About Us

Extend Biosciences is a privately-held clinical stage startup located in the biotech hub of Boston, MA.

Tarik Soliman, Ph.D.

Founder, CEO and President

Dr. Soliman joined Extend Biosciences in 2011 as CEO and President. He has more than twenty years experience working in the lab as Ph.D.-trained scientist and a broad understanding of biologics development from time spent at both small biotech and large pharmaceutical companies. Prior to joining Extend Biosciences, Dr. Soliman was a Lab Head at Novartis in an early stage biologics development group helping projects transition from research to development. He spent several years as a scientist at two smaller biotech companies, Neose Technologies Inc. and Promedior, Inc. working on protein therapeutics and half-life extension strategies. Notably, of the >20 peptide and protein therapeutics that Dr. Soliman has worked on in his career prior to Extend Biosciences, two are approved therapies, and one is in late-stage Phase III clinical trials. Dr. Soliman received a Ph.D. in Microbiology from Columbia University and expanded into cell biology and protein biochemistry during his postdoctoral studies at Rockefeller University in the laboratory of Nobel laureate Dr. Gunter Blobel. He has multiple peer-reviewed publications and patents. Dr. Soliman manages the scientists at the company, and provides strategic vision for the path forward.

Laura Hales, Ph.D.

Founder, Chief Business Officer

Dr. Hales initiated operations at Extend Biosciences and led early efforts to complete proof-of-concept studies while incubating the company as a finalist in the inaugural class of the MassChallenge accelerator program. She received her B.S. at the University of Rochester and completed her Ph.D. at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Following an NIH-funded postdoctoral fellowship at Columbia University, Dr. Hales was one of the first five employees at Purdue Pharma, and was the second employee at the biotech startup company Neotropix, Inc. During her 19+ years at startup biotech companies prior to Extend Biosciences, she worked solely in biologics drug discovery and development, and helped bring a novel therapy into clinical trials for a rare cancer. Her grant writing expertise and her role in business development has been instrumental in obtaining the SBIR/non-dilutive funding and early-stage pharmaceutical partnerships thus far. Dr. Hales is a coauthor on multiple publications, and an inventor on several issued and pending patents. She manages all of the operational and business development activities for the company, and leads the clinical team and manages the CROs in the ongoing clinical trials.

Russell Barron, J.D.

Corporate Secretary and General Counsel

Mr. Barron joined Extend Biosciences in 2013 after serving on the company’s MassCONNECT team. Mr. Barron’s 40-year law practice has focused on management of legal affairs and counseling for new companies, corporate governance, and intellectual property counseling and litigation. He has broad technical experience in life sciences, technology and other areas, with specific knowledge of vitamin D and related compounds. He was most recently with Pepper Hamilton but spent most of his career at Foley and Lardner, where he was a founder of the IP practice and an IP litigation group leader. Mr. Barron received his B.A. in the history of sciences from Princeton University and his J.D. from New York University. He assists part-time with the company’s legal and intellectual property documents, and business and patent strategies. Mr. Barron’s efforts, supported by Kaplan IP Law and Greenburg Traurig, were instrumental in obtaining Track One status, and now issuance, of the company’s multiple patent filings in the US, which are now being prosecuted worldwide.

Kate Didio, R.N., M.B.A.

Clinical Operations

Ms. Didio has over 25 years of experience in clinical operations for biotech and pharmaceutical companies in multiple therapeutic areas, including pulmonary and metabolic diseases as well as orphan indications. She has been responsible for the conduct of numerous clinical trials in the US and Europe. Previous positions included Director of Clinical Quality Assurance and Sr. Director of Clinical and Regulatory Affairs at Sirtris (a GSK company), Sr. Director of Clinical Operations at Surface Logix, and Director of Clinical Monitoring Management at Sepracor. Prior to her work in the pharma industry, Ms. Didio was a registered nurse in the intensive care unit and emergency room. She earned an MBA from Simmons College Graduate School of Management in Boston, and has a Bachelor of Science degree in Healthcare Administration from Emmanuel College in Boston and obtained her nursing degree from Sage College in Albany, NY.

Poul Strange, M.D., Ph.D.

Chief Medical Officer

Poul Strange is the Founder and serves as the Medical Director and President of Integrated Medical Development, a US full service clinical CRO focused assisting companies with their medical product development. IMD specializes in design, planning, execution and mathematical analysis of data intense small and medium sized trials in the US, and deploys its proprietary software for clinical trial conduct worldwide. Dr. Strange has held pharmaceutical industry positions ranging from drug discovery and pre-clinical pharmacology (ZymoGenetics), clinical pharmacology, phase 2 and 3 clinical development (Novo Nordisk) through medical affairs (Aventis, sanofi-aventis) and has contributed to multiple development programs resulting in several approved products the last 15+ years in his current role. He holds an M.D. and a Ph.D. in Immunology from the University of Copenhagen, as well as a Business Diploma in International Trade from Copenhagen Business School.

Here is a link to Extend Biosciences’ Financial Conflict of Interest Policy (FCOI).