Devan Shah and Namita Bisaria, experts in the field of RNA therapies, discuss the year ahead in RNA - opportunities, challenges, AI, fundraising, and more

Devan Shah, Founder & CEO of RNAV8 Bio, and Namita Bisaria, Head of Research, Strategy, and Operations at AIRNA, discusses approaches to RNA they are excited about this year, companies that have impressed them, and challenges ahead. They touch on uncertainties regarding the regulatory environment, how they think AI might, or might not, affect the field, and more.

The Experts

Devan Shah is the founder and CEO of RNAV8 Bio (“Renovate”), a mRNA engineering and design platform focused on radically improving mRNA therapeutic performance across rare and common diseases. His background spans finance/VC, BD, nucleic acid manufacturing, cell/gene therapy, and computational biology. 

He recently was the founding head of BD and founding business head of the Nucleic Acids and Cell Therapy Franchises at National Resilience (“Resilience”). At Resilience, he built the Nucleic Acids business from $0 to >$100M in contracted revenue with publicly disclosed clients such as Intergalactic Therapeutics and Moderna. He recruited and built a team of 15 leading nucleic acids and nanoparticle scientists for pre-GMP and GMP nucleic acids/lipid nanoparticle (“LNP”) manufacturing and recruited several critical cell therapy scientists and leaders.

Before Resilience, Devan led business development at Stanford Medical School’s Center for Definitive and Curative Medicine (CDCM), where he negotiated industry partnerships with biotechs and manufacturers in the cell, gene, and antibody fields to accelerate the translation of these novel Stanford-developed therapies into the clinic. 

Prior to Stanford, Devan was VP of Business Operations at a pioneering computational pathology startup named 3Scan, where he helped raise $14M, served as an interim product lead, and was instrumental in pharma and biotech BD deals. 

Devan started his career on Wall Street in healthcare investment banking and life science VC at Citigroup and New Leaf Venture Partners, respectively, where he led analysis and diligence on several billion dollars of deals at all stages of company development.

Namita Bisaria, PhD, MBA, is the Head of Research Strategy and Operations at AIRNA, a pioneering RNA editing company. A serial entrepreneur in the field of RNA therapeutics, she co-founded what is now ORNA Therapeutics, a leader in circRNA technology. Namita was also the first employee at Myeloid Therapeutics, where she conceptualized and developed the retrotransposon-based gene-writing technology, RetroTTM. Additionally, she founded GanNA Bio an HMS/Stanford spinout focused on the use of glycans for extrahepatic delivery of siRNA and LNPs, which was acquired by ReNAgade Therapeutics.

Namita holds a PhD in Biochemistry from Stanford University, and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Whitehead Institute. She has authored numerous high-impact papers, has multiple granted patents, and she obtained her MBA from Harvard Business School. She grew up in Tennessee and is a graduate of Princeton University.