Leslie Williams joined the Board of Directors in 2019. She has more than 30 years of industry experience in healthcare, management, commercial product development and marketing. In 2021 she founded and serves as President & CEO of HC Bioscience, a biotech company developing a new genetic medicine utilizing engineered tRNA to target nonsense mutations which are present in 10-15% of all patients diagnosed with genetic disease. Prior to this, Leslie was the Founder, President & CEO of ImmusanT, Inc., a biotech company developing antigen specific immunotherapies for autoimmune disease. Prior to founding ImmusanT, she was President & CEO of Ventaira Pharmaceuticals, a significant player in the pulmonary drug delivery market. Ms. Williams’ prior pharmaceutical industry experience includes operating and commercial positions at INO Therapeutics, Merck and GlaxoSmithKline, and drug-delivery & monitoring experience at Datex-Ohmeda (formerly Ohmeda, Inc.). She was a venture partner at Battelle Ventures and has served on several Boards including Hepregen Corporation, CDI Bioscience, and on the Board of The Capital Network (TCN). Leslie currently serves on the Board of Directors for Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), and CSCRI (Coral Sea Clinical Research Institute) as well as the Board of Advisors of Life Science Cares and the Editorial Advisory Board of Life Science Leader. Ms. Williams holds an MBA from Washington University, John Olin School of Business, and a BS degree with honors in nursing from the University of Iowa. Before entering industry, she was a critical-care nurse at Duke University, Medical College of Virginia and at the University of Iowa.
