Artugen Therapeutics applies rigorous pharmacologic principles to harness the microbiome’s therapeutic potential in difficult-to-treat infectious and inflammatory diseases that are modulated by the GI tract
Artugen is funded by Morningside Ventures and operated by Morningside BioPharma Advisory
Our Team
Artugen was founded in 2016 and has a discovery team based at University College Cork, Teagasc Food Research Centre, Moorepark, and APC Microbiome Ireland. Artugen’s development team is based in Concord, MA, USA
Chris Stevens, MD
Dr. Stevens holds a BA in chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and an M.D. degree from the University of Miami in Florida. He has 10 years of academic research experience and over 20 years of biopharmaceutical drug development experience.
Dr. Stevens began his career as an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts where he led research in the field of mucosal immunology. Dr. Stevens left academia in 1998 to join Circe biomedical as its Medical Director developing a bioartificial liver. Following Circe he was Medical Director at Altus Pharmaceuticals developing liprotamase, a pancreatic enzyme replacement therapy. Since 2004 he has been an independent consultant for over 40 companies with a focus on drug development of therapies targeting gastrointestinal diseases, hereditary angioedema, infectious diseases, arthritis, diabetes, hepatitis and oncology. He has worked in all phases of drug development from pre-IND to NDA, BLA and MAA filing, orphan drug and fast track applications and FDA advisory committee presentations.
Most recently Dr. Stevens was the Chief Medical Officer for Arsanis, Inc from 2016 to 2019 overseeing the development of ASN100 for the prevention of bacterial pneumonia from preIND through to Phase 2. Dr. Stevens now serves as Artugen’s Chief Medical Officer.
Dr. Ellie Hershberger, Pharm D
Dr. Hershberger now serves as Artugen’s clinical advisor.
Cheryl Cormier
In 2018, Cheryl joined Artugen Therapeutics as Operations Manager to set up the company’s operational infrastructure and to support its Chief Executive, Ronnie Farquhar.
Ronald Farquhar, D. Phil
Laurent Chesnel, PhD
In January 2018, Laurent joined Artugen Therapeutics as Senior Director of Research and Early Development leading the company’s transition to clinic.
Prof. Paul Ross
Paul was one of the founding shareholders in Artugen Therapeutics, serves on the Board of Directors and acts as a scientific consultant.
Prof. Colin Hill
Colin Hill has a Ph.D. in molecular microbiology and is a Professor of Microbiology at University College Cork, Ireland. His main interests are in infectious disease, bacteriocins and the gut virome. He is particularly interested in the role of the gut microbiome (bacteria , bacteriocins and bacteriophage) in protecting against microbial infections. He is also a Principal Investigator in APC Microbiome Ireland in Cork, a large Science Foundation Ireland supported research centre working with industry devoted to the study of the role of the gut microbiota in health and disease. In 2005 Prof. Hill was awarded a D.Sc. by the National University of Ireland in recognition of his contributions to research. In 2009 he was elected to the Royal Irish Academy and in 2010 he received the Metchnikoff Prize in Microbiology and was elected to the American Academy of Microbiology. He has published more than 550 papers and holds over 20 patents.
Prof. Hill was one of the founding shareholders in Artugen Therapeutics, he has served on the Board of Directors and acts as a scientific consultant.
Dr. Michelle O’ Donnell
Michelle joined APC Microbiome Ireland and Teagasc Food Research Centre, Moorepark as a Research Support Officer in 2016.
As part of the Cork-based discovery team, she oversees the research and development platform of Artugen Therapeutics.
Dr. James Hegarty
James Hegarty received a B.Sc. (Hons) in Microbiology from University College Cork in 2012, before completing a Ph.D. at Teagasc Food Research Centre in 2017. During this time his work focussed on the use of bacteriocin-producing microorganisms to treat obesity and related metabolic disorders. James successfully identified one lead isolate which became the subject of future studies.
In July 2018, James joined Artugen Therapeutics where he works as part of the Cork discovery team.
Mary Rea
Mary’s early research career was predominantly associated with dairy microbiology, encompassing work on the microbiota of cheese, the role of lactic acid bacteria in flavour development in dairy fermentations and food pathogens associated with dairy products. On the foundation of Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre (now known as the APC Microbiome Institute) Mary joined the Teagasc Team to mine the mammalian gut microbiota for antimicrobial producing bacteria targeting gut pathogens and their identification and purification with a specific focus on anti-Clostridium difficile antimicrobials. She was a funded investigator with APC with specific responsibility for the culture collections attached to Teagasc Food Research Centre and the APC which comprise of over 10,000 strains.
Mary joined Artugen Therapeutics Ltd at its foundation in 2016 as the senior microbiologist on the Teagasc based Artugen team. Since her retirement from Teagasc in 2018, Mary works as a consultant microbiologist with the Cork-based Artugen team.
Jennifer Locke
As the Chief Business Officer at Artugen Therapeutics, Jennifer serves as the key strategic leader overseeing both our business development and business operations divisions. She brings more than 15 years of experience in the biotech industry-leading high-performing teams, directing innovative development strategies, and executing operational excellence from early-stage drug discovery through NDA/BLA filing and into commercial launch. Prior to joining Artugen, Jennifer was the Senior Director Program Management at Seres Therapeutics where she ran the successful development of SER-109 for recurrent C. difficile into Phase 3, and SER-287 for ulcerative colitis into Phase 2 as well as the early-stage development of several other assets in the Seres’ portfolio. She has also held several leadership roles of increasing responsibilities at Merck and Cubist. Jennifer holds a Master of Science (M.S.) Project Management & Global Business from Boston University and a B.A. English, Spanish, and Women’s Studies from Fairfield University.
Ed Campanaro
Prior to entering the biopharmaceutical industry, Ed Campanaro held hospital positions as an ICU registered nurse at The Massachusetts General Hospital and later as a Captain in the U.S. Air Force. Ed holds an MS from The Georgetown University with a concentration in Clinical Research Administration, and a BSN from The University of Massachusetts-Boston.
Ed has more than three decades of drug development experience spanning multiple biopharmaceutical companies and various therapeutic areas. Prior to joining Artugen, Ed was Snr. Vice President of Clinical Operations at Arsanis, Inc. where he oversaw internal and external clinical operations, data management, statistics, and medical writing functions involved in the execution and analysis of a complex global Phase 2 ICU-based trial. Before joining Arsanis, Ed headed-up Clinical Operations and Data Management at bluebird bio, Inc. He also spent close to 15 years at Cubist Pharmaceuticals, where he led cross-functional teams through the successful execution and completion of global clinical development programs of novel antibiotics, leading to the successful marketing approvals for multiple acute-care products.
Ed joined Artugen in January 2020 as Senior Vice President and Head of Clinical Operations.
Emilton Rodrigues
Most recently, Emilton was the Senior Manager of Information Technology at Seres Therapeutics, a microbiome platform company. At Seres, Emilton had a similar role where he oversaw the architecture and implementation of the enterprise core infrastructure, network and security, and was the founding member of Information Technology Services.
As Director, Head of Information Technology at Artugen, Emilton oversees the architecture and implementation of all operational and business support systems and leads the Information Technology Department.
Bharat Dixit, PhD
Bharat Dixit earned his master’s in biotechnology from IIT, Roorkee, and Ph.D. in biochemistry from the Institute of Microbial technology in 1998. He has more than 13 years of experience in the biotechnology industry, with a focus in the area of bioprocess and analytical development, drug formulation including fill-finish, cGMP manufacturing, and project leadership. Prior to joining Artugen, he led process and product development teams at Finch Therapeutics. Bharat CMC expertise range from small molecules, complex biologics, vaccine to live biotherapeutics (microbiome). Prior to Finch, Bharat also lead teams at Gencoea Biosciences and Sanofi Pasteur.
Bharat is the Vice President of Biopharmaceutical Development & Manufacturing of Artugen Therapeutics Ltd.
Shannon Foley
Shannon is the Senior Director, Head of Finance, of Artugen Therapeutics where she is responsible for financial planning and operations.
Ben Miller, PharmD
Benjamin Miller, PharmD, joined Artugen Therapeutics as Senior Director and Head of Clinical Research with over 10 years of research and development experience across diverse therapeutic areas, including rare diseases, nephrology, hematology, allergy/immunology and infectious disease. Prior to joining Artugen, Ben was most recently Senior Director of Global Medical Affairs at Alexion Pharmaceuticals. Previously, he held various research and development roles of increasing responsibility at Shire, Merck and Cubist Pharmaceuticals and brings development experience across all stages of product development.
Ben received his Doctor of Pharmacy degree from Ohio Northern University and completed a postdoctoral industry fellowship in clinical research through Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences and Cubist Pharmaceuticals.
Our Mission
Artugen is committed to developing single strain Live Biotherapeutic Products to prevent and treat human diseases
Our Platform
Artugen has identified strains of Bacillus velezensis that uniquely deliver therapeutics benefits through multiple disease-targeting compounds in the gastrointestinal tract