Jeffrey H. Lawson, MD, PhD

President and
Chief Executive Officer

Jeffrey H. Lawson, M.D., Ph.D. is Humacyte’s President and Chief Executive Officer. He is a physician-scientist and vascular surgeon who has been involved in the development of Humacyte’s vascular technologies since the company’s founding in 2004.

Prior to Dr. Lawson’s appointment as President and Chief Executive Officer in 2018, he served as Humacyte’s Chief Medical Officer since 2015, where he was responsible for overseeing the clinical development of Humacyte’s vascular technologies as the company initiated Phase III clinical trials for dialysis access and expanded clinical programs in vascular repair and trauma.

Prior to joining Humacyte, Dr. Lawson served in leadership roles at Duke University Medical Center, including Professor of Surgery and Pathology, Vice Chair for Research in Surgery, and Director of Clinical Trials for the Department of Surgery.

Dr. Lawson has had a lifelong interest in the field of blood coagulation and vascular biology and has continuously studied these areas both scientifically and clinically in his laboratory at Duke University Medical Center. As a recognized leader in the field of vascular translational technology, Dr. Lawson’s research laboratory has received grants from the American Heart Association, National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense and various biotechnology companies.

Dr. Lawson currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Kidney Health Initiative (KHI), is an American Board of Surgery certified Vascular Surgeon, a Fellow of the American Surgical Association and the current President of the Vascular Access Society of the Americas (VASA). He is also the co-author of over 120 journal articles on the topics of hemostasis, tissue engineering and vascular surgery and lectures on these topics both nationally and internationally.

Dr. Lawson earned his medical degree and his Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology from the University of Vermont and completed his residency in General and Thoracic Surgery and his fellowship in Vascular Surgery at Duke University Medical Center.

Douglas L. Blankenship

Chief Financial Officer

Mr. Blankenship is an accomplished financial professional with over a decade of executive-level experience in financing, finance and accounting, technical operations, management, and strategy for life science and biotechnology organizations. Doug has helped shepherd multiple public and private equity/debt financings, and has led three companies through successful initial public offerings.

Prior to joining Humacyte, Mr. Blankenship was Chief Financial Officer of Dova Pharmaceuticals, and previously held financial leadership positions as Director of Finance for Genentech, Inc., Executive Director of Finance for Amgen, and Director of Finance and Treasurer for Onyx Pharmaceuticals.

Mr. Blankenship earned a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) with concentrations in Finance and Operations Management from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He also holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.

Laura E. Niklason, MD, PhD

Founder

Dr. Niklason is the Nicholas M. Greene Professor at Yale University in Anesthesia and Biomedical Engineering, where she has been on faculty since 2006. Niklason received her PhD in Biophysics from the University of Chicago, and her MD from the University of Michigan. She completed her residency training in anesthesia and intensive care unit medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and completed post-doctoral scientific training at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr. Niklason’s research focuses primarily on regenerative strategies for cardiovascular and lung tissues. Niklason’s engineered blood vessels are currently in clinical trials, and are the first life-sustaining engineered tissue to be studied in any Phase III trial. Niklason’s lab was also one of the first to describe the engineering of whole lung tissue that could exchange gas in vivo, and her work was cited in 2010 as one of the top 50 most important inventions of the year by Time Magazine. She was inducted into the National Academy of Inventors in 2014, and was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2015.

Dr. Niklason is recognized as a global expert in cellular therapies and regenerative medicine. Today, she continues to teach, maintain a vigorous scientific laboratory, and speaks nationally and internationally on her research and exciting, emerging medical discoveries.

Heather Prichard, PhD

Chief Operating Officer

Heather Prichard, Ph.D. is Humacyte’s Chief Operating Officer, with overall responsibility for translating the company’s innovative mission, vision and strategies into actionable activities. Dr. Prichard provides leadership and oversight to the commercial manufacturing and product development organizations, including vascular research and development, process development, analytical and quality control testing, manufacturing and supply chain management.

Prior to Dr. Prichard’s appointment as Chief Operating Officer in 2019, Dr. Prichard served as Humacyte’s Senior Vice President of Product Development following several career progressions leading the Humacyte Research and Development teams.   Dr. Prichard joined the Humacyte organization in 2008 and has been instrumental in leading the process and product development teams for Humacyl through all phases of clinical development.

Dr. Prichard brings over 20 years of strong scientific, pre-clinical, and clinical leadership experience in the fields of tissue engineering, extracellular matrix biology, and biological response to implantable biomaterials.

Prior to joining Humacyte, Dr. Prichard worked for Procter & Gamble holding different roles in the research, development, and engineering.  She received her Ph.D. from Duke University in Biomedical Engineering with a focus on investigating the healing response to implantable tissue engineered biomaterials and completed her Bachelors of Science, Chemical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Alison Pilgrim, BM BCh DPhil, Medicine, Neurobiology

Chief Medical Officer

Alison Pilgrim, B.M., B.Ch., D.Phil., is Humacyte’s Chief Medical Officer, responsible for leading and progressing the clinical development of Humacyte’s investigational vascular technologies as the company prepares for marketing authorization for its human acellular vessel’s (HAV) early clinical indications. Dr. Pilgrim joined Humacyte as its first Chief Medical Officer in 2011, where she initiated the company’s first clinical trials of its HAV in dialysis access and peripheral arterial disease. From 2014 to 2019, she served as a medical consultant to Humacyte, where she advised the company on its clinical and regulatory strategy. 

Dr. Pilgrim is a physician with deep experience leading drug development for a variety of therapeutic areas, including cardiology, neurology, psychiatry and inflammation. As a Clinical Pharmacologist at Beecham Pharmaceuticals, she was responsible for a wide range of early clinical studies, including first-in-man, pharmacokinetics and efficacy modeling in healthy subjects. During her tenure at Glaxo Wellcome, Dr. Pilgrim led the clinical program for Imitrex (rom Phase II to global commercialization. As Vice President of Cardiovascular Clinical Research at Sanofi, she oversaw the global approval of Plavix, and initiated the major mega-trials which were instrumental in the successful commercialization of the drug. At DuPont she ran clinical development and led an extensive re-engineering project which realized substantial improvements in the efficiency, speed and quality of clinical trials. Dr. Pilgrim has extensive experience leading drug development within both large integrated pharmaceutical companies, such as Glaxo Wellcome, Sanofi and DuPont, and within smaller and specialty pharma companies including Elan, Avera, Biovascular and CoLucid. 

Dr. Pilgrim is a former Board member of Protemix Corporation Limited, a privately held biotechnology company based in New Zealand. 

Dr. Pilgrim earned her doctorate in development neurobiology at Oxford University, where she also trained as a physician. 

Juliana L. Blum, PhD

Executive Vice President,
Strategic Business Operations
and Co-Founder

Dr. Blum is a molecular biologist and co-founder of Humacyte. She has spent over 15 years combining her technical expertise with vascular access product development to bring Humacyte’s novel biotechnology platform and potential bioengineered product to market. At Humacyte, Dr. Blum’s work focuses on the development, management, and execution of a scaled manufacturing strategy to support commercial product launch of Humacyte’s acellular vascular vessel. This work includes the business development of key collaborations critical to the success of the organization.

Dr. Blum leads internal and external commercial initiatives with proven skills in alliance management. Her responsibilities include identifying, developing, and managing manufacturing and tissue sourcing collaborations, as well as oversight of all aspects of technology transfer from Humacyte to our manufacturing partners. She works in a matrixed team environment to achieve Humacyte’s goals. Dr. Blum is also responsible for overseeing tissue based regulatory compliance and industry trends in the donation, recovery, processing, and use of human tissue and cells in product manufacturing. She also manages global supply of Humacyte’s investigational product and supports global regulatory initiatives and submissions supporting clinical activities in the US, Europe, and Israel. Dr. Blum received her doctorate in Molecular Biology from Loyola University Chicago with a focus in cardiovascular gene therapy in 2003, and holds a BS in Biology and Chemistry from Carthage College in Wisconsin.

William Tente, MS

Chief Regulatory Officer

Mr. Tente joined Humacyte in 2008. He has over 24 years of experience in product and bioprocess development for a variety of cell therapy and tissue-engineered products and biologics. He was the Vice President of Operations for Neurotech USA from 2002 to 2007, and helped develop encapsulated cell technology products for the long term delivery of therapeutic occular protein factors to treat chronic diseases of the retina. Previously he was the Director of Operations of Chimeric Therapies, Inc. responsible for manufacturing, quality control and logistics for bone marrow processing and transplantation operations. Previously, he was the Director of Clinical Production at CytoTherapeutics, Inc., responsible for biological process development, manufacturing and quality control for the encapsulated pain cell therapy product. Bill holds Bachelor and Master of Sciences degrees in Cell Biology and Microbiology from the University of Rhode Island and studied at the W. Alton Jones Cell Sciences Center in Lake Placid, NY. He has been a member of the USP Expert Committee on Gene Therapy, Cell Therapy, and Tissue Engineering and is currently the Chairman of this committee.

Jack Harvey

Vice President of
Commercial Bioprocessing

Mr. Harvey brings over 25 years of strong scientific, cell therapy development and manufacturing experience in leading the development of commercial bioprocessing for Humacyte’s bioengineered blood vessel, HUMACYL®. He is highly skilled and experienced in the development and optimization of cell-based production systems in complex regulatory environments, with a proven track record of guiding and executing organization-wide product development strategies from concept to commercialization. Prior to Humacyte, Mr. Harvey served as Senior Program Manager, Manufacturing Sciences and Technology (MSAT) at Lonza, a leading global supplier to the pharmaceutical, biotech and specialty ingredient markets. At Lonza, Mr. Harvey was responsible for the technology transfer of client manufacturing processes into Lonza’s PhIII/Commercial Cell Therapy Custom Manufacturing Organization business unit. Prior to Lonza, he served in technical leadership roles at multiple cell therapy/regenerative medicine companies.

Mr. Harvey received his Bachelor of Arts in Biology from Harvard University, and a Masters of Public Health in Health Law from Boston University.

Sabrina Osborne

Vice President of
Human Resources

Ms. Sabrina Osborne is Humacyte’s Vice President of Human Resources, responsible for overseeing the company’s Human Resources function, including development and implementation of HR policies and procedures that align with the strategic priorities of the organization; staff recruiting, hiring performance, performance management, growth and retention; salary and benefits administration; training and development; legal compliance; and employee relations. With over two decades of progressive leadership, human resources and organizational development experience, Ms. Osborne is a forward-thinking HR leader who has held a number of related roles within the biotech, healthcare and pharma space.

Prior to joining Humacyte, Ms. Osborne held executive Human Resources-related roles at Veritas Collaborative, Ashfield Pharmacovigilance and UCB BioSciences.

Ms. Osborne earned a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology at the University of South Carolina and has received a number of notable HR certifications, including the Global Professional in Human Resources Certification (GPHR), the Senior Professional in Human Resources Certification (SPHR) and the Professional in Human Resources Certification (PHR) and is a Certified Professional Coach (CPC).

Scott Weit, Ph.D.

Vice President of Quality

Scott Weit, Ph.D. is Humacyte’s Vice President of Quality, responsible for leading the Quality department by providing the long-term vision, strategy and oversight of the Quality Assurance and Quality Control functions within the company. Dr. Weit brings nearly three decades of experience in building both commercial and development quality organizations in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. 

Dr. Weit has a proven track record of driving operational and business effectiveness in quality operations in support of pharmaceutical and biological products in commercial and research & development environments. Prior to Humacyte, Dr. Weit served as the Senior Director, Quality, External Supply and Oncology at Takeda Pharmaceuticals (formerly Shire, Plc.). In this role, Dr. Weit oversaw and led the technology transfer processes for late phase development programs and commercial products. Prior to Takeda Pharmaceuticals, Dr. Weit held senior roles at Johnson & Johnson, Schering-Plough Corporation and Merck & Co., Inc.

Dr. Weit received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Georgia and his Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania.