Laura Hales

Dr. Hales initiated operations at Extend Biosciences and led early efforts to complete proof-of-concept studies while incubating the company as a finalist in the inaugural class of the MassChallenge accelerator program. She received her B.S. at the University of Rochester and completed her Ph.D. at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Following an NIH-funded postdoctoral fellowship at Columbia University, Dr. Hales was one of the first five employees at Purdue Pharma and was the second employee at the biotech startup company Neotropix, Inc. During her 19+ years at startup biotech companies prior to Extend Biosciences, she worked solely in biologics drug discovery and development, and helped bring a novel therapy into clinical trials for rare cancer. Her grant writing expertise and her role in business development have been instrumental in obtaining the SBIR/non-dilutive funding and early-stage pharmaceutical partnerships thus far. Dr. Hales is a co-author on multiple publications, and an inventor on several issued and pending patents. She manages all of the operational and business development activities for the company and will lead the clinical team moving forward.