her passion for science and technology, Fengling also enjoys gardening and hiking with family and friends.
Learn more about Fengling
Bek Madjidov
Bek Madjidov is the Head of Finance and Operations at Juvena Therapeutics, responsible for administrative and operational functions (finance, human resources, information technology, and facilities).
Bek is a transformational leader who brings strong business acumen and over 15 years of finance and operations experience in the biotech and high-tech industries. His areas of expertise are strategic planning, business analysis, management reporting, process improvement, and organizational transformation.
Bek previously served as Finance Director at Genentech (Roche), supporting Product Development and Manufacturing Operations organizations. He provided finance leadership to global product and functional teams and led transformational efforts in business and finance organizations. Prior to Genentech, Bek held a variety of finance and leadership roles at Autodesk and Bio-Rad Laboratories by successfully building and leading teams that built strong, cross-functional business partnerships in complex, matrix organizations.
Bek holds a Bachelor of Science (summa cum laude) in Business Administration from the University at Buffalo, State University of New York (SUNY). Bek is pursuing a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.
Learn more about Bek
LinkedIn
Jeff Welch
Jeff Welch has over 30 years of CMC experience in the process development, GMP manufacturing and facilities, and regulatory documentation.
In Jeff’s most recent role as a consultant he has had responsibility for authoring and reviewing regulatory filing sections related to process development and product characterization.
Over the past decade Jeff has focused on his role as a senior director for drug substance (DS) process development and director over process engineering and operations for a specialty pharmaceutical company working in biologics and vaccines and as a CDMO organization.
Jeff has also served as a project manager for large scale manufacturing and technology transfer projects and filled the DS team leader role. After a lead role in engineering and construction, he served as a senior manager over the start up effort for a stainless steel cell culture facility (1600 L scale), where he hired and managed personnel and led a 7-day-a-week cGMP manufacturing operation for the upstream portion.
In his early career he participated in design of a multi-product manufacturing facility and after start-up performed process fit and technology transfer activities for several microbial, yeast and cell culture products.
Learn more about Jeff Welch
Ritwik Datta, PHD
Ritwik Datta joined Juvena Therapeutics as a Scientist on the Pharmacology team. Ritwik is a physiologist with over ten years of experience. His expertise lies in comprehending the molecular basis of cardiometabolic diseases. Ritwik’s approach to investigating complex biological questions involves utilizing both mouse models and cell-based methods to develop innovative therapies for cardiometabolic and pulmonary diseases.
Ritwik received his Ph.D. from the University of Calcutta under the guidance of Sagartirtha Sarkar, Ph.D. Ritwik focused on studying how two major cell types in the heart – cardiac myocytes and fibroblasts – communicated with each other through secreted molecules and how these signaling pathways impacted cardiac fibrosis.
Ritwik completed his extensive postdoctoral training at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) in the lab of Kamran Atabai, MD. Ritwik’s research identified a novel integrin-mediated feedback loop of insulin receptor signaling that regulates skeletal muscle insulin sensitivity, laying the foundation for integrin-based therapy to lower daily insulin needs in diabetic patients. In his recent work, Ritwik investigated integrins’ role in regulating dietary fat metabolism in the intestine, providing insights into how intestinal lipid droplet homeostasis affects whole-body lipid metabolism and cardiovascular health.
Throughout his career, Ritwik has garnered recognition and support from prestigious organizations, including postdoctoral fellowships from the Larry L Hillblom Foundation, enabling him to pursue his research endeavors. Ritwik has 6, 1st author publications including in PNAS and Cell reports, and he is a co-author of 10 publications in leading scientific journals.
Besides his passion for science, Ritwik is a travel and photography enthusiast.
Learn more about Ritwik
Juvena CEO, Hanadie Yousef, PhD, discusses the market opportunity for their unique discovery platform for mapping secreted proteins to unmet medical needs leading to their growing pipeline of biologics for rare and chronic diseases to senior leaders of Mubadala’s LP.
Program Manager – Discovery, Platform, and G&A
Position Description
Juvena Therapeutics, Inc. is a regenerative medicine biotech startup inviting applicants for Program Manager – Discovery, Platform, and G&A. Applicants should be excited to join a company focused on the discovery and validation of novel disease-modifying biologics that promote tissue regeneration by inducing tissue-specific rejuvenating phenotypes.
This position (“the PM”) will report to the VP of Program Management and work closely with other Senior Leaders at Juvena daily. The PM will serve as the hands-on project manager of a broad portfolio of Discovery and Platform projects that are core to Juvena’s mission and strategy. Working with Leadership and other stakeholders, the successful candidate will work with the VP Program Management in the planning, execution, and control of integrated KPIs, Research, Discovery (R&D), and G&A program plans, and portfolio management processes that provide a foundation for driving operational objectives. The PM will train, coach, and mentor Staff and Leaders on project management best practices and proactively manage weekly project objectives, identify and analyze dependencies, perform resource planning, develop alternative scenarios based on priority changes and/or pivots on KPIs or objectives, liaise with key stakeholders, and provide regular status updates and recommendations to Leadership on projects within their portfolio.
The position is temporary with the option to convert to a regular full-time position with health benefits. This is the perfect opportunity for someone interested in the exciting and fast-paced environment of a startup company and looking to make a difference in improving people’s lives through science.
*Title commensurate with experience
Company Summary
Juvena Therapeutics is a venture backed biotechnology startup discovering and developing disease-modifying biologics by leveraging their computationally-driven discovery platform to rapidly identify and validate secreted proteins with regenerative potential for multiple rare and chronic diseases.
At Juvena Therapeutics, we are on a mission to discover and develop biologics for rare and chronic degenerative diseases by mapping secreted proteins to unmet medical needs through a machine learning (ML)-enhanced platform. Juvena’s approach integrates proteomics, transcriptomics and imaging with phenotypic human in vitro disease model screening and extensive preclinical validation to mine the therapeutic potential of human stem cell secretomes as a rich source of new medicines that promote tissue regeneration and repair. We are advancing lead drug candidates for muscular dystrophies, atrophy, injury, and osteopathies, and establishing new programs targeting tissue-specific degenerative diseases across multiple therapeutic areas. Since our launch in mid-2018, Juvena has discovered and validated several hits for neuromuscular, skeletal, and metabolic diseases. Juvena’ preclinical programs are supported by funding from the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). Juvena is advancing a lead program for Myotonic Dystrophy Type 1, a rare autosomal dominant, progressive muscle-wasting disease.
At Juvena we embrace a diversity of backgrounds, experience and approaches that all combine to lead us to world-class scientific results in an inclusive environment.
Position Location and work permit requirement
640 Galveston Dr. Redwood City, 94063
Candidate must be legally authorized to work in the US.
Position Requirements and Duties
- Collaborate with the VP of Program Management to develop, promote, and support a foundation of project management best practices across Juvena by training, coaching, and mentoring Staff and Leaders in its adoption.
- Work with Leadership and other stakeholders to lead the establishment of integrated KPIs, R&D program plans, and portfolio management processes that provide a basis for driving operational objectives, deliverables, execution, and timelines.
- Drive program and project management processes and activities such as managing priorities, scope definition, schedules, budgets, risk, quality, and changes while ensuring key company milestones and KPIs are defined and met.
- Manage meetings in alignment with Juvena’s best practices (e.g., agenda and pre-read information provided, meeting outcomes pre-defined, logging of risks, action items, issues, and decisions [RAID log], etc.).
- Develop and manage portfolios for Platform and Discovery through pre-clinical readiness and Corporate G&A projects.
- Monitor ongoing projects for potential risks and develop proactive mitigation strategies with Leadership and the relevant R&D teams. Identify, track, and support resolution efforts for all program-related issues and effectively communicate to relevant internal and external contractor teams via regular and ad hoc status updates.
- For projects within their program, drive resource planning and impact analysis of priority change/pivot scenarios. Manage changes to project scope, ensuring that all impacts and changes are approved through Governance and appropriately communicated.
- Liaise with external partners such as pharmaceutical companies and critical suppliers.
- Support the development of TCPs (Target Candidate Profile) and initial TPPs (Target Product Profile).
- Develop and maintain project/portfolio dashboards, reports, and metrics including GANTT charts and status summaries.
- Other tasks as assigned.
Qualifications
You may be a great fit if you have the following qualifications:
- Basic Qualifications (required)
- Undergraduate degree,
- PMP certification,
- Strong working knowledge of common project management best practices & tools (RAID logs, Gantt charts, Risk registers, etc.),
- 2+ years project management experience in pharmaceutical drug discovery, development, or healthcare related R&D,
- Ability to operate in a fast-paced, multi-disciplinary scientific environment that is often required to be adaptive and agile to respond to new discoveries and industry changes,
- Strong oral and written communication, meeting facilitation, and organizational skills,
- Ability to motivate, collaborate, and innovate to achieve objectives,
- Ability to wear many hats with a team-first attitude.
- Bonus Qualifications (preferred)
- Graduate degree, especially in a scientific or computational area,
- 4+ years relevant experience in in pharmaceutical drug discovery, development, or healthcare related R&D,
- Experience with biologics development,
- Track record of advancing R&D projects through discovery to successful candidate nomination,
- Experience advancing R&D projects through preclinical to successful IND or CTA regulatory filings,
- Agile project management certification (CSM, PMI-ACP, etc.),
- Industry and startup R&D experience.
Compensation
- Hourly rate: $70-$80 per hour, based on experience.
Apply Now
Please email your CV and Cover Letter to apply@juvenatherapeutics.com with “Program Manager – Discovery & Platform” as the subject line.
