Chelsea Johnson, Ph.D.,

Head of Biogen New Ventures

Chelsea joined Biogen as Head of New Ventures with a decade of experience building and investing in biotech.

Previously a principal at Atlas Venture and on the investment team at Third Rock Ventures, she co-founded Judo Bio and was a founding team member at Tango Therapeutics. Chelsea obtained her Ph.D. from the Biological and Biomedical Sciences program at Harvard University.

Chris Shaffer, Ph.D,

Executive Director, Biogen New Ventures

Chris brings over 25 years of experience in neuroscience drug development and innovation strategy to the team. Before joining New Ventures, he held multiple leadership roles across Biogen’s Development and External Innovation organizations and spent nearly 17 years at Pfizer, where he led multiple intra- and inter-company neuroscience programs from pre-HTS through Ph2b.  Chris has co-authored over 50 peer-reviewed publications.

Aditya Asokan, Ph.D,

Director, Biogen New Ventures

Before joining Biogen, Aditya spent six years at Samsara BioCapital sourcing, diligencing, and managing investments across a broad range of therapeutic areas and modalities. He has extensive experience supporting both private and public company financings and has served on the board for numerous portfolio companies. 

Linda Vo, Ph.D.,

Director, Biogen New Ventures

Linda brings a strong background spanning venture creation and academic science. She joined Biogen from Curie.Bio, and prior to that spent three years at Third Rock Ventures, where she helped build multiple early-stage biotech companies. Earlier in her career, she served as a PI at the Innovative Genomics Institute and completed postdoctoral training in immunology at UCSF.