Julius Knowles
Jay is a business development professional with more than 25 years in the biotech industry and has helped to guide multiple early stage companies through drug discovery and development. He was previously CEO of X-BODY Biosciences (sold to Juno), an emerging biotech focused on generating antibodies against GPCRs and ion channels. Prior to this, he was Head, Platforms, Strategic Alliances for Novartis, where he led a team responsible for creating technology-based and drug discovery collaborations, forging a number of major strategic alliances with biotech companies.
Jay was also President of Novalar Pharmaceuticals, a specialty pharmaceutical company that brought a drug from idea stage through the clinic and onto the market. He was also Vice President, Business Development, at Novacea and at Structural Genomix, and Director, Research and Development Planning at Vertex Pharmaceuticals. He has an MBA in Finance from Wharton Business School, an M.Sc. in Chemistry from UC Berkeley, and a BA with Distinction in Chemistry from Carleton College. He represents Mass General Brigham Ventures on the board of Abcuro, Keros, Paros, Proximity, and SwanBio, and as a board observer at ROME, QurAlis, and Triplet Therapeutics.