Autolus Therapeutics plc announced the appointment of Mike Bonney as Chairman of the Board, and Ravi Rao M.D., as Non-Executive Director. John H. Johnson advised the Board of his decision to step down from his role as Chairman of the Board and Non-Executive Director. These changes are effective as of April 1, 2024.

Mike Bonney has over 30 years of biotech and pharmaceutical expertise. He served as Chief Executive Officer and Director of Cubist Pharmaceuticals from 2003 until 2014. Under his leadership, Cubist grew from a small micro-cap to the world?s leading antibiotic company and was acquired by Merck early in 2015 for $9.5 billion.

Prior to Cubist, Mr. Bonney was Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Biogen where he built the company?s commercial infrastructure for the launch of its first product. Before joining Biogen, he spent 11 years at Zeneca Pharmaceuticals in a range of commercial, operating, and strategic roles, ending his career there as National Business Director. He is currently a director of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals and chair of Dunad Therapeutics and Gulf of Maine Research Institute.

Mr. Bonney has served as a director with many companies previously including Celgene, Kaleido Biosciences, Magenta Therapeutics, Bristol Myers Squibb, Sarepta Therapeutics and Syros Pharmaceuticals. He received his undergraduate degree in economics from Bates College. Dr. Ravi Rao currently serves as Chief Medical Officer of Sitryx, having joined the company in 2022.

He was previously Chief Medical Officer at Oxford Biomedica and Head of Research and Development and Chief Medical Officer at Swedish Orphan Biovitrum, where he led the development of several medicines in rare diseases across immunology and hematology. Before that, he worked at Roche Genentech and GlaxoSmithKline. Dr. Rao serves as a Board Member for DBV Technologies, and a Venture Partner for SV Health Investors.

Dr. Rao is an accredited rheumatologist and was an academic physician-scientist at Imperial College (London). He is a Member of the Royal College of Physicians, London and an Honorary Member of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine. He received his MB.

BChir from Cambridge University and his Ph.D. in vascular biology from Imperial College, completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School.