Roivant Social Ventures Launches Inaugural Convergence Forum Fellowship Program
Roivant Social Ventures is proud to announce the launch of our inaugural Convergence Forum Fellowships in support of CEOs championing healthcare equity through the development of therapeutics and technology.
The Convergence Forum for Leaders in Healthcare Innovation is an invitation only annual event that explores what’s happening in the rapidly-converging worlds of biotech, pharma, healthcare, medical devices, and the Internet. The programs foster debate and discussion while providing an opportunity for participants to make important new contacts, explore new directions in research, and delve deeply into what it takes to maintain competitive advantage in a fast-changing world.
Roivant Social Ventures’ 2024 Convergence Fellows are:
Cheri Ackerman, PhD, Co-Founder and CEO of Concerto Biosciences
Afreen Allam, MBA, Founder and CEO of SiNON Nano Sciences
Natalie J. Galant, PhD, CEO of Paradox Immunotherapeutics
Kwamane Liddell, JD, MHA, BSN, Founder and CEO of ThriveLink
Elizabeth Wood, PhD, Co-Founder and CEO of JURA Bio, Inc.
Dr. Cheri Ackerman co-founded Concerto Biosciences to reinvent humanity’s relationship with microbes. Concerto leverages its unmatched understanding of microbial ecology to discover microbial products that reliably improve human health, crop yield, and consumer experience. Underlying Concerto's prowess is its discovery engine, kChip, which constructs millions of miniature, defined microbial communities simultaneously and analyzes the behavior of every community to learn which microbes, nutrients, and/or metabolites drive the functions required for the best product candidates.
Afreen Allam’s contributions through SiNON Nano Sciences are significantly benefiting individuals afflicted with debilitating neurological conditions by enhancing the capacity of drugs to traverse the Blood-Brain Barrier (BBB). Through SiNON’s patented nanoparticle, the Carbon Nano Particle, pharmaceutical entities gain the ability to encapsulate their medications in a manner that markedly enhances drug localization within the brain. This advancement facilitates a decrease in overall dosage required for patients, thereby mitigating risks of toxicity and adverse effects, while simultaneously enhancing therapeutic efficacy and cost-effectiveness.
Dr. Natalie J. Galant’s work at Paradox Immunotherapeutics is transforming the future of protein misfolding diseases through front-line monoclonal antibody (mAb) treatments. Paradox Immunotherapeutics' proven-successful drug design platform allows it to identify and develop specialized antibodies that can selectively target only the problematic/misfolded proteins while leaving healthy proteins in the body untouched.
Kwamane Liddell founded ThriveLink to eliminate barriers to healthcare access and programs through a deep understanding of the impact that socioeconomic factors have on health outcomes. ThriveLink is an AI enrollment agent that empowers families to enroll in social programs like food stamps, health insurance, and utility assistance by verbalizing their answers to application questions. This innovation creates easier accessibility for the more than 130 million people in the US with reading barriers, disabilities, and limited access to technology, and is available to more than 500,000 Medicaid beneficiaries.
Dr. Elizabeth Wood’s work with JURA Bio is building the future of genomic medicines by expanding what immune medicines can target and transforming how therapies are made. JURA's machine learning (ML) end-to-end discovery and development platform harnesses a combination of synthetic biology and probabilistic ML to design, build, and test the next generation of genomic medicines.