Speakers

Kevin Forrest, Ph.D., is co-founder, President, and CEO of Kate Therapeutics. Prior to KateTx Dr. Forrest was co-founder, President, and CEO of Expansion Therapeutics, a drug discovery and development company advancing small molecule medicines for RNA-mediated diseases. Prior to Expansion, he served as Chief Strategy Officer of Cidara Therapeutics, an infectious disease company he co-founded and helped take public as COO/CFO. Dr. Forrest co-invented Cidara’s Cloudbreak antimicrobial immunotherapy platform and was responsible for the acquisition of rezafungin, a preclinical stage novel long acting echinocandin antifungal recently approved by the FDA. Prior to Cidara, Dr. Forrest held positions of increasing responsibility at 5AM Ventures, an early-stage life science venture capital firm. While at 5AM, Dr. Forrest supported the spin-out of Relypsa (acquired by Galenica) from Ilypsa/Amgen and led or supported investments in Semprus Biosciences (acquired by Teleflex), Marcadia Biotechnologies (acquired by Roche), among others. Dr. Forrest holds a B.S. in biology from Boston College and Ph.D. in molecular biology from Princeton University where he developed novel in vivo imaging tools to examine RNA localization and translational control.