Mana.bio Announces Strategic Leadership Additions and Upcoming Presentation at ASGCT 2026 Annual Meeting
Company Welcomes New Board Members and Senior Advisors to Accelerate AI-Driven LNP Platform
T-Cell In Vivo Engineering Data to Be Presented at the 2026 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy (ASGCT)
TEL AVIV, Israel and BOSTON, May 5, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Mana.bio, a biotechnology company revolutionizing targeted RNA delivery through AI-enabled lipid nanoparticle (LNP) discovery and optimization, today announced the addition of three accomplished industry leaders to its board of directors and advisors. The company also announced that it will present new data on its machine learning-driven approach to in vivo T-cell engineering at the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy (ASGCT) 2026 Annual Meeting, taking place May 11–15, 2026, at the Thomas M. Menino Convention Center in Boston, Massachusetts.
Strategic Leadership Additions
Mana.bio announced the appointment of Thaminda Ramanayake as a member of its board of directors, Michelle Lynn-Hall as a board observer, and Guy Van Meter as strategic advisor. These additions bring deep expertise in mRNA therapeutics, LNP delivery, business development, and strategic partnerships to support the company's next phase of growth.
Thaminda Ramanayake — Board Member
Thaminda Ramanayake brings over 20 years of global biopharmaceutical leadership and a distinguished track record in business development, strategic transactions, and advancing innovative therapeutics. He currently serves as a venture partner at Entrée Bioventures, a venture fund within Entrée Capital focused on deep-tech-enabled platform biotechnology and next-generation drug discovery. He also serves as a CEO of Anaveon, a late-stage preclinical biotech focused on reprogramming the immune system with precision biologics. Most recently, he served as chief business officer at CureVac, where he played a key role in the company's transformation and its acquisition by BioNTech. Prior to CureVac, Mr. Ramanayake was chief business officer at Affini-T Therapeutics, a T-cell therapy company, and vice president, global head of business development in oncology at Sanofi. He also held senior roles at BioMarin Pharmaceuticals, where he in-licensed numerous gene therapy and oligonucleotide-based assets, and at Amgen. Mr. Ramanayake holds an M.S. in Immunology and an MBA in Finance from the University of Rochester. He is currently a board member of the Alliance for mRNA Medicines.
Michelle Lynn Hall, Ph.D. — Board Observer
Dr. Michelle Lynn Hall is a co-founder and general partner of Entrée Bioventures, a venture fund within Entrée Capital focused on deep-tech-enabled platform biotechnology and next-generation drug discovery. A biotechnology executive and scientist with expertise spanning therapeutic modalities and drug delivery systems, she brings a uniquely integrated scientific and strategic perspective. Most recently, she held multiple leadership roles at Eli Lilly, where she established and led Lilly Boston's Genetic Medicine division, growing it into a vital portfolio driver. Prior to Lilly, she led the molecular modeling team at Moderna, focused on designing mRNAs, proteins, and LNPs, and held multiple scientific roles at Schrödinger. She holds a Ph.D. in Quantum Chemistry from Columbia University, and conducted postdoctoral research in computer-aided drug discovery at Yale University and Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research.
Guy Van Meter — Strategic Advisor
Guy Van Meter is the chief business officer of Adimab, a leading provider of therapeutic antibody discovery and engineering technologies, where he has served for over 15 years. In that time, he has helped build Adimab into the industry's premier antibody discovery platform with more than 140 partners and more than 650 therapeutic programs, including 6 marketed products. Mr. Van Meter is also a board member of Adimab Royalty Co. (ARC), which controls the royalty rights for Adimab's therapeutic programs. Before joining Adimab, Mr. Van Meter was part of Pfizer's business development team for their RNAi and regenerative medicine divisions, and previously managed the antibody technology business for Dyax Corp, generating more than 50 partnerships. He also held positions at Alkermes and conducted research at Harvard and Yale. He earned his MBA from Babson's F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business.
"We are at a transformational moment at Mana.bio" stated Yogev Debbi, co-founder and CEO of Mana.bio. "While the field is just realizing the potential of AI-driven drug discovery, Mana.bio has already built an industry-leading platform with established robust proof-of-concept. Thaminda, Michelle, and Guy each bring a rare combination of deep scientific fluency, business development, and real-world experience required to scale programs and partnerships that move drugs from concept to clinic. Having advisors and board members who understand both the science and the strategic landscape will help us accelerate our strong momentum and unlock the full potential of programmable RNA delivery for patients."
Upcoming Presentation at ASGCT 2026
Mana.bio will present new data at the ASGCT 2026 Annual Meeting (May 11–15, 2026, Boston, MA), the premier scientific conference in cell and gene therapy. The Abstract ID: 1083, titled "Machine Learning-Driven Design of Lipid Nanoparticles for In Vivo T-Cell Engineering," will highlight the company's proprietary ML platform and its application to the development of passive-targeted LNPs for in vivo T-cell transfection. The poster session will take place on Tuesday May 12th, 2026 at 5:30 PM.
The data describe how Mana.bio's suite of machine learning models, trained on the world's largest LNP dataset, identified multiple proprietary passive targeted LNP formulations by predicting T-cell transfection efficiency, chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) function, in vivo safety, and physicochemical stability. Lead candidates demonstrated in-vivo delivery to T-cells in non-human primates after a single dose of fluorescent reporter, and near complete B-cell tumor clearance in mice after multiple doses of a therapeutic CAR construct.
The presentation underscores Mana.bio's vision of enabling in vivo T-cell engineering as a streamlined, scalable alternative to ex vivo cell therapies, with the potential to broaden patient access to next-generation genetic medicines.
About Mana.bio
Mana.bio is a biotechnology company revolutionizing targeted RNA delivery using artificial intelligence-enabled LNP discovery and optimization. Powered by the world's largest curated LNP dataset and proprietary AI models, Mana.bio can accurately predict key determinants of safety, tropism, and physicochemical stability to accelerate the development of genetic medicines and effectively improve the lives of patients around the globe. The company's AI/ML platform had generated multiple extrahepatic (ex-liver) delivery solutions with non-human primate (NHP) validation, enabling has generated multiple extrahepatic (ex-liver) delivery solutions with non-human primate (NHP) validation, enabling tissue-specific delivery of nucleic acid therapeutics across a wide range of organs and immune cell types. In addition, Mana.bio has developed a predictive safety model that helps de-risk LNP design in early development, a critical bottleneck to advancing RNA therapeutics. In addition, Mana.bio has developed a predictive safety model that helps de-risk LNP design in early development, a critical bottleneck to advancing RNA therapeutics. Mana.bio was founded in Tel Aviv, Israel, and is backed by Andreessen Horowitz Bio + Health, Base4 Capital, NFX, LionBird, Entree Bio and the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. For more information, visit www.mana.bio.
Media Contact
[email protected]
Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2971930/Thaminda_Ramanayake.jpg
Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2971931/Michelle_Lynn_Hall.jpg
Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2971932/Guy_Van_Meter.jpg
Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2972056/Mana_Bio_Logo.jpg
SOURCE Mana.bio