Rich is a nonclinical development strategist and board-certified toxicologist with more than 25 years of experience in industry, including expertise in planning, conduct and/or management of GLP-compliant safety testing of small-molecule and anti-sense-based therapeutics, biopharmaceuticals, enzyme and mRNA replacement therapies, vaccines, genetic therapies and medical devices. At AVROBIO, he provides timely and resource-efficient execution of all pre/nonclinical activities needed to advance unique HSC-based gene therapies into Phase I/II testing (LD/rare disease indications).

Before joining AVROBIO, Rich spent seven years at Shire (now Takeda) as Head of Toxicology and, more recently, as Nonclinical Research Fellow, Global Nonclinical Development. Prior to joining Shire, Rich functioned as a drug safety expert on exploratory, discovery and Global Development/Learn Teams across a broad range of therapeutic areas for Wyeth Research (now Pfizer). He previously worked at Wyeth and Ciba-Geigy (now Syngenta).

He was Assistant Professor of Toxicology in the Purdue University School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences and is recognized as an expert in immunotoxicology, molecular carcinogenesis (tumor promotion), intrathecal enzyme replacement, and ex vivo gene therapy. He has authored or co-authored more than 60 papers, abstracts and book chapters. Rich pursued postdoctoral fellowships in Immunotoxicology at the Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. He received a BS in Biology from Bucknell University and a Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the University of Rochester School of Medicine & Dentistry.