SAN DIEGO, May 17, 2023 – Bloom Science, Inc., a clinical-stage, central nervous system (CNS) company focused on discovering and developing breakthrough therapeutics that target the Gut-Brain Axis, today announced the appointment of Dr. Grace E. Colón as Chair of its Board of Directors, effectively immediately. A distinguished scientist and leading executive in biotechnology, Dr. Colón will lend her business, scientific, clinical and operational expertise towards helping Bloom Science in an exciting stage of research and development of new diagnostics and transformative medicines for patients with complex neurological disorders.
Dr. Colón has over 25 years of experience in biopharma, genomics, diagnostics, healthcare, industrial microbiology/biotechnology, synthetic biology, venture capital, management consulting, and entrepreneurship. Most recently, she was CEO and President of InCarda Therapeutics from 2013 to 2022, where she led the company from a seed stage start-up to one with a best-in-class inhaled cardiovascular disease therapy being evaluated in a pivotal Phase 3 trial and a growing pipeline. She serves on the boards of CareDx, Voyager Therapeutics, the MIT Corporation (MIT’s Board of Trustees) and the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), and is also Executive Chair (formerly CEO) of ProterixBio. Formerly, Dr. Colón held senior executive roles at Intrexon Corporation, Gilead Sciences, and Affymetrix. She was a partner at New Science Ventures, a New York based venture capital firm, and served on the boards of Paradigm Diagnostics (acquired by Exact Sciences), PerceptiMed and Cocoon Biotech and on the Advisory Board of the Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship at Santa Clara University. Earlier in her career, Dr. Colón was a management consultant at McKinsey & Company and an engineer at Merck. She received her Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she was a National Science Foundation Fellow. She also holds an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.
“We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Colón as the Chair of our Board of Directors,” said Christopher Reyes, PhD, founder and CEO of Bloom Science. “Dr. Colón’s extensive technical and leadership expertise in biotech, including building strategic partnerships and fundraising, will help Bloom Science achieve our mission to deliver transformative, holistic therapeutics that have the potential to treat multiple comorbidities and that can result in fewer side effects compared to other drugs currently on the market for patients with neurological diseases.”
“Bloom Science is the leading microbiome company dedicated to developing innovative therapies for neurological diseases through the gut-brain connection,” said Dr. Colón. “Bloom’s uniquely rigorous and engineering-based approach to developing microbiome-based therapeutics, along with the company’s highly experienced team and exceptional board of directors, strongly positions the company to have a significant positive impact on patients who have not adequately responded to existing CNS and other therapies. I am honored to have the opportunity to support this vital and exciting work.”
About Bloom Science
Bloom Science is a clinical-stage, central nervous system (CNS) company, trailblazing a path to transformative, novel therapeutics for patients with rare and complex neurological disorders. Bloom’s proprietary discovery platform, IrisRx™ enables a fundamentally different approach to developing medicines by harnessing our expanding insight into the Gut-Brain Axis to design and develop therapeutics that target novel biology with superior safety profiles. The IrisRx™ platform unlocks the potential for developing multi-functional therapeutics from the most common cell type in the human body, gut commensal microbes, while also utilizing an expanding proprietary knowledge base to advance therapeutic candidates based on synthetic biology. Bloom Science is advancing a deep pipeline of programs, including Dravet syndrome, other rare epilepsies, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), and other neurodegenerative and cognitive disorders. For more information, visit: https://bloomscience.com/