Advancing RNA medicines in genetic diseases, Paul Bolno, President & CEO, Wave Life Sciences

Synopsis: Dr. Paul Bolno is the President and CEO of Wave Life Sciences, a clinical-stage RNA medicines company committed to delivering life-changing treatments for people battling devastating diseases including Duchenne muscular dystrophy and Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency. Paul discusses his early years at GSK and the events that led him to join Wave as CEO, and some of his early learnings during that transition from big pharma to a biotech. He also talks about the role and opportunity that RNA presents in medicine, where he sees RNA therapeutics going next, and what excites him about the emerging field of RNA editing. Biography: Dr. Bolno has served as President and CEO of Wave Life Sciences since 2013 and oversaw the company’s initial public offering in 2015. During his tenure as President and CEO, Dr. Bolno has grown Wave into a fully integrated clinical-stage genetic medicines company, overseen the development of the company’s proprietary stereopure oligonucleotide discovery and drug development platform, and built a broad pipeline of preclinical and clinical programs supported by scalable, in-house manufacturing capabilities. In addition to Dr. Bolno’s current role at Wave, he is on the Board of Directors for SQZ Biotech and serves as Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Group for the Nucleic Acid Therapy Accelerator (NATA) in the United Kingdom. Prior to joining Wave, he was Vice President, Worldwide Business Development—Head of Asia BD and Investments, as well as Head of Global Neuroscience BD, at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). He also served as a Director of Glaxo Wellcome Manufacturing, Pte Ltd. in Singapore. Dr. Bolno joined GSK as Vice President, Business Development for the Oncology Business Unit, where he helped establish GSK’s global oncology business and served as a member of the Oncology Executive Team, Oncology Commercial Board and Cancer Research Executive Team. Prior to GSK, he served as Director of Research at Two River LLC, a healthcare private equity firm. Dr. Bolno earned a medical degree from MCP-Hahnemann School of Medicine and an MBA from Drexel University. He was a general surgery resident and cardiothoracic surgery postdoctoral research fellow at Drexel University College of Medicine.