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

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.

Keri Urwin, B.A., M.B.A.

Clinical Operations

Keri Urwin brings more than 24 years of experience in Clinical Operations, providing leadership to companies ranging from small one-person organizations to large, global teams. She has therapeutic experience in neurology, pain management, gene therapy, ulcerative colitis, sexual dysfunction, CHF, psychedelics and oncology as well as rare diseases. Her expertise includes clinical trial executive leadership, trial management, clinical development plans, vendor management, organizational development, vendor assessment and issue resolution, gap analysis, and regulatory submissions. Previous positions include Principal Consultant at Halloran Consulting Group, and Study Manager at large global big pharma teams including Pfizer and GSK. Earlier in her career, Keri spent five years at Biogen Idec, where she focused on multiple sclerosis (MS) trials for Avonex and Tysabri and was part of the submission team responsible for FDA approval of Tysabri. Ms. Urwin received dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in Psychology and Physical Studies from the University of Iowa, and an MBA from Meredeth College.

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).