Kartik Ramamoorthi

Imagine holding a Ph.D. in molecular and cellular neuroscience from MIT. Then imagine helping raise more than $290 million in venture funding for a company you cofounded and lead in order to develop genomics-based therapeutics. Now imagine juggling those roles while also developing that company’s core technology.

That’s the hat trick that Kartik Ramamoorthi, the CEO of Encoded Therapeutics, has somehow been able to pull off. An inventor and provisional patent holder with more than a dash of scientist and entrepreneurial spirit, Ramamoorthi is a walking billboard for the scientist-innovator-businessman.

Before taking the reins at Encoded, Ramamoorthi was at a separate firm called Voyager Therapeutics, a biotech working on gene therapies for conditions including Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, and Alzheimer’s—all pathologies that have a distinctly genetic component.