Alan Crane

Alan joined Polaris Partners in 2002 and serves as an entrepreneur partner. In this role, he focuses on building and investing in healthcare companies.

He has served as founder, chairman and/or CEO in building eight Polaris companies. Alan’s latest venture is Dyno Therapeutics, which he co-founded along with Harvard Professor George Church and scientist Eric Kelsic. The company is using insights from computer science and biology to design better viruses for delivery in the rapidly growing field of gene therapy. Alan also recently founded Pandion Therapeutics (NASDAQ: PAND), which is focused on tissue-specific immunomodulation for autoimmune disorders and transplantation, raising a $58M series A in January of 2018 and a $80M crossover round in March of 2020 followed by the completion of a $135M IPO in July of 2020. Recently, Alan was also a founding investor in KSQ Therapeutics, the leading company using CRISPR to systematically discover and pursue the best therapeutic targets for disease intervention. Alan’s portfolio companies have collectively been involved in 10 IPOs and M&A exits.

His current and past portfolio include: Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Visterra, Navitor Pharmaceuticals, Dyno Therapeutics, Pandion Therapeutics (NASDAQ: PAND), KSQ Therapeutics, T2 Biosystems, Ocular Therapeutix, Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, Adnexus Therapeutics, Arsia Therapeutics, Seventh Sense Biosystems, Cerulean Pharma, and XTuit Pharmaceuticals. From 2002 to 2006, Alan was president and CEO of Momenta Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: MNTA). He joined Momenta as the fifth employee and built it into a public company, creating an advanced and diversified pipeline, entering into two strategic collaborations with Novartis and raising $275 million. The first product from Momenta’s pipeline achieved over $1B during its first year of sales.

Prior to Polaris, Alan was senior vice president of global corporate development at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, where he was responsible for leading Millennium’s strategic partnering, mergers and acquisitions, and licensing activities, generating over $2B in partner funding and acquiring 19 development stage products. Among these products was Velcade®, which became the main basis of the company’s $9B acquisition by Takeda. Before joining Millennium, Alan was a marketing executive at DuPont-Merck and a consultant with the Boston Consulting Group and Arthur D. Little.

Alan received Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year award for New England and is an Always-On Venture Capital 100 recipient. His current and former non-profit positions include: selection committee for the Harvard Life Lab, expert-in-residence at the Harvard School of Engineering, board member of the Boston Children’s Hospital Trust, founder and vice chair of the Autism Consortium, and president of the board of Gann Academy.

Alan earned a BA in biology, summa cum laude, from Harvard College, an MA in cellular and developmental biology from Harvard Graduate School of Arts & Sciences and an MBA, with honors, from Harvard Business School. He also spent two years studying towards an MD at Harvard Medical School.

Alan enjoys spending his free time traveling with his wife and three sons and working with non-profits in education and healthcare.