Leadership

Dr. Bill Symonds has served as the Chief Executive Officer of Altavant Sciences since its inception in August 2018. Previously, Dr. Symonds was a member of the founding management team at Roivant Sciences, Inc. where he served as Roivant’s Chief Development Officer.

As Chief Development Officer for Roivant, Dr. Symonds crafted the research and development plans for a number of products including rodatristat ethyl, Altavant’s lead asset for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension. Earlier in his career, Dr. Symonds held senior positions at a number of pharmaceutical companies including Pharmasset, Inc. and Gilead Sciences, Inc. During his tenure at Pharmasset, Dr. Symonds led the development of Sovaldi® for hepatitis C virus infection medicines. Based on the early success at Pharmasset, Dr. Symonds and his team were brought into Gilead after its acquisition of Pharmasset, where he continued to advance Sovaldi® through to FDA approval. Previously, he worked at GlaxoSmithKline and its predecessor companies on numerous approved medicines for HIV infection including Ziagen®, Agenerase® and Epzicom®.

Dr. Symonds received his Doctor of Pharmacy from Campbell University and completed a fellowship in clinical pharmacokinetics at the Clinical Pharmacokinetics Laboratory at Millard Fillmore Hospital in Buffalo, New York. He has authored or co-authored over 35 clinical articles and is named on nine patents related to the composition of matter and methods of use of drugs for hepatitis C infection.

Ms. Lyn Baranowski joined Altavant with more than two decades of experience spanning biotech, big pharma and venture capital firms. She has significant experience leading commercial, transactional, financing and strategic functions as well as cross-functional teams across a diversity of product portfolios and therapeutic areas.

Prior to Altavant, she served as Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and Strategy at Melinta Therapeutics, Inc. where she helped guide the company through many corporate milestones including FDA approval of the company’s lead drug, a successful corporate public listing, and an acquisition of a key business unit from the Medicines Company. Prior to that role, Ms. Baranowski served as Vice President of Commercial Development at Pearl Therapeutics which successfully developed a portfolio of COPD drugs prior to its sale to AstraZeneca for $1.15 Billion in 2013. She also worked as Vice President of Vatera Healthcare, a healthcare-focused private equity / venture capital firm based in New York, and in a variety of business development, marketing and public affairs / policy roles with Novartis Pharmaceuticals

She has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Arts from American University. In addition to her role at Altavant, Ms. Baranowski serves on the board of directors of Rani Therapeutics, a company developing technology for the oral delivery of biologic drugs.

Dr. Howard Lazarus is Altavant’s Chief Medical Officer. He most recently served as a medical expert and the Executive Director of Clinical Development and Medical Affairs at Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals where he was a member of the leadership team focusing on interstitial lung diseases such as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). Earlier, at Gilead Sciences, Dr. Lazarus served as Director of Medical Affairs in the company’s cardiopulmonary division. In this role, he also contributed to clinical research and worked closely with cross functional colleagues in marketing and commercial strategy, formulating communications plans for Gilead’s approved and pipeline programs for pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) and IPF.

Between 1997 and 2012, Dr. Lazarus practiced as a pulmonary and critical care physician at several health facilities, most recently at Oregon Pulmonary Associates in Portland. In that role, he and a team of experts diagnosed and treated patients with complex pulmonary vascular and interstitial diseases such as PAH and IPF, many of whom were referred to their sub-specialty center from area hospitals.

Dr. Lazarus earned both a Bachelor of Science in biochemistry and an M.D. from McGill University in Montreal. His residency in internal medicine was at Boston University Medical Center and he completed a fellowship in pulmonary & critical care medicine at the University of California, San Diego. He is a Fellow of the American College of Chest Physicians and a member of the American Thoracic and European Respiratory Societies.

Mr. James Bishop is Senior Vice President of Business Operations at Altavant Sciences, Inc. Previously, he served as Chief of Staff at Altavant Sciences and Roivant Sciences. He joined Roivant in February 2017 from Teva Pharmaceuticals where he was Director of Portfolio and Operations Management for the personalized and predictive medicines and big data analytics group.

In the roles prior to Teva, Mr. Bishop was the Director of Project Management at Cabernet Pharmaceutical with a full-time consultant commitment to the tailored therapeutics group at Eli Lilly. He led the preclinical R&D efforts at Oxygen Biotherapeutics and was a senior scientist in drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics at GlaxoSmithKline.

He has an MBA from Meredith College and a Bachelor of Science in biochemistry from Pennsylvania State University.

Ms. Beth-Anne Lang joined Altavant with 22+ years of experience leading global regulatory affairs operations in biotechnology as well as mid and large pharmaceutical companies. She has significant experience developing and leading regulatory strategy across a diverse portfolio of therapeutic areas and lifecycles from early clinical through commercialization.

Prior to Altavant, she served as Vice President of Regulatory Affairs at Horizon Therapeutics through the company’s recent acquisition of Viela Bio. Previously she was Vice President of Global Regulatory Affairs at LEO Pharma, where she helped guide the company through many regulatory milestones including FDA/EMA submission for the company’s lead development asset and initiated significant transformation in support of the corporate strategy of being a leading medical dermatology development and global company. Prior to that role, Ms. Lang served as Vice President of Global Regulatory Affairs for marketed products at Takeda Pharmaceuticals, where she supported the maintenance and lifecycle of more than 500 assets in over 100 countries and led the initial regulatory work in the significant divesture of the mature products portfolio. She also worked in several strategic regulatory roles across multiple therapeutic areas and led multiple health authority interactions, submissions, and approvals across the globe.

Ms. Lang earned an MBA from Marquette University and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Dr. Nicolas Mourier is Senior Vice President of Chemistry, Manufacturing and Control (CMC) at Altavant Sciences. He brings over 25 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry, with expertise in CMC for preclinical through commercial development programs, spanning multiple indications. 

Dr. Mourier joined Altavant from Anchiano Therapeutics, where he most recently served as Vice President of Manufacturing. Dr. Mourier has also held key leadership positions as Senior Vice President of Manufacturing at Sanifit, Vice President of CMC at Inotek Pharmaceuticals (now Rocket Pharmaceuticals) and Senior Vice President of CMC at Celsus Therapeutics, PLC (now Akari Therapeutics, PLC), where he oversaw the manufacturing and pharmaceutical development for all the pre-clinical and clinical assets. He also consulted for several small and large biotechnology companies as subject matter expert where he contributed to the development and approval of several drugs: OBIZUR® (Baxalta), ICLUSIG® (Ariad), FIRAZYR® (Shire), Velcade® and MEPACT® (Takeda). 

Dr. Mourier received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Luminy in Marseille, France.

Dr. Steve Wring is Altavant’s Senior Vice President of Research and Development, head of the translational medicine team and project lead for ALTA-2530. Dr. Wring has over a 25-year track record of drug development in the UK and USA with a focus on nonclinical research. Before joining Roivant in 2016 and subsequently Altavant at its formation in 2018, Dr. Wring spent 15 years with Trimeris and Scynexis where he focused primarily on anti-infective research and development. In these roles, Dr. Wring worked on the optimization and development of synthetic peptide fusion inhibitors for HIV, a cyclophilin inhibitor for hepatitis C, multiple anti-parasitic products for neglected tropical diseases and a first-in-class antifungal for treating invasive disease. Earlier in his career, he worked across portfolios in non-clinical research at GSK and Glaxo-legacy companies in the UK and USA.

Dr. Wring earned MSc and Ph.D. qualifications in chemistry at the University of the West of England, UK. His recent research interests and publications have focused on use of pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic efficacy data in nonclinical disease models to select doses for clinical evaluation together with clinical pharmacology studies to support development and regulatory submissions. Dr. Wring has extensive regulatory experience authoring and supporting nonclinical submissions to US, Canadian, EU and Japanese agencies.