HOMEPAGE HERO

Harith Rajagopalan, M.D., Ph.D., is Co-founder and CEO of Fractyl Health, having started the company while serving as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at General Catalyst Partners.

Prior to founding Fractyl Health, Harith was an academic cardiologist and physician-scientist. He received his B.S. in chemistry from Stanford University and went on to obtain M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. At Johns Hopkins, Harith did groundbreaking and award-winning research on intestinal cancers that was published in top medical journals including Nature and Science.

After medical school, Harith trained in internal medicine and clinical cardiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and completed a research fellowship at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute at Harvard Medical School.

Jay Caplan is Co-founder and President of Fractyl Health and has held leadership positions in the medical device field for more than 20 years.

Prior to founding Fractyl Health, Jay was the Chief Operating Officer of the Candela Corporation, a world leader in aesthetic devices. Previously, he was Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Research and Development at InfraReDx, Inc. a venture-backed startup developing a novel cardiovascular imaging system to identify lipid-rich coronary plaques.

Prior to InfraReDx, Jay was Vice President of Operations for Thermo Cardiosystems, where he led the team developing the HeartMate II left ventricular assist device. Jay holds a B.S. in electrical engineering from M.I.T. and an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Lisa Davidson is Chief Financial Officer of Fractyl Health.

Lisa has more than 25 years of broad corporate finance experience encompassing treasury management, strategic planning, operations finance, and controllership.

She served as Vice President of Finance & Administration at Flexion Therapeutics, Inc. Prior to Flexion, Lisa served as Director of Finance at OmniSonics Medical Technologies, Inc.

She previously served in various finance, strategy, and administration positions at PerkinElmer Inc., Pepsi Bottling Group, and Fisher Scientific International, Inc. (now part of ThermoFisher Scientific). Lisa has been involved in a number of M&A transactions, venture debt and equity financings, and numerous product launches. She holds both a B.A. and an MBA from the University of New Hampshire.

Timothy Kiefer is Chief Scientific Officer of Fractyl Health. Tim has co-authored more than 200 publications on incretin hormones, islet biology, and gene therapies, and has been cited over 20,000 times.

He is a Professor of Medicine, Department of Cellular & Physiological Sciences and Department of Surgery, School of Biomedical Engineering, and Life Sciences Institute at the University of British Columbia, where his laboratory focuses on islet biology and the development of novel gene and cell therapy approaches to treat diabetes.

In 2021, Tim joined ViaCyte, a leader in stem cell therapies for Type 1 Diabetes, as its Chief Scientific Officer until ViaCyte’s acquisition by Vertex. He obtained his PhD at the University of British Columbia and completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Sarah Toomey, Esq., is General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Fractyl Health.

Sarah brings nearly 20 years of legal and strategic advisory experience to Fractyl and has expertise in managing legal matters pertaining to intellectual property, debt and equity financing, clinical operations, regulatory compliance, quality assurance, corporate governance, and operations.

Sarah most recently served as the Senior Vice President of Operations and General Counsel at BERG LLC. She formerly held the roles of General Counsel at Metamark Genetics and Senior Vice President and General Counsel at IntellligentMDx. Before IntelligentMDx, Sarah worked as a patent attorney in two boutique patent law firms and as a research scientist at Merck.

Sarah holds a B.S. in bacteriology from University of Wisconsin-Madison and a J.D., intellectual property concentration, from Suffolk University Law School.

Jon Fitzgerald is Vice President of Quality Assurance and Regulatory Affairs of Fractyl Health.

Jon brings more than 20 years of medical device start-up experience to Fractyl Health.

He has developed and scaled multiple quality systems and has a successful track record of regulatory agency engagement. In addition to his experience in quality, he has successfully conducted recalls, led vigilance activities, and played a pivotal role in global regulatory filings resulting in device clearances and approvals, including the U.S., E.U., Middle East, and Japan.

Previously, Jon held quality engineering and management positions at Neuronetics, Animas (a Johnson & Johnson Company), and Kensey Nash (now DSM Biomedical). His expertise encompasses microbiology, quality management, electronic system implementation, as well as technical file and design dossier development. After serving as an air traffic controller in the U.S. Navy, Jon studied mechanical engineering at Northeastern University.

Len Rosberg is Vice President of Manufacturing of Fractyl Health.

He brings more than 20 years of experience in supply chain management and manufacturing engineering roles for major medical device firms. With more than a decade of senior management expertise, Len most recently served as Vice President of Operations for Candela Corporation, and his industry tenure includes positions at Boston Scientific, Thoratec, and Baxter International.

His technical expertise encompasses reliability engineering, design for manufacturability, and implementation of scalable manufacturing processes. Len holds a B.S. in electrical engineering from Wentworth Institute of Technology.

Kelly White, PharmD, is Vice President of Clinical and Medical Affairs of Fractyl Health. Kelly has more than 15 years of pharmaceutical and biotechnology experience in clinical development and global medical affairs, with focused expertise in building/expanding field and headquarters medical teams, establishing strategic plans, medical communications, publication plans, and the global launching of products.

Prior to Fractyl, she served as Executive Director of Global Medical Affairs at Intercept, where the focused effort was the obeticholic acid development programs that resulted in the first approval in ~20 years for patients with primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) and the program in NASH that resulted in the first positive Phase 3 trial in this disease.

Prior to joining Intercept, she held positions of increasing responsibility in large pharma at AbbVie, Abbott, and AstraZeneca focusing on pre-launch, launch, and post-launch in a variety of medical affairs responsibilities in multiple products.

Kelly holds a doctorate degree in Pharmacy from Northeastern University with a specialty in Infectious Diseases Pharmacotherapy.

Helmut Giersiefen, Ph.D. Is Head of Business Development.

Helmut brings over 30 years of direct experiences in life sciences, drug discovery, development, and product commercialization to his role at Fractyl Health. As a CEO and key executive team member, he has successfully supported the entire value chain of life science companies working with multi-disciplinary and global teams. Helmut begun his career at Hoffmann La-Roche (Switzerland) where he had several roles in drug development. In 1996, he co-founded The Medicines Company in Cambridge, MA. After being a manager for Bain & Company (Germany) and the CEO of Curacyte, a German-based biotechnology company, Helmut re-joined The Medicines Company in 2004. Prior to joining the Fractyl, Helmut worked as Managing Director of European Subsidiaries of MDCO. He earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of Cologne.

Allan Will is a seasoned executive with extensive experience founding, funding, operating, and selling medical device companies. He currently also serves as Chairman, President and CEO of EBR Systems and Chairman of the Board for Setpoint Medical.

Most recently, Allan was Founder, Chairman and CEO of The Foundry, an incubator dedicated to transforming medical device concepts into companies, where he co-founded 11 companies, including among others Ardian Inc. and Evalve Inc.

Formerly, Allan was a founding Managing Director in Split Rock Partners’ Silicon Valley venture capital office, focusing on the therapeutic medical device field. Earlier in his career, Allan spent more than 20 years in operating roles in medical device companies, with the last 17 as CEO of various Bay-area venture backed start-ups. Allan currently holds more than 20 issued patents. He earned his M.S. in management at MIT and his B.S. in zoology from the University of Maryland.

Kelly Barnes is a retired partner from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Ms. Barnes worked at PwC from 1988 to 2020, most recently serving as Global Health Industries Leader from 2018-2020 and as US Health Industries Leader from 2009-2020. Named one of Health Data Management’s Most Powerful Women in Healthcare IT, she moved seamlessly into actualizing innovative business and revenue models including digital solutions and collaborations that disrupted the healthcare industry. At PwC, she was relied upon for her ability to take the long view regarding brand health, reputation, and thought leadership during critical inflection points of change and growth. Ms. Barnes currently serves on the board of directors of Included Health and is a member of the Executive Advisory Board for the Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas. She earned a B.S. in business administration and an MSA in Accounting from the University of Arkansas.

Senator William W. Bradley served in the U.S. Senate from 1979 to 1997 representing the state of New Jersey. In 2000, he was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States.

Previously, he was chief outside advisor to McKinsey & Company’s nonprofit practice and was a Senior Advisor and Vice Chairman of the International Council of JP Morgan & Co. He has worked as an essayist for CBS Evening News and was a visiting professor at Stanford University, University of Notre Dame, and the University of Maryland. Senator Bradley has authored seven books on American politics, culture and economy, including his latest book We Can All Do Better.

Currently, he hosts American Voices, a weekly show on Sirius XM Satellite Radio that highlights the remarkable accomplishments of Americans both famous and unknown. Prior to serving in the Senate, he was an Olympic gold medalist in 1964 and a professional basketball player with the New York Knicks from 1967 to 1977 during which time they won two NBA championships. In 1982, he was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame. Senator Bradley holds a B.A. degree in American History from Princeton University and an M.A. degree from Oxford University where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

Brian Dovey has been a partner of Domain since 1988, where he has led innovative investments in life sciences companies. Since joining Domain, he has served on the boards of directors of more than 35 private and public companies and has been chairman of six.

Prior to Domain, Brian was president of Rorer Group, now a part of Sanofi, where he was the primary architect of a strategy transforming the company from a diversified medical products company to a fully integrated pharmaceutical company, doubling sales with a multi-fold increase in profits.

Previous to that, Brian was president of Survival Technology, a start-up medical products company whose sales growth placed it in the top ten of The Inc. 100. Brian was formerly chairman and currently serves on the boards of directors of both the Center for Venture Education (Kauffman Fellows Program) and the Wistar Institute, a leader in preclinical bio-medical research in the non-profit sector. He received his B.A. in mathematics from Colgate University and his MBA from Harvard Business School.

Marc Elia is the founder of M28 Capital, a healthcare sector investment fund. Prior to that, from January 2012 to September 2019, Mr. Elia served as a partner at Bridger Capital, an investment fund. He is on the Board of Directors of Adagio Therapeutics, Adimab and SQZ Biotechnologies. Mr. Elia holds a B.A. in economics from Carleton College.

Clive is Executive Chair and Founder of Population Health Partners, a global investment firm based in New York, San Francisco, and London, focused on technologies which arrest the drivers of common and burdensome health conditions such as stroke and heart disease, diabetes, lung diseases, chronic pain, anxiety and depression. He is also Vice Chairman of BB Biotech, the Swiss investor in biotechnology, and a board member of EQRx, a firm creating novel, patent-protected medicines at prices that are more affordable for people and sustainable for healthcare systems and of Comanche, a biotech start-up taking on the global problem of pre-eclampsia which is a leading cause of maternal death and premature births, particularly in low and middle income countries.

Clive was the founder, Chief Executive and Chief Innovation Officer of The Medicines Company, acquired by Novartis in early 2020 for $9.7 billion. Prior to that, he was a Partner at the venture capital firm MPM Capital, and before then, he held senior global executive positions with the Roche group working out of Switzerland and the United States. He trained in medicine, with post-graduate specialization in cancer treatment, cancer research, clinical trials, statistics, and epidemiology. He holds MB ChB and MD cum laude degrees from the University of Birmingham, UK.

Dr. Harith Rajagopalan is Co-founder and CEO of Fractyl Health, having started the company while serving as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at General Catalyst Partners.

Prior to founding Fractyl Health, Harith was an academic cardiologist and physician-scientist. He received his B.S. in chemistry from Stanford University and went on to obtain M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. At Johns Hopkins, Harith did groundbreaking and award-winning research on intestinal cancers that was published in top medical journals, including Nature and Science.

After medical school, Harith trained in internal medicine and clinical cardiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and completed a research fellowship at Harvard Medical School.

Ajay Royan created and runs Mithril, a growth fund that makes concentrated investments in transformative and durable technology companies around the world.

Ajay and his team partner with innovators building companies in industries as diverse as cybersecurity, advanced medical devices, and fusion energy. Before forming Mithril, Ajay was a member of the core team that grew Clarium Capital into a multibillion-dollar macro fund.

He serves as an external advisor to Oak Ridge National Labs and the University of Michigan Risk Science Center. He was educated at Yale.

Amy Schulman is a healthcare investor and managing partner of the LS Polaris Innovation Fund. She is a highly respected leader in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries. Ms. Schulman joined Polaris Partners in 2014, simultaneously assuming the role of CEO of Arsia Therapeutics, a company acquired by Eagle Pharmaceuticals in 2016. In 2015, Ms. Schulman co-founded Lyndra, where she is CEO. She became CEO and Executive Chair of Olivo Laboratories in 2017, which sold its cosmetic business to Shiseido in 2018, and serves as Executive Chair of SQZ Biotech.

Prior to joining Polaris, Schulman was the general counsel of Pfizer, president of Pfizer Nutrition, and ran Pfizer consumer healthcare after the nutrition business was sold to Nestle in 2012. She is the recipient of numerous awards including: Scientific American’s “2015 Worldview 100 List”, Fierce Biotech’s 2014 “Top 15 Women in Biotech”, and Fortune Magazine’s 2013 “50 Most Powerful Women in Business”.

Amy is a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School where she teaches Leadership and Corporate Accountability. She serves on the Board of Directors of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, and the Whitehead Institute.

She is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Wesleyan University and earned her J.D. from Yale Law School.