Laurie is an enterprise-wide, strategic leader with entrepreneurial insights and three decades of executive management, Board and Board counselling experience in diverse settings. She has expertise in M&A, business development, finance, governance, quality, government affairs, compliance, and human resources, in addition to business law, intellectual property and litigation.
She served as the founding CEO of privately held Hydra Biosciences, and for six years on its Board of Directors. She is currently Chair of the Board of PepGen, Inc. (Nasdaq:PEPG), a clinical stage company focused on neuromuscular diseases, a director of Immuneering Corporation (Nasdaq:IMRX), a clinical stage company focused on cancer, and former director of Imago BioSciences (Nasdaq:IMGO) acquired by Merck for $1.35B (107% premium) in January 2023. She served for more than ten years on the Board of MassBIO, the industry association serving more than 1000 biotech companies and is a former director of privately held Imbria Pharmaceuticals and the Boston Public Library Foundation and a past chair of BIO’s General Counsel Committee. She also served on the biopharmaceutical industry executive team appointed to negotiate with FDA leaders the terms of a new five-year Prescription Drug User Fee Agreement (PDUFA VI) that was enacted into law in 2017.
Laurie was Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: ALNY), the leading RNAi therapeutics company, which she joined in 2014. She served on the executive team reporting to the CEO and led the global Public Policy/Government Relations, Legal, and Intellectual Property groups for this commercial stage $20B+ market cap company which grew from ~300 to 1500+ employees worldwide during her seven-year tenure. Alnylam launched three drugs in a little more than two years, including ONPATTRO, the first ever approved RNAi therapeutic, and now has five approved medicines including one partnered with Novartis. Laurie served as Secretary to Alnylam’s Board, developing Board and Committee agendas with the Chairs and CEO and advising the Board on financings, strategic collaborations, governance, oversight of corporate strategy, enterprise and cyber security risks, and litigation (including multi-country IP matters).
Prior to Alnylam, she served as SVP, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Millennium Pharmaceuticals, a commercial stage company, where she led the Legal, Intellectual Property, Quality and Compliance groups and reported to the CEO, making strategic contributions to transactions that broadened Millennium’s pipeline as well as to the competitive positioning and maintenance of exclusivity for Millennium’s primary product VELCADE. Millennium was acquired by Takeda Pharmaceuticals in 2008 at a 53% premium for $8.8B. In 2002, Laurie co-founded Hydra, a venture-backed research stage company, and served as founding CEO raising $10M in a Series A round with Polaris, Abingworth and NEA, concluding IP in-licenses and pharma collaborations and hiring the team needed to build the company. She and the Hydra leadership team raised an additional $19M in a Series B round led by Lilly Ventures. Previously, she served as an executive at three high growth technology companies, including SYBASE (subsequently acquired in 2010 by SAP for $5.8B) which went public in 1991 and grew from approximately 400 to 6,000 employees worldwide during Laurie’s tenure. Based on her executive contributions and leadership of the global legal group at Sybase, she was named one of the 45 most influential in-house lawyers in the U.S. under age 45.
Laurie earned her bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley, and her JD from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, where she graduated Order of the Coif.