About

Kris Vaddi, Ph.D. founded Prelude Therapeutics and has served as the Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board of Directors since 2016. Prior to founding Prelude, from 2014 to 2016, Dr. Vaddi served as Chief Executive Officer of Orsenix, LLC, a clinical stage biotechnology company. Previously, he held several roles at Incyte Corporation, starting as a Founding Scientist and an Executive Director in 2002, and most recently as a Senior Advisor from 2015 to 2016. Dr. Vaddi initiated and championed JAK research programs at Incyte that led to the discovery, development, and approval of Jakafi® (ruxolotinib) for Myelofibrosis and Polycythemia Vera and Olumiant® (baricitinib) for rheumatoid arthritis. He received his BVSc in Veterinary Medicine from APAU in India and his Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Toxicology from University of Florida.

Brian Piper, M.B.A currently serves as Chief Financial Officer at Prelude Therapeutics. Mr. Piper joined Prelude in 2019 and has over 25 years of experience in corporate healthcare finance, covering a wide span of financial and operational activities. Prior to joining Prelude, Mr. Piper served as Chief Financial Officer and Corporate Secretary at Aevi Genomic Medicine (later acquired by Cerecor, Inc.). Prior to his time with Aevi, Mr. Piper served as Vice President, Finance and Investor Relations at Medgenics, Inc. from 2014 to 2016, and prior to Medgenics, had a 13- year career at Shire Pharmaceuticals (later acquired by Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited), holding key roles in Investor Relations, Corporate Venture Capital, and numerous additional financial roles, including two years spent in Dublin, Ireland establishing Shire’s geographic expansion strategies. Early in his career, Mr. Piper also spent time with Celera Genomics and Otsuka Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Mr. Piper received his B.B.A. from the University of Notre Dame and an M.B.A. from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland.

David Mauro, M.D. currently serves as Chief Medical Officer at Prelude Therapeutics. Dr. Mauro joined Prelude in 2019 and has over 18 years of experience in oncology clinical development. Prior to joining Prelude, he served as Chief Medical Officer at Checkmate Pharmaceuticals Inc. from 2016 until 2019. Prior to Checkmate, Dr. Mauro served as Chief Medical Officer at Advaxis, Inc. from 2014 until 2016, Executive Director at Merck from 2007-2014, and prior to that, as a Director at Bristol Myers Squibb. Dr. Mauro’s experience covers a wide span of oncology drug development including translational, early and late stage development, as well as U.S. medical affairs activities. He participated in three successful NDAs for Erbitux® (cetuximab), Sprycel® (dasatinib), and Sylatron® (peginterferon alfa-2b) as well as EGFR and KRAS companion diagnostics. Dr. Mauro received a B.S. in Biochemistry from Cornell University and an M.D. and Ph.D. from Temple University School of Medicine. He completed residency training at the NIH/NCI in Bethesda.

Peggy Scherle, Ph.D. has served as Chief Scientific Officer at Prelude Therapeutics since 2018. Prior to joining Prelude, Dr. Scherle held several roles at Incyte Corporation, most recently serving as Group Vice President, Discovery Biology and Preclinical Pharmacology where she oversaw the target validation and preclinical drug discovery efforts. Her prior roles at Incyte included Vice President, Preclinical Pharmacology from 2014 until 2017 and as Executive Director, In Vitro Biology from 2011 until 2014. Dr. Scherle was one of the original team of scientists that joined Incyte in 2002 and was involved in the discovery and development of the JAK inhibitors, Jakafi® (ruxolitinib), for the treatment of myelofibrosis and polycythemia vera, and Olumiant® (baricitinib), for rheumatoid arthritis, as well as the advancement of >10 small molecules into clinical studies for cancer, including both targeted therapy and immunotherapy approaches. Prior to Incyte, Dr. Scherle held scientific research positions with DuPont Pharmaceuticals Company and Bristol- Myers Squibb. Dr. Scherle received her Ph.D. in immunology from the University of Pennsylvania and completed her postdoctoral training at the NIH.

Andrew Combs, Ph.D. is the Executive Vice President and Head of Chemistry at Prelude Therapeutics. Dr. Combs joined Prelude in 2019 and has over 23 years of experience as a medicinal chemist. Prior to joining Prelude, Dr. Combs previously held several roles at Incyte Corporation, most recently as Vice President of Discovery Chemistry, where he led teams in medicinal chemistry, analytical chemistry, enabling technologies, computational design, and informatics from 2003 until 2019. Earlier in his career, Dr. Combs held positions of increasing responsibility, starting as a Senior Research Scientist and advancing to a Director of medicinal chemistry at DuPont-Merck, DuPont Pharmaceuticals, and Bristol-Myers Squibb. His passion for research embraces the application of innovative and enabling technologies to expedite the drug discovery process. He has led teams of creative chemists with whom he co-invented >10 clinical candidates, including epacadostat and parsaclisib, which both entered late stage clinical trials in oncology. Dr. Combs holds B.S. degrees in Chemistry and Molecular Biology from the UW-Madison, a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from UCLA, and completed his training as a HHMI post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University.

Deborah Morosini, M.D., M.S.W. joined Prelude Therapeutics in 2020 and currently serves as Executive Vice President and Chief of Clinical Affairs. She brings to Prelude extensive expertise in oncology drug development, clinical genomics, and philanthropic activism. She previously served as Vice President of Clinical Affairs and Patient Engagement (Chief Patient Officer) at Loxo Oncology, where she built and led patient engagement and enrollment strategy, medical affairs, and patient advocacy. Dr. Morosini played a key role in the launch of Vitrakvi® (larotrectinib) via a co-promote partnership with Bayer, and conducted launch preparations for LOXO-292, a RET inhibitor for lung and thyroid cancer. Prior to Loxo, she was an early team member at Foundation Medicine, where she developed a niche specialty in the genomics of adolescent and young adult cancer. Before joining Foundation Medicine, she founded and led the molecular pathology group at AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals, where she helped develop and implement biomarker strategies for biomarker-driven trials. Prior to AstraZeneca, Dr. Morosini served as Director of Pathology for Ardais, a clinical genomics biotechnology company. She has been featured as a spokesperson for numerous non-profit and government events in oncology and has provided expert commentary for national broadcast media. She has served on numerous national oncology non-profit boards, and currently serves on the Board of Directors for ClinWiki and the SAB for Target Cancer and Upstage Lung Cancer. Dr. Morosini earned her B.A. in English from Mount Holyoke College, her M.S.W. from NYU Graduate School of Social Work, and her M.D. from Boston University School of Medicine. She completed a pathology residency at Boston Medical Center.

Christopher Pierce, M.B.A. joined Prelude Therapeutics in 2020 as Executive Vice President and Chief of Business Operations. He previously served as Vice President and Head of Commercial at Loxo Oncology, where he built and oversaw the company’s commercial organization. Mr. Pierce led the launch of Vitrakvi® (larotrectinib) in a co-promote partnership with Bayer, as well as all commercialization activities for Retevmo® (selpercatinib / LOXO-292). Prior to joining Loxo, Mr. Pierce held several roles of increasing commercial responsibility at Pfizer Oncology from 2007 to 2017, most recently as Senior Director and Global Commercial Lead of the Hematologic Malignancies Portfolio. While at Pfizer, he led the launch and in-line management of various oncology therapeutics such as Xalkori® (crizotinib), Sutent® (sunitinib), Inlyta® (axitinib), Bosulif® (bosutinib), Mylotarg® (gemtuzumab ozagamicin), and Besponsa® (inotuzumab ozogamicin). From 2004 to 2006, Mr. Pierce worked at Millennium Pharmaceuticals managing market analytics for Velcade® (bortezomib). Before Millennium, Mr. Pierce was a life sciences management strategy consultant. Mr. Pierce received his A.B. degree in Biochemical Sciences from Harvard College and his M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School.

Aimee Crombie, Ph.D. is Senior Vice President and Head of Strategic Planning & Operations at Prelude Therapeutics. Prior to joining Prelude, she was Vice President of Research at Trevena, Inc. where she oversaw drug discovery activities supporting target and hit identification, chemical lead optimization, and drug candidate selection. Aimee has contributed to the discovery of several small molecule including oliceridine, TRV734, and TRV250, biased agonists of GPCRs that are being developed for the treatment of CNS disorders. Prior to joining Trevena, Aimee was a member of the Discovery Medicinal Chemistry group at Pfizer (formerly Wyeth) where she contributed to research programs in a variety of therapeutic areas including oncology, inflammation, neuroscience, cardiovascular, and musculoskeletal diseases. Aimee received her B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Pittsburgh and her Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Adam Shilling, Ph.D. is Vice President Early Development and Regulatory Affairs at Prelude Therapeutics with 20 years of pharmaceutical experience spanning all phases of clinical and preclinical development. Prior to joining Prelude, Adam was Executive Director of Global Regulatory Affairs at Incyte where he was the global regulatory lead for the GVHD franchise and JAK1 programs. Adam led the NDA submission and approval of Jakafi in acute GVHD and contributed to the development and NDA approvals for Jakafi in myelofibrosis and polycythemia vera and Olumiant in rheumatoid arthritis. Prior to Incyte, Adam was Principal Research Scientist at Wyeth, contributing to programs in infectious diseases, women’s health, and neuroscience, including the NDA for Pristiq in major depressive disorders. He received his BS in Marine Biology at LIU Southampton and PhD in Toxicology at Oregon State University.

Madhu Pudipeddi, Ph.D. is Vice President of Technical Operations at Prelude Therapeutics. Prior to joining Prelude, he was Executive Director at Novartis Pharmaceuticals, where he had roles of increasing responsibility for over 16 years in the areas of drug development and technical operations. Dr. Pudipeddi contributed to the development and commercialization of several new molecular entities, build-up of an R&D organization in India, and oversaw Manufacturing Science & Technology operations in Europe and Americas. Prior to joining Novartis, Dr. Pudipeddi was at Bristol-Myers Squibb where he was engaged in drug discovery-development collaboration and development of new molecular entities. Dr. Pudipeddi received his B.S. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Andhra University, India and his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Michele Porreca, M.B.A., joined Prelude Therapeutics in June 2021 to serve in the newly created position of Chief People Officer where she will lead all aspects of the Company’s human resources management, including, talent management and strategy, organizational effectiveness, total rewards, culture, inclusion, and employee communications. Ms. Porreca brings more than 20 years of experience in human resources with over a decade of specialized experience in the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical sector. Most recently, she served as CHRO at Nabriva Therapeutics, where she led the human resources function during its transition from a clinical stage to commercial stage infectious disease organization. Prior to Nabriva, she served as the Vice President, Human Resources at Synergy Pharmaceuticals during the launch of its first specialty product. In addition, Ms. Porreca was a member of the HR leadership team at Shire Pharmaceuticals during a six-year span of rapid growth and partnered with global leaders across rare disease and specialty pharma lines of business as well corporate functions. In addition to her time in life sciences, Ms. Porreca held HR leadership roles in both the medical and tech industries. Ms. Porreca earned a B.A from Ursinus College and an M.B.A from Drexel University.