Board of Directors

Howard co-founded Nicoya Health in 2020 to realize the vision and research of Dr. Stanley Appel and merged the company with Coya Therapeutics in 2021 where he currently serves as Chairman and CEO.

He has over 18 years of entrepreneurial and industry experience working at the interplay of science and business. His experience offers him a unique combination of business acumen and scientific credibility with the ability to assess, quantify, and bridge both disciplines.

Howard gained corporate experience with increasing responsibilities and positions as a Medical Science Liaison at AbbVie where he spent 7.5 years launching Venetoclax in CLL and later, supporting numerous solid tumor assets. He also served in leadership roles at Novartis Pharmaceuticals and later Eli Lilly where he was the scientific point of contact between the company and key opinion leaders for development and initiation of collaborations, clinical trials and investigator initiated trials.

Howard began his career at MD Anderson Cancer Center in the technology transfer division where he was responsible for assessing the market, patent, and scientific merits of numerous oncology-based technology platforms in order to ascertain their commercial viability He received a Bachelor in Biology from the University of Michigan and a Masters and Ph.D. in Neuroscience and Pharmacology from Weill Cornell Medical School.

As head of Biotherapeutics and Medicinal Sciences at Biogen, Dr. Villalobos is responsible for the delivery of high-quality, differentiated drug candidates that advance through the clinic to become transformative medicines. Additionally, she has built a new gene therapy unit, setting the initial direction of effort including hiring the first team.

Prior to Biogen, Dr. Villalobos was at Pfizer for 28 years where she most recently served as Vice President of Medicinal Synthesis Technologies and Neuroscience Medicinal Chemistry. As the leader of several medicinal chemistry groups throughout her tenure at Pfizer, Dr. Villalobos’ teams delivered more than 30 candidates which showed increased survival to the clinic. Noteworthy were clinical candidates to combat Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia, depression, insomnia, and stroke. Among other accomplishments, she contributed to the design and discovery of CP-118,954 (icopezil), an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor, which was advanced to Phase II clinical trials for Alzheimer’s disease. This candidate became part of the agreement that led to the successful co-promotion of Aricept by Pfizer and Eisai. Dr. Villalobos has also championed new scientific directions that have improved design practices in medicinal chemistry including the Central Nervous System Multi-Parameter Optimization (CNS MPO) design tool and a novel PET ligand design and discovery approach.

Dr. Villalobos obtained her B.S. in Chemistry at the University of Panama and her Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Kansas where she was a Fulbright-Hayes fellow. She was a National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Fellow at Yale University in synthetic organic chemistry for two years.

Ann Lee is currently the Chief Technical Officer at Prime Medicine, Inc. She was previously SVP and Head of Cell Therapy Development and Operations (CTDO) at Bristol Myers Squibb from 2019 to July 2021 where she was responsible for developing new cell therapy processes and technologies, manufacturing cell therapy products, designing new facilities, and building the global supply chain to deliver these new medicines for patients. Previously, she served as Executive Vice President of Technical Operations at Juno Therapeutics, which was acquired by BMS via Celgene. Prior to Juno, Dr. Lee joined Genentech in 2005, and she became SVP, Genentech and Head of Global Technical Development at Roche in 2009. She was responsible for developing and delivering all clinical stage products in Roche’s global pipeline, as well as technology transfers and technical support for all commercial products. Earlier, she was at Merck & Co., where she led and developed new vaccines and technologies in R&D, and then was responsible as VP for process engineering and technical operations at 10 chemical sites around the world. Over the course of her career, she has contributed to the development of hundreds of new investigational drugs, and the licensure and commercialization of 25 new vaccines and medicines, with the most recent being two new CAR-T cell products for blood cancers.

Dr. Lee has authored over 40 scientific publications and holds several patents. She is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, fellow of American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering, and member of the Washington State Academy of Sciences. She serves on the Board of Directors for American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the Alliance of Regenerative Medicine, and JW Therapeutics. She earned her undergraduate degree from Cornell University and a masters and Ph.D. in Biochemical Engineering with a concentration in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale University.

Dr. Garren has 20 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry, spanning all aspects of novel drug development from discovery, to early-stage clinical trials, to late-stage clinical trials, to commercialization. He currently serves as the Chief Medical Officer for Prothena, a late-stage clinical company with expertise in protein dysregulation, focusing on rare peripheral amyloid and neurodegenerative diseases. From 2013 to 2020, he served as VP, Global Head of Neuroimmunology for F. Hoffmann-La Roche (Roche) & Genentech Inc., where he led the teams that conducted the Ocrevus® Phase III trials for multiple sclerosis and Enspryng™ Phase III trials for the rare disease neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder. Previously, Dr. Garren served as Executive Director, Translational Medicine Expert in neuroscience for Novartis Pharma.

In 2002, Dr. Garren co-founded Bayhill Therapeutics, centered on a novel therapeutic platform for treating autoimmune diseases that he co-discovered while at Stanford University, and served as Executive VP, Chief Scientific Officer and Chief Operating Officer. He served as adjunct clinical faculty in the Department of Neurology at Stanford University from 1997 to 2009. Dr. Garren earned his Bachelor of Science degree from the California Institute of Technology and his M.D. and Ph.D. from the University of California Los Angeles.

Dr. Goldstein brings over 20 years of strategic financial and operational experience within the healthcare sector. He currently serves as the Chief Financial Officer at BioAge.Previously, he was the Chief Financial Officer and Chief Business Officer of Indapta Therapeutics, a biotechnology company focused on developing and commercializing a proprietary, off-the-shelf, allogeneic FcRy-deficient natural killer (G-NK) cell therapy to treat multiple types of cancer. Dr. Goldstein was previously Chief Executive Officer of RIGImmune. Prior to that he served as the Chief Financial Officer at Schrödinger, LLC from 2017 to 2018. Dr. Goldstein held various leadership roles at Aisling Capital, a private investment firm, from 2006 to 2017, serving as its Managing Partner from 2014 to 2017. Dr. Goldstein served as the Chief Financial Officer of Loxo Oncology, Inc. between 2014 and 2015. From 2000 to 2005, Dr. Goldstein served as Chief Financial Officer of Vicuron Pharmaceuticals, Inc., raising over $250 million in equity financings, facilitating company partnership transactions and participating in the M&A process when Vicuron was acquired by Pfizer, Inc. for $1.9 billion. Prior to joining Vicuron, he was Director of Venture Analysis at HealthCare Ventures.

Dr. Goldstein currently serves on the board of Directors of NeuBase Therapeutics (Nasdaq: NBSE) and Gain Therapeutics (Nasdaq: GANX). He previously served as a director for ADMA Biologics, Loxo Oncology, Esperion Therapeutics, Duranta Therapeutics, Cempra and a number of private companies. He received a Bachelor of Science in biological sciences from Stanford University, an MBA from Columbia Business School and an M.D. from Yale School of Medicine.