Kenyan-Born Biotech Executive Enoch Kariuki Appointed to EpiCRISPR Board of Directors

EpiCRISPR Biotechnologies, a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing epigenetic therapies, has appointed Kenyan-born executive Enoch Kariuki, PharmD, to its Board of Directors as the company advances its lead treatment candidate, EPI-321, toward pivotal clinical development.

Kariuki, who has participated in more than $10 billion in strategic financings and mergers and acquisitions across the life sciences industry, currently serves as President of Endeavor BioMedicines, where he oversees corporate strategy and operations.

"Enoch is an accomplished biotechnology leader with a proven track record of building and scaling companies, guiding programs through pivotal clinical and regulatory milestones, and executing strategic transactions that create lasting value," said EpiCRISPR CEO Amber Salzman, Ph.D.

Kariuki's path to the boardrooms of American biotech began in Loitokitok, Kenya, where he grew up watching his mother — who was forced to leave school after the first grade — build a wholesaling company and later a beer distributorship, channeling everything she earned into her children's education. A standout student, he was admitted to one of Kenya's premier high schools and later accepted to several prestigious American universities he could not afford to attend even with financial aid. It was a full scholarship from Texas Southern University, a historically Black university in Houston, that finally brought him to the United States.

"That's how I ended up in Texas. I had no idea where in the world Texas was," Kariuki once recounted.

His drive to pursue healthcare, he has said, was forged by watching his aunt battle HIV. "I literally remember this vivacious, full of energy … shriveling away in front of the family's eyes and us not being able to do much for her. That's when I started thinking of how healthcare could be a tool for helping people," he said.

At Texas Southern, he switched his focus from business to pharmacy, earning his Doctor of Pharmacy degree. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in research and development strategy and analytics at Bristol Myers Squibb, practiced as a pharmacist at CVS Caremark, and later earned an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College before moving to Wall Street, where he worked at Leerink Partners and UBS Investment Bank, and then at the private equity firm H.I.G. Capital.

The defining stretch of his career came in biotech dealmaking. As Senior Vice President of Corporate Development at Synthorx — a company valued at $75 million when he joined — he led the process that culminated in Sanofi acquiring it for $2.5 billion in 2019. As Chief Financial Officer of VelosBio, he helped steer the company to its $2.75 billion acquisition by Merck in 2020. And as CEO of Lengo Therapeutics, he led the company into an acquisition by Blueprint Medicines in a deal that included $250 million upfront and up to $215 million in additional payments.

Kariuki also serves on the boards of Zentalis Pharmaceuticals and Pheon Therapeutics, chairing the audit committees at both companies. He previously sat on the boards of Imago Biosciences and ProfoundBio, which were acquired by Merck and Genmab respectively.

San Francisco-based EpiCRISPR is developing EPI-321, a treatment candidate for facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD), a genetic neuromuscular disease characterized by progressive muscle weakness. The company's Gene Expression Modulation System (GEMS) platform is designed to regulate gene expression without directly changing the underlying DNA sequence.

"EpiCRISPR is at an exciting inflection point, with compelling early clinical data supporting the potential of its differentiated epigenetic platform to address diseases with significant unmet medical needs," Kariuki said of his appointment.

Source: citybiz / Face2Face Africa