Who We Are
Staff Expertise
Vernal Biosciences is committed to our customers. We lead by example, so our staff comprises a dedicated team of professionals whose experience spans several dimensions of the bioscience sphere. Our diverse leadership team is passionate about what we do and precise in the work we deliver to our clients.
Vernal Biosciences Founder
Christian Cobaugh, Ph.D.
Founder & CEO
Christian has been at the cutting edge of mRNA drug discovery for over fifteen years. He has extensive experience leading teams in mRNA technology and was the first Alexion Pharmaceuticals scientist working on their partnership with Moderna Therapeutics to develop mRNA therapeutics. He has directed critical discovery, delivery, development, manufacturing, and quality control in the mRNA sector, having led mRNA R&D at Arcturus Therapeutics and Translate Bio; and served as Vice President of Process Development and Manufacturing at Omega Therapeutics.
With 15 mRNA patent applications, Christian brings strong scientific expertise in mRNA and LNP with broad experience in all phases of mRNA therapeutic development and regulatory requirements. He has also authored CMC sections for briefing books and developed ICH Q7-compliant quality management systems.
Christian holds a Ph.D. in cell and molecular biology from the University of Texas-Austin and completed a postdoctoral fellowship for Applied Biosystems in Redwood City, CA. In his spare time, Christian enjoys all that Vermont’s Green Mountains have to offer, including mountain biking, alpine and Nordic skiing with his family, and volunteering to build and maintain the local trail networks.
Meet Our Team
Leadership
Chief Financial Officer RichardHamel, MBA
Richard Hamel, MBA
Richard P Hamel is the Chief Financial Officer at Vernal and is an accomplished financial executive with over 25 years of experience in enhancing performance and developing systems, processes, and procedures to streamline operations for high growth companies within the biotechnology and life sciences sector. Most recently, he was Chief Financial Officer at ReciBioPharm in Watertown, MA where he played a key role in integrating the business within Recipharm. Prior to joining ReciBioPharm, he was Chief Financial Officer at United BioSource in Blue Bell, PA where he helped carve out the business from Express Scripts and build a stand alone finance organization. Prior to joining United BioSource, Richard spent over 7 years at inVentiv Health/Syneos in various financial roles of increasing responsibility including finance, shared services and treasury. Earlier in his career, Richard held a range of positions at ThermoFisher, AB Volvo, Kodak, Diageo and EY. He received a BA (Honours) from York University in Toronto, ON and MBA from Union College in Schenectady, NY.
Senior Vice President, GMP Operations
Judith McCorry, MBA
Judith is responsible for GMP Operations which includes building and qualifying both Vernal sites for early phase and commercial manufacturing. With over 20 years of experience, Judith has led transformational changes to quality systems in support of commercial manufacturing. Judith was a dedicated member of Merck’s manufacturing division for over a decade. Before joining Vernal Biosciences, she was Head of Quality at Vibalogics, a CDMO in Boston’s biotech hub. Judith received her Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry with a minor in Chemistry from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and master’s degrees in leadership development and business administration from the Pennsylvania State University.
Senior Vice President, RUO Operations
Robert Myers, MBA
Rob leads the RUO business unit and is responsible for its business and operational systems and processes, production, supply chain and materials management, and operational finance. Rob has more than 25 years’ experience in biopharmaceuticals. He pioneered business development and operations at Haematologic Technologies (now Prolytix), where he oversaw all marketing and sales activities for both the GMP analytical testing and RUO/POC research reagent divisions in addition to leading an RUO medical device business unit. Rob received a bachelor’s degree in zoology from the University of Vermont and a master’s in business administration from UVM’s Grossman School of Business.
Senior Director, Commercial & Technical Operations
Grant Henderson Ph.D.
Grant Henderson is responsible for process scale-up of pDNA, mRNA, and LNP-mRNA for cGMP activities. In addition to leading manufacturing sciences, Grant has been instrumental in facility design and process architecture, bringing more than 10 years of experience in process engineering in small and large molecules at Lonza Biologics and Mylan Technologies to his current role. His expertise also spans process development and regulatory filing. Grant holds a B.E. in chemical engineering from the University of Connecticut and a Ph.D. in engineering from Dartmouth College.
Our Board of Directors
Christian’s leadership in mRNA drug discovery, delivery, process development and quality control, manufacturing, and regulatory matters has been steadily growing since 2013 when he became the first Alexion Pharmaceuticals scientist working on the partnership with Moderna Therapeutics dedicated to RNA therapeutics. Since then, he has led mRNA R&D at Arcturus Therapeutics, Translate Bio, and most recently at Omega Therapeutics as the Vice President of Process Development and Manufacturing.
As General Partner at Ampersand Capital Partners, David brings a wealth of experience from his 20 years in the healthcare industry. Over the last decade, David has supported Ampersand’s portfolio of successful CDMO businesses including Brammer Bio, Arranta Bio, Vibalogics, and Genezen. In addition, David works with other service businesses in the advanced therapies sector, including Cellero and Protagene. David holds a B.Sc. in immunology from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland; a Ph.D. in tumor immunobiology from the University of Sheffield, England; and an M.B.A. from Babson College, Wellesley, MA.
Daniella led Dynamk Capital’s investments in 13 portfolio companies, and sits on the board of several. Prior to founding Dynamk Capital, she was CEO and Founder of Dynamk Consulting, providing capital, strategy and business development consulting to leading life science companies and startups. Before that she was an entrepreneur and co-founded Wave Biotech LLC driving the start-up, growth and commercialization of a highly disruptive technology until the successful exit and acquisition by GE Healthcare in 2007 (now Danaher/Cytiva). At GE Healthcare, Daniella held a variety of strategic, M&A and business development roles including integrating the acquired Xcellerex business which enabled global commercialization of a several hundred million dollar enterprise solutions business.
Errik B. Anderson is the CEO and Founder of Alloy Therapeutics, a biotech ecosystem democratizing access to technologies and services for discovering and developing therapeutic biologics across six modalities including antibodies, TCRs, genetic medicines, peptides, cell therapy, and drug delivery. As the CEO of his single-family office, Ulysses Diversified Holdings, and as the previous co-founder and executive of successful biotech companies including Adimab, Compass Therapeutics, Alector, Avitide and Arsanis, Errik brings a breadth of operational and investment experience. Errik received his A.B. from Dartmouth and an M.B.A. from The Tuck School of Business and studied bioengineering at The Thayer School of Engineering.
Steve Favaloro is currently President and CEO of Genezen, a leading gene and cell therapy CDMO. He also serves as an executive advisor to Ampersand Capital Partners. Prior, Steve was CFO at Arbor Biotechnologies, a next generation gene editing therapeutic company. Steve also served as CFO at Arranta Bio, a leading CDMO for mRNA, from its founding in 2019 to its successful exit to Recipharm in February 2022. Prior to this, Steve was CFO at Brammer Bio, where he oversaw a period of rapid expansion and capital deployment from 2016 to 2019 – leading up to its successful sale to Thermo Fisher Scientific in May 2019 for $1.7B. Prior to joining Brammer, Steve held finance roles of increasing responsibility at MilliporeSigma, Merck KGaA, and Bruker Corporation. He received his MBA and Master of Science from the Carroll School of Management at Boston College. Steve also received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Boston College.
Pat Sacco is an accomplished biotechnology and life sciences executive with extensive experience in leading technical and general operations, including manufacturing, supply chain, CMC, quality, process sciences, and engineering. Over his 35-year career, he’s supported and made significant contributions to the development, manufacturing, and commercialization of REPLAGAL®, ELAPRASE®, and VPRIV®. He is currently the SVP of Manufacturing, Quality, and Operations at SalioGen Therapeutics.
Pat has also been an independent consultant and actively engaged with several advanced therapy medicinal product (ATMP) biotech companies and CDMOs, where he provided interim executive management, strategic advisory support, and technical, operational, and program management expertise. He was the SVP of Technical Operations at both Translate Bio (now part of Sanofi) and Shire plc (now Takeda), and prior to that held roles of increasing responsibility (from Project Engineer (1987–1990) to Director, Plant and Project Engineering (1998–1999) at Wyeth Biopharma (formerly Genetics Institute) and Genzyme. Pat holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). He is also a board member at QbDVision, Inc.