Our Team

Anne Prener, M.D., Ph.D., has more than 25 years of leadership experience within life science companies. Anne joined Imbria Pharmaceuticals as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) in July 2020. Anne also serves as Venture Partner at SV Health Investors. Anne has led companies and teams across several therapeutic areas, including a focus on rare diseases. As CEO of Freeline, a liver-directed gene therapy company, she scaled the company from preclinical stage to a fully integrated biotechnology organization, which included a broad, internally developed pipeline, two programs in clinical development and a commercial-scale, high-quality CMC and manufacturing platform.

Prior to joining Freeline, she served as CEO of Gyroscope Therapeutics Ltd., a gene therapy company focused on eye diseases. Before that, Dr. Prener was Global Therapeutic Area Head of Hematology and Vice President, Clinical Research Hematology at Baxalta. During her time there, three new major product approvals in the U.S. and EU were secured along with a significant advancement in Baxalta’s hematology portfolio. Earlier in her career, Dr. Prener held several positions of increasing responsibility at Novo Nordisk, most recently serving as Senior Vice President, Hemophilia R&D Portfolio, where she was instrumental in building a portfolio of late stage and commercial hemophilia products. Dr. Prener serves on the Board of Directors of Galecto. She holds a Ph.D. in epidemiology and an M.D., both from the University of Copenhagen.

Jai Patel is Chief Medical Officer of Imbria Pharmaceuticals. He has over 30 years of experience in Phase I to IV clinical drug development in the US and Europe in the cardiovascular and metabolism therapeutic area. Prior to Imbria, he was the Chief Medical Officer at Enterome and NephroGenex. Jai spent over 20 years at GlaxoSmithKline in positions of increasing responsibility, serving as Vice President across multiple R&D functions including Clinical Development, Medical Affairs, Regulatory Affairs and Project Management. Jai received a Bachelor of Science in Experimental Pathology from the University of London and completed his medical training at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital and Kings College Hospitals, University of London. He is a member of the Royal College of Physicians (UK).

Komal Joshi is the Chief Financial Officer of Imbria Pharmaceuticals. She has over 20 years of finance leadership experience in life sciences as a Chief Financial Officer, as a healthcare investment banker and as an equity research analyst. Most recently, she was the Chief Financial Officer for LIB Therapeutics, a privately-held late-stage biopharmaceutical company.

Komal has also held various positions of increasing strategic, financial and operational responsibility at private and public life science companies. As a healthcare investment banker, she has had broad transaction exposure, executing on capital raising and strategic advisory for emerging to large-cap companies across the healthcare industry. During her time in equity research, she covered Biotechnology, Medical Supplies and Devices as well as Enterprise Software. Komal holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BS from Boston College, Wallace E. Carroll School of Management.

Arash Yavari is Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) of Imbria Pharmaceuticals and a physician scientist by training. Arash serves as a consultant to Imbria Pharmaceuticals and has supported the scientific and clinical development of the programs since 2019.

Arash also serves as Senior Drug Development Clinician with Weatherden, a London-based biotech-focused consulting organization, and is a University Research Lecturer and Principal Investigator at the Radcliffe Department of Medicine, University of Oxford. Arash holds a B.Sc. and M.B. B.S. from the University of London, a DPhil from the University of Oxford and is on the GMC Specialist Register. He is a Member of the Royal College of Physicians (MRCP) of the United Kingdom and Member of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine (MFPM).

Hugo Fry has 28 years of senior management experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry across multiple business models and therapeutic areas, in UK, USA, France, Russia and Germany. Hugo has led Strategic and Operational Commercial teams and launches as well as heading R&D, Industrial Affairs teams.

Hugo was Managing Director of Sanofi UK, Chief Marketing Officer for Sanofi Pasteur MSD (SPMSD), leading the commercial effort for the European vaccine joint venture. Hugo has held global strategic positions and commercial operational roles, leading vertically integrated teams from Drug Discovery through Clinical Development, Regulatory Affairs, Market Access, Industrial Affairs, Medical Affairs and Commercialisation.

Hugo has also been Vice-President of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) and started his career at Servier.

Hugo holds a B.Sc. in Chemistry from the University of Salford and studied Finance at London Business School and Leadership at Duke University.

Paul Chamberlin is a Senior Vice President and has over 25 years of research and development experience. He joined Imbria as Head of Clinical Development from Ironwood in 2018. Prior to Ironwood, he held leadership positions in multiple start-up biotechnology companies.

Paul was part of the launch team at Ventrix, serving as Chief Medical Officer; was VP of Medical Development at Sequel Pharmaceuticals and at NovaCardia, where he led research and clinical development of drugs for the treatment of heart failure and atrial fibrillation; and served in various positions of increasing responsibility at EPIX Pharmaceuticals. Before studying medicine, Paul worked in the healthcare strategy consulting group at Arthur D. Little and started his career working in molecular biology laboratories in the Department of Biology at the University of Pennsylvania and the biotechnology division of Rhone-Poulenc-Rorer (now Sanofi). Dr. Chamberlin holds an MD from Boston University and a BA in Biology from the University of Pennsylvania.

Karen Jauregui has over 25 years of experience in drug development including regulatory strategy, quality assurance, clinical operations, and project management. Karen joined Imbria Pharmaceuticals as the Head of Regulatory Affairs and Quality in April 2020 and was promoted to Senior VP of RA, QA and CMC in June 2021. Prior to joining Imbria, Karen was the Vice President of Regulatory Affairs and Quality Assurance at resTORbio Inc., a company focused on the development of drugs for the treatment of diseases related to aging.

Previously, Karen was the Vice President of Regulatory Affairs at Akebia Inc, where she was responsible for the Phase 3 global regulatory strategy to develop a treatment for renal anemia. Karen also worked at EMD Serono and Repligen Corporation where she held numerous positions of increasing responsibility in Clinical Operations and Regulatory Affairs. She has a BS in Biology and Medical Technology from the State University of New York at Plattsburgh.

Vanessa Murray supports Imbria Clinical Operations, leading trial execution and oversight. Vanessa joined Imbria from Ironwood Pharmaceuticals where she managed development operations for several of the company’s GC-C assets, including lifecycle management of Linzess®.

Prior to Ironwood, Vanessa worked in a number of research labs in the Boston area, including the VA Healthcare System and Boston University. Vanessa holds a BA in Neuroscience from Boston University.

Murali Bommana supports Imbria CMC, leading the drug product manufacturing for phase appropriate clinical supplies and future commercialization activities. Murali joined Imbria from SK Life Science where he managed CMC activities and clinical supplies for several of the company’s Phase I-III CNS programs, and subject matter expert for one of the commercial programs.

Prior to SK Life Science, Murali worked at several biopharmaceutical companies, including Impax Labs and Kashiv Biosciences. Murali holds a PhD in Industrial Pharmacy and Physical Pharmacy from St. John’s University.