Kevin Forrest Ph.D

Kevin Forrest Ph.D General Information

Biography

Dr. Kevin Forrest was a Co-Founder & served as President, Board Member & Chief Executive Officer at Kate Therapeutics. Dr. Forrest co-founded Expansion Therapeutics. He served as Board Member, President, and Chief Executive Officer at Expansion Therapeutics. Dr. Forrest was most recently Chief Strategy Officer of Cidara Therapeutics (Nasdaq: CDTX) an infectious disease company he co-founded in 2013 and helped take public as COO/CFO in 2015. At Cidara he was responsible for acquiring rezafungin, a preclinical-stage novel long-acting echinocandin antifungal currently in mid-stage clinical studies. He is also a co-inventor of the company's Cloudbreak™ antimicrobial immunotherapy platform. From 2005 to 2014, Dr. Forrest held positions of increasing responsibility at 5 AM Ventures, an early-stage life science venture capital firm. While at 5 AM, Dr. Forrest supported the spin-out of Relypsa (acquired by Galenica) from Ilypsa/Amgen and led or supported investments in Semprus Biosciences (acquired by Teleflex), Marcadia Biotechnologies (acquired by Roche), Flexion Therapeutics (Nasdaq: FLXN), among others. Dr. Forrest serves as a review member of the Princeton University IP Accelerator Fund and co-leads the organization of the Revolution Symposium, a leading meeting for heads of life science Research and Development. Dr. Forrest holds a B.S. in biology from Boston College and a Ph.D. in molecular biology from Princeton University where he developed novel in vivo imaging tools to examine RNA localization and translational control. He is a Co-Founder and serves as President, Board Member & Chief Executive Officer at Kate Therapeutics. Prior to KateTx Dr. Forrest was co-founder, President, and CEO of Expansion Therapeutics, a drug discovery and development company advancing small molecule medicines for RNA-mediated diseases. Prior to Expansion, he served as Chief Strategy Officer of Cidara Therapeutics, an infectious disease company he co-founded and helped take public as COO/CFO. Dr. Forrest co-invented Cidara's Cloudbreak antimicrobial immunotherapy platform and was responsible for acquiring rezafungin, a preclinical stage novel long-acting echinocandin antifungal recently approved by the FDA. Prior to Cidara, Dr. Forrest held positions of increasing responsibility at 5 AM Ventures, an early-stage life science venture capital firm. While at 5 AM, Dr. Forrest supported the spin-out of Relypsa (acquired by Galenica) from Ilypsa/Amgen and led or supported investments in Semprus Biosciences (acquired by Teleflex), Marcadia Biotechnologies (acquired by Roche), among others. Dr. Forrest holds a B.S. in biology from Boston College and Ph.D. in molecular biology from Princeton University where he developed novel in vivo imaging tools to examine RNA localization and translational control.