Our mission
Coding cells for novel cures
What we do
bit.bio is a synthetic biology company providing human cells for research, drug discovery and cell therapy. The company applies a patented safe harbour gene-targeting approach (opti-ox™; Pawlowski 2017) to inducibly express transcription factor combinations that reprogram human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) into highly defined and mature human cell types.
The required transcription factor combinations are discovered using high throughput screens and advanced data analysis (bit.bio discovery platform). The company is currently building a clinical pipeline and marketing a wide range of cells and disease models for research and drug discovery under its ioCells brand including nerve cells, immune cells and muscle cells.
The company was spun out of the University of Cambridge in 2016 and has since raised $150M capital from Arch Ventures, Foresite Capital, Milky Way, Charles River Laboratories, National Resilience, Tencent, and Puhua Capital among others.
The company has expertise in the underpinning science of synthetic biology and stem cells and also in manufacturing, and clinical translation. The board is chaired by serial entrepreneur Dr Hermann Hauser and includes Sir Gregory Winter (Nobel Prize for medicine), biotech veteran Alan Roemer (co-founder Roivant and Pharmasset) and the company's CEO and scientific founder Dr Mark Kotter.
Kathryn Corzo
MBA, BSc Pharm, RPh, Chief Operating Officer
Executive Leadership team
Kathryn Corzo
MBA, BSc Pharm, RPh, Chief Operating Officer
Kathryn has over 25 years experience in early and late drug development across multiple indications and platforms. She was partner at Takeda Ventures, Inc. and Head of Oncology Cell Therapy Development at Takeda Pharmaceuticals where she built capabilities and oversaw a cutting edge oncology cell therapy portfolio. Prior to that, she held several roles at Sanofi Genzyme and built a two decade career at Hoffman – La Roche, Roche Molecular Systems, Eli Lilly and Syndax, contributing to the approval of 6 new cancer therapies and expansion of multiple indications.
Bernhard Klemen
PhD, Chief Financial Officer
Executive Leadership team
Bernhard Klemen
PhD, Chief Financial Officer
Dr. Bernhard Klemen spent more than 10 years at UBS, Morgan Stanley and J.P. Morgan in London and Frankfurt as well as Vienna, where he established the Austrian J.P. Morgan business. Since 2011 he has been a business angel and first investor as well as co-founder of more than 25 companies with scalable business models in tech and biotech. Between 2017-18 he became co-founder and raised, as international partner, the first international venture capital fund with a Pakistan focus - Sarmayacar. In 2018 he became an investor and board advisor supporting fundraising efforts for bit.bio before joining the company's executive team as CFO in 2021.
Mark Kotter
MD, PhD, Founder and CEO, Board Member
Executive Leadership team
Mark Kotter
MD, PhD, Founder and CEO, Board Member
Mark is a stem cell biologist and neurosurgeon at the University of Cambridge. Aged nineteen, he decided to pursue a career in medicine to serve others and to make a difference in people’s lives. His curiosity led him down a path of clinical service and laboratory discovery. He became fascinated by synthetic biology, as he saw it as the key to a new generation of medicines. He is the founder of bit.bio and co-founder of the cultured meat start-up Meatable.
Paul Morrill
PhD, Chief Business Officer
Executive Leadership team
Paul Morrill
PhD, Chief Business Officer
Paul is a serial entrepreneur and scientist with over thirty years of experience in the biotech and pharma sectors. Most recently, he was the commercial founder and President of Horizon Discovery Group, and founder of CellRx Limited, a growth factors company serving the biopharmaceutical sector. Paul holds a PhD in Biotechnology from the University of Cambridge.
Florian Schuster
Co-Founder and Chief Corporate Officer, Board Member
Executive Leadership team
Florian Schuster
Co-Founder and Chief Corporate Officer, Board Member
Florian is an active entrepreneur and investor. He is the co-founder and CCO at bit.bio. Previously, he was CFO & Head of Strategic Partnerships for Tessa Therapeutics, a clinical-stage cell therapy company. Florian is a former investment banker, a graduate of the Stanford School of Engineering, and an alumnus of Harvard Business School.
Board members
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Hermann Hauser
PhD, KBE, FRS, Chair of the Board
Board member
Hermann Hauser
PhD, KBE, FRS, Chair of the Board
Dr Hermann Hauser is a serial entrepreneur and co-founder of Amadeus Capital Partners where he invested in CSR, Solexa, Icera, Xmos and Graphcore. Solexa created the dominant gene-sequencing technology now sold by Illumina. He has wide experience in developing and financing companies in the ICT and life science sector. He is a founder of Acorn Computers which created the ARM processor and helped spin it out with Apple into an independent company. He is vice-chair of the European Innovation Council, the €10bn deep tech fund of Horizon Europe.
Alan S. Roemer
MBA, MPH, Board Member
Board member
Alan S. Roemer
MBA, MPH, Board Member
Alan S. Roemer, MBA, MPH is an entrepreneurial life sciences executive and board member who has launched three multi-billion dollar biotechnology companies, raised over $1.75 billion in private and public capital, and consummated five IPOs. His senior leadership experience in development-stage biotechnology companies includes finance, accounting, business development, operations & administration, human resources, legal, information technology, facilities, corporate communications, and investor relations.
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Gregory Winter
PhD, Nobel Laureate, Board Member
Board member
Gregory Winter
PhD, Nobel Laureate, Board Member
Sir Gregory Winter is a Nobel prize winning scientist who invented technologies for making therapeutic monoclonal antibodies, and was directly involved in their industrial development, notably through the start up company Cambridge Antibody Technology Ltd. His inventions underpin many of the therapeutic antibodies in development and on the market, including blockbuster drugs such as Humira, Herceptin, Avastin and Keytruda.
Weslie Janeway
Board Member
Board member
Weslie Janeway
Board Member
Weslie Janeway is an investor, author, philanthropist and scientist based in New York, USA and Cambridge, UK. While pursuing a career in financial services, she has served in a variety of non-executive roles in the not-for-profit sector, such as Treasurer of Cancer Care, Inc., a social services agency for cancer patients and their families, Board Trustee and Chair of the Development Committee of the New York Women’s Foundation and Vice-Chair and Head of the Nominating and Governance Committee of
The Jackson Laboratory, a genetics institute based in Maine, USA. Weslie is a founding investor and member of the Board of Directors of bit.bio, the cell-coding company based in Cambridge, UK. She serves on the Audit and Compensation Committees.
Weslie is a graduate of both Columbia University in New York and Brown University in Rhode Island.
Additionally, she has studied genetics at the University of Cambridge as well as in New York. She is also a
Chartered Financial Analyst and the co-author of Mrs. Charles Darwin’s Recipe Book. At present, as well
as being a Trustee for Myelopathy.org, Weslie is a Trustee of the Rockefeller University, where she
serves on the Audit, Hospital and Technology Transfer Committees. In addition, she is an Independent
Director of the New York Genome Center.
The Jackson Laboratory, a genetics institute based in Maine, USA. Weslie is a founding investor and member of the Board of Directors of bit.bio, the cell-coding company based in Cambridge, UK. She serves on the Audit and Compensation Committees.
Weslie is a graduate of both Columbia University in New York and Brown University in Rhode Island.
Additionally, she has studied genetics at the University of Cambridge as well as in New York. She is also a
Chartered Financial Analyst and the co-author of Mrs. Charles Darwin’s Recipe Book. At present, as well
as being a Trustee for Myelopathy.org, Weslie is a Trustee of the Rockefeller University, where she
serves on the Audit, Hospital and Technology Transfer Committees. In addition, she is an Independent
Director of the New York Genome Center.
Scientific advisory board
Thore Graepel
Scientific Advisory Board Member
Advisor
Thore Graepel
Scientific Advisory Board Member
Roger Pedersen
PhD, Chief Scientific Advisor
Advisor
Roger Pedersen
PhD, Chief Scientific Advisor
Roger is a pioneer and thought leader in the field of human stem cell biology. His lab was the first to isolate pluripotent epiblast stem cells from the epiblast layer of the developing mammalian embryo. In addition, he developed one of the first cellular reprogramming protocols. Roger was co-founder of the Cambridge Stem Cell Institute. His lab is currently focused on differentiation of pluripotent stem cells, with potential applications for drug discovery, toxicity testing and cell therapies.
Marius Wernig
PhD, Scientific Advisory Board Member
Advisor
Marius Wernig
PhD, Scientific Advisory Board Member
Marius’ seminal 2010 paper in Nature demonstrating direct conversion of fibroblasts into neurons has sparked a widespread interest in cell reprogramming. He is the co-director of the Stanford Stem Cell Institute. His lab uses cellular reprogramming to understand how neurons are induced, and how they mature and maintain their identity.
Independent ethics and sustainability board
Enrica Alteri
MD, DiplPharmMed, Ethics & Sustainability Board Member
Advisor
Enrica Alteri
MD, DiplPharmMed, Ethics & Sustainability Board Member
After completing her medical studies in Rome and a post-doctoral fellowship focused on cellular immunology at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda (USA), Dr Alteri spent 7 years in drug discovery and 5 years in clinical safety at Ciba-Geigy/Novartis in Basel. She was involved in major projects that yielded important drugs such as Gleevec for myeloid leukaemia, Coartem for malaria and Reyataz for HIV-AIDS. In 1998 she joined Serono in Geneva where she led the Pharmacovigilance and Risk Management team. At Serono, Dr Alteri was instrumental in establishing the company’s pharmacovigilance processes, as well as implementing the entire portfolio’s risk management strategy.
In 2012 she joined the European Medicines Agency, where she was Head of the Safety and Efficacy Sector for one year, being later promoted to Head of the Human Medicines Evaluation Division, and then to Head of the Human Medicines R&D Support Division.
She was member of the EMA Executive Board from 2013 until she retired in 2020.
In this roles, Dr Alteri was part of many high impact EMA’s initiatives, from the transparency of clinical trial data to the development of regulatory science strategy to 2025.
Dr Alteri has been consulting for the Swiss regulatory agency (Swissmedic), and is currently member of the Scientific Committee and faculty of the Master Course in Drug R&D of the University of Geneva. Dr Alteri regularly gives lectures on various aspects of R&D at the Universities of Rome, Cattolica and LUISS, and at the European Course in Pharmaceutical Medicine at the University of Basel. Moreover, she is member of the CIOMS Working Group XIII (Real World Data/Real World Evidence), and the CIOMS. Working Group Education. Most recently, she has been appointed as Core Member of the Proposal Review Committee of Unitaid for a 3-year period.
Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger
DPhil (Oxon), MEM (Yale), LLB&BCL (McGill), BA Hons (Carl/UVic), FRSA, WIJA, Chair of Ethics and Sustainability Board and Advisor to the Board
Advisor
Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger
DPhil (Oxon), MEM (Yale), LLB&BCL (McGill), BA Hons (Carl/UVic), FRSA, WIJA, Chair of Ethics and Sustainability Board and Advisor to the Board
Marie-Claire is a pioneering international expert in sustainability, entrepreneurship, law and public policy. An award-winning expert jurist, executive and professor specialised in corporate social responsibility, climate law and governance, trade and investment, and research ethics, she also serves as Senior Director of the global Centre for International Sustainable Development Law (CISDL), advising the United Nations and key countries, and leading purpose-led companies on ethics and the UN Sustainable Development Goals
Jeff Skopek
Ethics & Sustainability Board Member
Advisor
Jeff Skopek
Ethics & Sustainability Board Member
Jeff Skopek is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Cambridge and Deputy Director of its Centre for Law, Medicine and Life Sciences. His research explores the normative and conceptual foundations of health law, focusing in particular on controversies about what harms and benefits count. Before coming to Cambridge, he was an Academic Fellow at Harvard Law School’s Petrie-Flom Centre for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics. Prior to that, he served as a law clerk to Chief Judge Lynch of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. He holds an A.B. in History from Stanford University, a Ph.D. in the History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Cambridge, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School
"At bit.bio, we are passionate about engineering human cells that will enable the medicine of the future."
Mark Kotter | MD, PhD, Founder | CEO
