Who we are
JENNIFER PANAGOULIAS
CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER
Jennifer Panagoulias, RAC is the Chief Operating Officer of AS2 Bio and the Head of Regulatory and Policy for the Foundation for Angelman Syndrome Therapeutics (FAST). Jennifer has worked in drug development for over 20 years, primarily focused on advancing global development programs for the treatment of rare neurological diseases.
She spent 16 years in Regulatory Affairs at Genzyme where she held various roles, including Global Therapeutic Head, Regulatory Affairs Neurology. At Genzyme, she supported global registration efforts for Myozyme (alglucosidase alfa), an enzyme replacement therapy for children and adults with Pompe disease—a rare, genetic, neuromuscular disorder. Jennifer has experience in working with global regulatory agencies including the US FDA, the European Medicines Agency, and the Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Agency in Japan. She has held key leadership roles in Regulatory Affairs and Quality Assurance supporting the development of oligonucleotide drugs at Wave Life Sciences and was part of the founding team at GeneTx Biotherapeutics advancing an investigational ASO specific for the treatment of Angelman syndrome. Jennifer serves as co-Director of ABOM and INSYNC-AS. Jennifer resides in Danvers, MA with her husband and 2 daughters. She has a niece, who lives with Angelman syndrome.
ALLYSON BERENT
CHIEF DEVELOPMENT OFFICER
A veterinary specialist in internal medicine, interventional endoscopy/radiology, and medical device development, she has been running clinical trials in animals with complicated and devastating disease processes with a clinical unmet need.
After graduating from Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, Allyson completed a residency in Small Animal Internal Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, followed by a fellowship in interventional radiology at University of Pennsylvania, and a fellowship in Endourology at Thomas Jefferson University. She then served as an Adjunct Assistant Professor in Internal Medicine and Interventional Radiology/ Interventional Endoscopy at the Veterinary Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. In 2009 she moved to New York City, where she started the first Specialized Interventional Endoscopy Program in veterinary medicine. In 2014, Dr. Berent’s daughter was diagnosed with Angelman syndrome (AS), a rare non-degenerative neurogenetic disorder. The following year, she joined the board of directors and took the role of chief science officer at the Foundation for Angelman Syndrome Therapeutics (FAST), where she helped establish a drug development pipeline for novel therapeutics applicable for AS, working hand-in-hand with a consortium of scientists, clinicians and other collaborators. In 2016, Dr. Berent helped to spearhead a pre-competitive biomarker and outcome measure consortium called the Angelman syndrome Biomarker and Outcome Measure Consortium (ABOM) in order to support bringing patient focused outcome measures forward for human clinical trials. She also founded the International Angelman Syndrome Research Council (INSYNC-AS), in collaboration with the Simons Foundation, to bring a brain trust together to advance drug development for monogenic neurodevelopmental disorders. All of these efforts aimed at encouraging translational research opportunities, in order to help bring novel gene-targeted therapies and disease modifying modalities forward toward human application. Through these efforts, Dr. Berent co-founded GeneTx Biotherapeutics, a company focused on advancing an investigational antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) therapy through IND enabling studies and a phase 1/2 clinical trial for Angelman syndrome. Dr. Berent served as the Chief Operating Officer of GeneTx Biotherapeutics, which was acquired in 2022 by Ultragenyx Pharmaceuticals. Currently Dr. Berent is working to advance numerous cell and gene therapy products through IND-enabling studies into clinical trials for AS through her efforts at FAST and AS2Bio. Allyson lives in New York City with her husband, Chick, and their three daughters—one of which lives with Angelman syndrome.
JULIEN DE BOURNET
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
Julien started his career as an engineer at Bouygues Telecom, joined the SME Strategy Consulting division at IBM, and held investments positions in UK and Swiss based Hedge Funds. He earned a MS from Swiss Institute of Technology Lausanne (CH), and a MBA from INSEAD (France/Singapore). His mother tongue is French, and he is fluent in English and Spanish. He has worked extensively in France, UK and Switzerland.
As a specialist in private deal structuring, investing across the balance sheet in multiple investments as an advisor and sponsor, he has a successful track record at working with private investors, C-level management teams and boards through-out the investment cycle including preparation and execution of value creation plans with successful exits. He lives in London with his wife, Gaelle, and their three children — one of which lives with Angelman syndrome. Eight years ago, after learning of the robust and impressive vision of the drug development pipeline created by FAST, Julien and his family set out to support the concept of evaluating the potential to bring 6 disease modifying or gene targeted therapies from discovery to human clinical candidate. With their incredible support of FAST, and the entire scientific consortium, human clinical candidates were declared for numerous programs, leading to the broadening vision of the need for acceleration. Julien was taken by FAST's model of venture philanthropy while aggressively engaging in the biotech space to ensure these promising therapeutics do not languish and was part of the seed investors in GeneTx Biotherapeutics. Julien also saw the potential to leverage the learnings in the AS space to other similar neurodevelopmental disorders.