William Kiesman, PhD

Chief Technology Officer at Judo Bio

Speaker

William has almost three decades of experience in the design, development, and manufacturing of small molecule and oligonucleotide therapeutics. Prior to joining Judo Bio, he served as CTO at Alltrna where over four and a half years he and his team worked on the discovery, development and manufacturing of the first tRNA therapeutic (AP003) that entered FIH clinical evaluation in 2026. Before that Will served as the Vice President and Head of Oligonucleotide and Small Molecule Development at Biogen. During his 24 years with Biogen, he was responsible for a wide range of activities from medicinal chemistry research and automated parallel synthesis to building both the chemical development and the end-to-end oligonucleotide development and manufacturing teams. Will and his teams have supported dozens of small molecule and oligonucleotide clinical programs and played pivotal roles in the successful worldwide regulatory CMC approvals of Tecfidera^® (dimethyl fumarate) in multiple sclerosis, Spinraza^® (nusinersen) for spinal muscular atrophy and Qalsody^® (tofersen) for ALS. Will earned his BS and PhD in Chemistry from the University of Connecticut, Storrs-Mansfield, CT, USA and pursued his postdoctoral research at Duke University, Durham, NC, USA. He is co-author on more than 60 publications/patents and has contributed to five book chapters.