Robert W. Overell

Robert W. Overell, Ph.D., is President and Chief Executive Officer of PhaseRx, Inc. He has served as PhaseRx’s President and a member of the company’s board of directors since 2006, and as Chief Executive Officer since 2009. Prior to the company’s first institutional financing in 2008, Dr. Overell was President of Foundation BioVentures LLC, which provided company formation and consulting services to startup companies. Prior to that, Dr. Overell was a consultant, venture partner, then general partner with Frazier Healthcare Ventures from 1996 to 2005, where he participated in raising over $600 million of venture capital and invested over $60 million in early-stage biotechnology companies. Dr. Overell has served on numerous corporate boards, including Array Biopharma Inc. (NASDAQ:ARRY) from 1998 to 2002; XenoPort, Inc. (NASDAQ:XNPT), which he co-founded in 1999, from 1999 to 2005; and Chimerix, Inc. (NASDAQ:CMRX) from 2004 to 2005. Dr. Overell helped found Immunex Corporation’s gene therapy spinout, Targeted Genetics Corp., where he led product development and gene delivery programs from 1992 to 1996. Dr. Overell joined Immunex Corporation in 1984, where he led programs in cell and molecular biology. He also led development of the first human immunodeficiency virus gene therapy trial in the world, which was approved by the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee of the National Institutes of Health and the FDA in 1991. Dr. Overell obtained a B.S. in biological sciences from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the Institute of Cancer Research, University of London, United Kingdom.