Freeline appoints Jeffrey Chodakewitz, M.D., to its Board of Directors
London, 5 November 2019 – Freeline, a biotechnology company focused on developing curative gene therapies for chronic systemic diseases, today announced the appointment of Jeffrey Chodakewitz, M.D., to its Board of Directors.
“We are delighted that Jeff has agreed to join the Freeline Board. His extensive executive and research and development experience will be invaluable to Freeline as we continue to advance our clinical stage Haemophilia B and Fabry programs as well as move our Haemophilia A and Gaucher programs into the clinic.,” said Chris Hollowood, Executive Chairman of Freeline. “In addition, Jeff’s experience in building organisations that sustainably innovate will serve us well as we move into non-monogenic disorders.”
“I am delighted to join Freeline’s Board as the Company progresses its programs through the clinic,” said Jeffery Chodakewitz. I look forward to working with the team to build a leading global gene therapy company bringing life-changing gene therapies to patients."
Dr. Chodakewitz has over 30 years of leadership experience in the bio-pharmaceutical industry. He served most recently as Chief Medical Officer and EVP, Global Medicines Development & Medical Affairs at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, where he also served as a member of the Vertex Executive Committee. In this capacity he oversaw precision-medicine based clinical development, global regulatory submission/approval and post-marketing support of multiple medicines for the treatment of cystic fibrosis. He also managed the translation of the Vertex pipeline in other therapeutic areas from research into the clinic, including programmes in oncology and CNS, as well as overseeing the Vertex clinical collaboration with CRISPR Therapeutics focused on a gene editing approach for hemoglobinopathies. He retired from Vertex in early 2019.
Prior to Vertex, Dr Chodakewitz spent over 20 years at Merck & Co., where he served in several positions including Head of Infectious Diseases and Vaccines Global Development, Senior Vice President of Global Scientific Strategy (Infectious Disease, Respiratory & Immunology) and Senior Vice President of Late Stage Development. Prior to Merck, he served in academic positions at the Yale University School of Medicine and New York University’s Bellevue Medical Center. Dr. Chodakewitz is a Diplomate of the National Board of Medical Examiners and the American Board of Internal Medicine (both Internal Medicine and Infectious Disease). He holds a B.S in Biochemistry cum laude from Yale University and an M.D. from the Yale University School of Medicine.
Dr Chodakewitz also serves on the Boards of Directors of Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals and resTORbio, Inc. as well as serving as an Executive Advisor to the Blackstone Life Sciences Group.
