John Bishai is a managing director within the Healthcare Investment Banking team at Wells Fargo and specializes in the Life Sciences. John joined the company in 2013 and has over 14 years of healthcare experience. Before joining Wells Fargo, John spent over three years in Biotech Equity Research at J.P. Morgan and William Blair where he covered large and mid-cap biotech companies. Prior to coming to Wall Street, he served four years at the Food and Drug Administration focused on drug approvals and safety surveillance. John holds a Ph.D. in physiology from Johns Hopkins University, a M.B.A. from the University of Virginia, and a B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles. He is based in New York City.

Most recently, Mr. Garen served as Chief Business Officer at Syros Pharmaceuticals, where he was responsible for business transactions including partnering Syros’ technology platform and drug assets, and bringing in products to enhance and accelerate its pipeline. Prior to joining Syros, Mr. Garen was the Assistant Vice President of Business Development at Forest Laboratories from 2003 to 2014, and subsequently, Actavis, plc until 2015 following its acquisition of Forest Laboratories. At Forest Laboratories and Actavis, Mr. Garen was responsible for numerous acquisitions and license agreements to build the companies' pipeline in all its focus therapeutic areas, and led a team of business development professionals. Earlier in his career, Mr. Garen was Director of Global Licensing with Pharmacia Corporation and a Founder and Vice President of Technology Exchange, Inc., in New York, NY. Mr. Garen holds a Master of Environmental Science degree from Yale University and a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Allen Nunnally serves as vice president and head of corporate and business development at Voyager Therapeutics, a public gene therapy company focused on neurological disease. His life sciences experience spans 17 years with a focus on genetically- and genomically-driven technologies and biopharmaceuticals. Prior to Voyager, Mr. Nunnally served as vice president of corporate and business development and associate general counsel at Foundation Medicine, where he led transactions relating to its biopharmaceutical business in companion diagnostics and comprehensive genomic profiling for oncology and directed the company’s intellectual property strategy. Mr. Nunnally represented Foundation Medicine from Series B financing through its IPO and co-led the expansive R&D collaboration at the core of Foundation Medicine’s strategic transaction with Roche through which it first acquired a majority interest in that company. Mr. Nunnally previously spent 10 years at the law firm Wilmer, Cutler, Pickering, Hale and Dorr LLP, where he represented organizations ranging from Fortune 500 biopharma companies to early-stage biotech startups. Mr. Nunnally received a B.A. from Amherst College, where he double majored in in biology and law, jurisprudence and social thought, and a J.D. from Boston University School of Law with a concentration in intellectual property law.

Joanne Smith-Farrell, Ph.D., joined bluebird bio in April 2017 as senior vice president, corporate development and strategy and was promoted to chief business officer and oncology franchise leader in May 2019. Prior to joining bluebird, Joanne was vice president, business development transactions at Merck, Inc. At Merck, Joanne led the team that structured, negotiated, and executed business development transactions supporting Merck Research Labs. Prior to Merck, she was vice president of strategic transactions at Pfizer, Inc. Joanne holds a Ph.D. in Physics from the Catholic University of America, and a B.S. in Physics and Mathematics from Vanderbilt University. She was also a Fellow in Biomedical & Chemical Engineering at The Harvard-MIT Division for Health Science & Technology (Dr. Robert Langer’s Lab) where she received the NIH National Service Award in Research.