Affinia Therapeutics is a gene therapy company with a platform for rationally designed adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors and gene therapies and a mission to develop transformative medicines for devastating diseases.
Sector: Life Sciences
Amber Cai, PhD
Amber Cai is a Venture Partner with F-Prime, focusing on early-stage biotechnology investments. She is the founding CEO of Skyline Therapeutics, a leading gene and cell therapy company.
Prior to joining Skyline, Amber was a founding member of Novartis’ R&D Center in China, where she was most recently the Head of Operations and led the Center’s overall business operations overseeing a broad set of functions. During 2005-2006, Amber led the efforts to establish Novartis’ R&D presence in China from the concept stage to implementation. After the Center was established in 2006 as the first fully integrated research and development center in China by multinational pharma companies, she played an instrumental role in recruiting talent, establishing operations, developing Novartis’ China R&D strategy, and building strategic partnerships with government and other external stakeholders and collaborators. Prior to her work in China, Amber was with the Business Development at Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Researches in Cambridge, MA.
Amber has decades of experience in science before shifting her career into business. She completed her PhD at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in GPCR signaling and holds an MBA degree from MIT Sloan School of Management.
Muzammil Mansuri, PhD
Muz Mansuri joined F-Prime in January 2020 as a Venture Partner and is based in the Cambridge office. Muz will be working with various F-Prime team members to evaluate therapeutic and digital investment and company creation opportunities. Muz has more than 35 years of experience in various R&D roles as a senior executive within the global biopharmaceutical industry.
Prior to joining F-Prime, Muz was a member of the Executive Committee at Sanofi, as Executive Vice President, Strategy, Business Development, and Licensing. Among other responsibilities, Muz headed the Strategy, Business Development, Alliance Management and the Venture Group for Sanofi. Before this, he was at Gilead Sciences as Senior Vice President, Research and Development Strategy and Business Development. In that capacity he led the R&D Strategy, Business Development, and M&A activities for the company. Muz has served as Chief Executive Officer of several biotech companies and as a General Partner at Flagship Ventures (now Flagship Pioneering). He began his career in the pharmaceutical industry as a bench medicinal chemist with Bristol Myers.
Muz received his B.Sc. and PhD in Chemistry from the University College London. He conducted postdoctoral research at UCLA and Columbia University.
Nanos Medical
Nanos Medical develops, manufactures and markets minimally invasive interventional therapy medical devices in the field of ENT, cardiovascular and others.
Insilico Medicine
Insilico specializes in artificial intelligence for drug discovery, biomarker development and aging research.
Singular Genomics
Singular Genomics (NASDAQ: OMIC) is developing a new next generation sequencing platform.
Mike Feng
Mike is Data Scientist at F-Prime, where he focuses on opportunities in healthcare technology and data science. Previously Mike worked at Beam Therapeutics, F-Prime, General Motors, and Applied Quantum Technologies.
Mike holds an M.B.A. from the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, an M.Eng. in Mechanical Engineering and B.S.E. in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering from Duke University.
Nikhil Ananth
Nikhil is a Senior Associate at F-Prime and works across the healthcare sub-sectors including therapeutics, medical technology, life sciences tools, and healthcare IT & services. Prior to joining F-Prime in 2019, Nikhil was an Associate at Audax Group in Boston, where he focused on private equity investments in healthcare and software.
Nikhil is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Vagelos Program in Life Sciences & Management, where he received a B.A. in Biology and a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School.
BioPalette
BioPalette is a life science start up formed out of Kobe University developing base editing technology for a range of applications.
Structure Therapeutics
Structure Therapeutics (NASDAQ: GPCR) is a clinical-stage global biopharmaceutical company discovering and developing novel oral therapeutics to treat a wide range of chronic diseases with unmet medical needs.