Joe Festa

Joe Festa, MBA is a manager at Clarion. His project experiences range from early stage indication prioritization and opportunity assessments, to launch planning and execution for emerging biopharma companies, to corporate strategy and BD&L analyses across small biotech and global pharma companies. He has experience working with gene therapies, drug formulation technologies, and a range of therapeutic areas including dermatology, rare disease, and transplantation.

Prior to joining Clarion, Joe worked in R&D Strategic Planning at Ironwood Pharmaceuticals where he gained extensive experience supporting preclinical indication prioritizations and external innovations, including planning and overseeing multiple research collaborations, across mainly CNS and inflammatory diseases. He also supported the planning of the spinoff of Ironwood’s R&D pipeline into Cyclerion Therapeutics. Joe is passionate about working at the intersection of cutting-edge science and practical business applications, which he views as equally important to changing the lives of patients in a complex healthcare environment. Joe is passionate about the partnership he develops as he works with clients to develop innovative new medicines. “We not only write the playbook for clients to bring life-changing treatments to market, we stick around as a partner to help them execute and react appropriately to the many obstacles they will face along the way.”

Joe received an MBA from Harvard Business School, as well as an MS in Engineering and BS in Bioengineering from Harvard University.