Atalanta Therapeutics Announces Leadership Transitions

- Joanne Kotz joins Atalanta as Chief Executive Officer, with proven experience building and scaling innovative platform-based companies

- Doug Pagán joins as Chief Financial Officer & Chief Operating Officer, bringing deep financial, business strategy and RNAi expertise

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Atalanta Therapeutics, a biotechnology company pioneering RNA interference (RNAi) for the treatment of intractable neurological diseases, announced today that Joanne Kotz has been named Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors, succeeding Alicia Secor, who has stepped down as part of a planned transition to pursue other opportunities. The company also announced the appointment of Douglas Pagán as Chief Financial Officer & Chief Operating Officer, succeeding Jeffrey Young.

Additionally, Bob D. Brown, an industry veteran with extensive RNAi drug discovery and development experience, has joined the company’s Scientific Advisory Board to advise as the company advances its innovative pipeline into the clinic.

"I want to thank Alicia for her extraordinary leadership of the company from formation to the cusp of entry into the clinic, as well as her continued role as an advisor through this transition,” said Dr. Stephen Knight, President and Senior Managing Partner of F-Prime and a member of the Atalanta Board of Directors. “We are delighted to have Joanne lead Atalanta’s next stage. Joanne is an accomplished leader who has demonstrated the ability to advance innovative platforms and pipelines through the transition to clinical stage, and has optimized company value creation through strong financings, partnerships and strategic transactions.”

“I’m thrilled to be joining Atalanta, which is pioneering the effort to bring RNAi therapies to patients living with devastating neurological diseases,” said Dr. Kotz. “I am passionately committed to Atalanta’s mission to deliver life-transforming therapies to patients and look forward to working with the team to transition our first programs into the clinic as we work to realize the full therapeutic potential of Atalanta’s innovative di-siRNA platform.”

“Over the past six years we’ve made incredible scientific progress at Atalanta. I’m proud of all that we’ve been able to accomplish together and thank the Board and team for their support and dedication to our mission,” said Ms. Secor. “The transition from research to clinical stage is a critical time for any biotech, and Joanne’s leadership and experience is ideally suited to guide Atalanta’s continued progress towards our mission of delivering RNAi medicines to patients living with severe neurological diseases.”

Dr. Kotz brings to Atalanta extensive executive experience, including most recently as cofounder and CEO of Jnana Therapeutics. She led the company from an early discovery platform stage through the transition to clinical stage. Jnana was acquired by Otsuka Pharmaceutical in 2024 for ~$1 billion following the demonstration of positive clinical proof of concept for the company’s lead rare disease program. Prior to Jnana, Dr. Kotz held leadership roles at FBRI, F-Prime Capital’s initiative to enable therapeutic breakthroughs in Alzheimer’s disease and related brain disorders, and at the Broad Institute. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Chordoma Foundation. Dr. Kotz received her Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley and a B.S. in chemistry from the University of Florida. She conducted postdoctoral research at Genentech and at the Necker Children’s Hospital in Paris.

Mr. Pagán brings to Atalanta more than two decades of experience in finance, investor relations, and capital formation across both public and venture-backed biopharmaceutical companies. Prior to joining Atalanta, he served as Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer at Jnana Therapeutics, where he was instrumental in securing the company’s $107 million Series C financing heading into the clinic, and the subsequent ~$1 billion acquisition by Otsuka Pharmaceutical. Prior to Jnana, Mr. Pagán was Chief Financial Officer at the RNAi company Dicerna Pharmaceuticals, where he oversaw the 2021 sale of the company to Novo Nordisk for $3.3 billion. He has previously held leadership roles at Acceleron and Biogen and has served on the Board of Directors of the biotech companies Ziopharm Oncology and Timberlyne Therapeutics. Mr. Pagán holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BSE in chemical engineering from Princeton University.

Dr. Brown brings more than 30 years of experience in RNAi and oligonucleotide research and development, including from discovery through drug approval and across a wide range of clinical indications and regulatory jurisdictions. Most recently, Dr. Brown served as Chief Scientific Officer and Executive Vice President of R&D at Dicerna Pharmaceuticals, an RNAi-focused therapeutics company that was acquired by Novo Nordisk. At Novo, he served as President and Head of the Dicerna Transformation Research Unit and SVP. Prior to Dicerna, Dr. Brown held various R&D leadership positions at Genta, a clinical-stage antisense oligonucleotide therapeutics company, and previously was a co-founder of Oasis Biosciences, which was acquired by Gen-Probe. Dr. Brown earned a Ph.D. in molecular biology from the University of California, Berkeley and B.S. degrees in chemistry and biology from the University of Washington, Seattle.

About Atalanta Therapeutics
Atalanta Therapeutics is a biotechnology company developing treatments for intractable diseases of the central nervous system using RNA interference. Atalanta’s unique platform of divalent small interfering RNA (di-siRNA) is designed to enable durable, selective gene silencing throughout the brain and spinal cord. Atalanta is advancing a wholly owned pipeline of disease-modifying programs for Huntington’s disease, genetic epilepsy, severe chronic pain, and other neurological diseases in addition to partnered programs as part of a strategic collaboration with Genentech. Atalanta is headquartered in Boston, Mass. For more information, visit www.atalantatx.com.