Team

A world-class management team experienced in gene therapy, rare disease drug development and commercialization, and biologics manufacturing.

Andrew Krivoshik, M.D., Ph.D. is President and Head of Development, Northbrook, IL, providing strategic direction and leadership across all global therapeutic area development programs.

Andy has most recently served as Senior Vice President and Head of Development Therapeutic Areas. He has experience in global clinical development, biomarker strategy, translational medicine, product and patient safety, and medical affairs. Prior to joining Astellas, he was a Senior Medical Director at Abbott and was a graduate of the Abbott Physician Development Program.

As a pharmaceutical physician, he has led and managed global multidisciplinary cross-functional teams, successfully implemented novel and innovative clinical trial designs, and functioned as a subject matter expert and primary author of clinical protocols, investigator brochures and regulatory submissions spanning the life cycle of clinical development including Investigational New Drug and New Drug Application/Marketing Authorization Application filings.

Dr. Krivoshik holds a BSE in Electrical Engineering with honors from Princeton University, an M.D. from the University of Illinois (UIC) College of Medicine at Urbana-Champaign, and a Ph.D. in biophysics and computational biology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He received his clinical internship and residency training in pediatric and adolescent medicine at Mayo Clinic, and clinical pediatric hematology and oncology fellowship training at Duke University. He is licensed in multiple jurisdictions as both a physician and professional engineer and has served as an invited speaker and session chair at international scientific congresses.

Morten Sogaard, Ph.D. is Senior Vice President, Gene Therapy Research and Technical Operations for Astellas Gene Therapies. He is responsible for advancing the company’s pipeline from discovery through to IND-enabling preclinical development and for all Manufacturing, Technical Development, Supply chain and Facilities & Engineering.

Prior to joining Astellas Gene Therapies in May 2022, Morten was Head of Target Sciences at Pfizer and served as a member of the global R&D Leadership Team. Morten also held various leadership roles at Pfizer in Diagnostics, Genomics, Genetics and Computational Capabilities, as well as External R&D for Platform Technologies and Oncology. 

Prior to Pfizer, Morten led Immuno-Oncology research at Pharmacia, headed the Global Enabling Technologies and Research Informatics at Boehringer Ingelheim, and oversaw Molecular Sciences research at AstraZeneca.
      
Morten has a Ph. D. in Biochemistry with focus on protein engineering from the University of Copenhagen and completed his postdoctoral studies with Nobel Laureate Jim Rothman at Rockefeller Research Labs, MSKCC, New York.

Amy Pott is Division Head of Gene Therapy, Commercial for Astellas Gene Therapies, and is responsible for leading commercialization of our Gene Therapy business. She joined Astellas Gene Therapies (formerly Audentes Therapeutics) in January 2021 and brings an impressive amount of experience and expertise around rare disease therapies.

Ms. Pott joined Astellas Gene Therapies (formerly Audentes Therapeutics) from Swedish Orphan Biovitrum (SOBI), where she was President, North America, and oversaw rare disease and specialty programs. Prior to joining SOBI, Ms. Pott was Group Vice President, US Franchise Head, Internal Medicine & Oncology at Shire, where she was responsible for four rare disease businesses. She joined Shire when the company acquired Baxalta and stayed on to build the US commercial operations group handling the US franchises.

Ms. Pott earned her B.A. in History from the University of Bristol and her M.Sc. in European Policy & International Relations from the London School of Economics.
 

Richard Wilson is currently the Senior Vice President, Primary Focus Lead of Genetic Regulation at Astellas Gene Therapies (formerly Audentes Therapeutics) and is responsible for setting and leading the gene therapy strategy for Astellas’ Primary Focus Genetic Regulation. Richard joined Audentes in April 2020 as Vice President, Program Management.  

Richard has over 25 years of experience in research, development, and commercialization of small molecules, biological and gene therapies. Prior to Audentes, he served as Executive Director, Product Portfolio Development at BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc. where he held a number of roles including portfolio Core Team leader for BioMarin’s PKU franchise, overseeing the approval and global launch of Palynziq, the first enzyme substitution therapy for PKU.

Prior to BioMarin, Richard held leadership positions in GlaxoWellcome, BioChem Pharma, Theravance and Innoviva, where he was involved in the development and commercialization of a range of products in COPD and Asthma – Relvar/Breo Ellipta, Anoro Ellipta, and Trelegy Ellipta, and also in the identification of a nebulized delivery strategy for revefenacin (Yupelri). He has also led R&D programs in anti-infective, cardiovascular, rheumatology, and urology disease areas.

Richard holds a BSc (Hons) in Chemistry from the University of Manchester and an MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, where he serves on the Board of Directors for UC Berkeley Executive Education.
 

Lovena D. Chaput, Senior Vice President, Americas

Lovena D. Chaput is Senior Vice President, Americas at Astellas Gene Therapies. She joined Astellas Gene Therapies (formerly Audentes Therapeutics) in December 2019 as Senior Vice President, Global Market Access. In May 2020, Ms. Chaput assumed responsibility for the commercialization of the gene therapy portfolio in the Americas. Ms. Chaput has 15 years of experience in start-up organizations focused on the development and commercialization of rare and orphan diseases, and all together, has 30 years of leadership experience focused on launching and commercializing treatments in the healthcare industry. 

Prior to Astellas Gene Therapies, Ms. Chaput held leadership roles at Novartis (formerly AveXis), including Vice President, Global Market Access. There, she led the access strategy and launch of Zolgensma, dosing their first commercial patient nine days after FDA approval. Prior to Novartis, Ms. Chaput was with Horizon (formerly Raptor) with leadership responsibility for commercial operations and market access for Procysbi. She also worked at Amylin where she built the commercial strategy and organization for two first-in-class therapies, Symlin and Byetta.

Ms. Chaput holds a B.A. in Biology from Willamette University. She has a passion for learning and a strong patient first focus.
 

David Smethurst, Vice President and Head of Regulatory Affairs

David Smethurst is Vice President and Head of Regulatory Affairs and is responsible for global regulatory strategy, regulatory CMC and regulatory scheduling and regulatory operations for Astellas Gene Therapies. Mr. Smethurst joined Astellas Gene Therapies in August 2021, transitioning from a leadership role in Astellas’ global regulatory organization.

A global leader with over 25 years of experience in regulatory affairs, Mr. Smethurst has held leadership roles in both regional and global regulatory affairs that have led to more than 10 NDA/BLA/MAA and international regulatory submissions and approvals under his leadership.

Mr. Smethurst has diverse experience across multiple therapeutic areas, including Respiratory Diseases, Anti-Infectives, Inflammation and Immunology, Cardiovascular Disease, Neuroscience, Pain, and Psychiatry in orphan and larger chronic diseases for small molecules, vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, other biologics, and gene therapies.  

Prior to joining Astellas, Mr. Smethurst held regulatory leadership roles at Pfizer as well as Boehringer Ingelheim.  

David earned his B.Sc (Honors) Pharmacology from the University of Liverpool, United Kingdom and completed post-graduate research work at the School of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, University of Liverpool.
 

Jason Schwartz, Vice President, Medical Affairs

Jason Schwartz, M.D., is the Vice President of Medical Affairs for Astellas Gene Therapies and is responsible for leading development and execution of the Medical Affairs strategy. He joined Astellas Gene Therapies in June 2022 after helping to overcome several mission-critical challenges in both industry and academia.

Dr. Schwartz is a multi-organ transplant surgeon by training, joining Astellas 8 years ago from academic practice where he was associate professor and head of the kidney transplant program at the University of Texas, Southwestern. Prior to that, he co-founded the multi-organ transplant and liver oncology programs at the University of Utah, where he was also director of translational research. At Astellas, he has held positions of increasing responsibility, first leading the U.S. Medical Affairs activities for transplant / immunology and then helping to establish and grow the global Early Stage Medical Affairs function, leading teams that seek to optimize the value of Astellas products early in their life cycle. He has an extensive clinical background in the surgical and medical management of end-organ disease and was involved in some of the earliest efforts to transplant across HLA and ABO barriers. Over the years, his research interests have focused on liver and kidney pathologies, hepatic and biliary malignancies, and immunosuppressive management.

Dr. Schwartz earned his B.S. in biochemistry from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign and his MD from the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine. After completing his five year general surgery training at the University of Texas, Southwestern, he completed a two year NIH-sponsored research fellowship in burns, trauma, and critical care. This was followed by 2-years of additional training at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, where as a surgical transplant fellow, he earned certification in liver, kidney, and pancreas transplantation, as well as that of living donation.