Ring Therapeutics Strengthens Leadership Team with Three Executive Appointments

BOSTON — Ring Therapeutics, a life sciences company founded by Flagship Pioneering to revolutionize gene therapy with its commensal virome platform, today announced the extension of its leadership team with the appointments of Yong S. Chang, Ph.D., as Chief Scientific Officer, John Huynh, Ph.D., as Senior Vice President of Technical Operations, and Kevin B. Johnson, Ph.D., MBA, as Chief Regulatory Officer. These new appointments will strengthen the company’s efforts to become a global leader in the genetic medicine space.

“We are truly delighted to have Yong, John, and Kevin join our leadership team. Each of their positions holds a pivotal role in our company growth and success as an emerging force in biotech. Our focus over the next year is to continue growing our Anellogy™ platform and harness the unique biology of anelloviruses to develop the next generation of gene therapy vectors (Anellovectors) and position Ring for success,” said Tuyen Ong, MD, MBA, Chief Executive Officer at Ring Therapeutics.

Dr. Yong Chang has a history of over 20 years in the preclinical and drug development sphere and will spearhead the scientific strategy at Ring, harnessing the commensal virome and developing new potential Anellovectors. Dr. Chang brings significant experience from KorroBio where he managed and advanced scientific development of ADAR mediated RNA editing platform. Dr. Chang worked with Intellia Therapeutics providing the first systematically delivered CRISPR/Cas gene editing candidate. Prior to Intellia Therapeutics, he worked with several large biotech and pharma companies: Aileron Therapeutics, MedImmune/AstraZeneca, Bayer, and Roche. He was a post-doctoral research fellow at Harvard Medical School/MGH, received his Ph.D. in physiology and a B.S. in biology from Pennsylvania State University.

Dr. Yong Chang added, “I am excited to join the leadership at Ring during this critical stage of growth. Gene therapy is in need of an entirely new approach to overcome the biggest hurdles facing us today including redosing and poor tissue tropism. Ring’s Anellogy platform is truly unique, harnessing the biology of commensal viruses we live in harmony with every day to overcome these hurdles and deliver life-saving therapies to patients in need. I look forward to leading our scientific team towards developing Anellovectors that can deliver a broad array of therapeutic modalities to specific tissues both safely and effectively.”

Dr. John Huynh has extensive experience in advanced therapy CMC and will lead Ring’s process and analytical development and manufacturing groups. Most recently, he led the establishment and growth of the gene therapy technical operations department at PTC Therapeutics. Prior to PTC Therapeutics, Dr. Huynh held positions of increasing responsibilities at Merck, WuXi AppTec, and the Gene Therapy Program at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from Cornell University and his B.S. in biomedical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.

Dr. John Huynh said, “I have a passion for developing processes and establishing operations related to gene therapy CMC and could not be more enthusiastic about advancing a game changing genetic medicines platform. Ring’s portfolio of anelloviruses has enormous potential in transforming patients’ lives, and I’m excited to grow a talented Technical Operations team and build the manufacturing infrastructure to catalyze reaching that potential.”

Dr. Kevin B. Johnson has broad experience in global regulatory and development strategies for a variety of drugs, biologics and cell and gene therapies. Most recently, Kevin led global strategy and tactics for product development, regulatory, and quality pursuits with Inozyme Pharma. Prior to Inozyme, he served as lead regulatory officer at several biotech and pharma companies including Imara, Vtesse/Sucampo/Mallinckrodt, and GSK. Dr. Johnson has a Ph.D. in neurobiology and an MBA from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a B.S. in chemistry from the University of South Florida.

“Global regulatory science is continuously evolving, especially in emerging areas such as gene therapy,” added Dr. Kevin B. Johnson. “I look forward to building a strategic global regulatory function that will ensure close collaboration with regulatory authorities and the medical community to help Ring develop transformative therapeutics for indications with unmet medical needs.”