Arbor Biotechnologies Appoints Deanna M. Petersen as Chief Business Officer

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Aug. 07, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Arbor Biotechnologies^®, a biotechnology company discovering and developing the next generation of genetic medicines, today announced the appointment of Deanna M. Petersen, MBA, as its Chief Business Officer. Ms. Petersen joins Arbor from AVROBIO, Inc., where she served as Chief Business Officer, responsible for spearheading their early commercial and corporate growth strategy, leading business development activities and building an industry-leading lysosomal storage disorder gene therapy pipeline.

“I am delighted to welcome Deanna to the Arbor executive team,” said Devyn Smith, Ph.D., CEO of Arbor. “Deanna is a seasoned biotech executive with unparalleled experience in global business and corporate development and strategic planning. Her track record of negotiating key transactions that drive value for biotech companies, along with her exceptional ability to lead and grow talent, will be a tremendous asset to Arbor as we continue to identify unique applications for our next generation gene editors for genetic diseases.”

At AVROBIO, in addition to successfully in-licensing three Phase 1 programs and two preclinical programs, Ms. Petersen was a key contributor to the company’s financings, raising more than $85 million in early private rounds and $115 million in an oversubscribed IPO in 2018, ranking as one of the top IPOs of that year. Prior to her role at AVROBIO, Ms. Petersen was Vice President of Business Development at Shire Pharmaceuticals, where she and her team executed over forty transactions in five years. She also served as one of the core members of the deal team that acquired Viropharma in 2013 for $4.2 billion—the largest acquisition in Shire’s history at that time. Before that, she held the Vice President of Business Development title at Agenus Inc., and at Coley Pharmaceutical Group, Inc., where she was responsible for licensing transactions with GlaxoSmithKline and with Aventis, and developed strategies that positioned Coley for a strong initial public offering.

Ms. Petersen commented: “I’m thrilled to join a rapidly growing company that is creating a unique therapeutic approach with groundbreaking science focusing on diseases with a high unmet need. I look forward to identifying high-value partnering opportunities and contributing to Arbor’s rapid corporate growth and mission to bring curative medicines to patients.”

Deanna M. Petersen holds an MBA from The University of Iowa and BS in Biology from Iowa State University.

About Arbor Biotechnologies^®
Arbor Biotechnologies is a next-generation gene editing company based in Cambridge, MA. Combining the promise of CRISPR with advanced computational AI driven discovery, high throughput screening, and robust protein engineering approaches, our co-founders Feng Zhang and David Walt laid the groundwork for our proprietary discovery engine, which has yielded an extensive toolbox of gene editors, far exceeding the number of editors published in the literature to date. We envision a future of gene editing that extends beyond simple knockdowns to include precision writing, precise excisions and large insertions. This affords us the potential to treat a broad spectrum of patients, from ultra-rare to the most common genetic diseases. Guided by a deep understanding of the molecular basis of disease and our access to a unique suite of optimized editors, we are rapidly advancing our discovery-stage programs with an initial focus on genomic diseases of the liver and CNS for which there are no existing functional cures. As we advance toward the clinic with our lead program in primary hyperoxaluria type I, we look to expand our strategic partnerships around in vivo gene editing across multiple therapeutic areas and ex vivo cell therapy programs to broaden the reach of our novel nuclease technology. For more information, please visit: arbor.bio

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