Our Leadership

Dr. Khara joins Disc Medicine from Acceleron where he served as Vice President, Legal and Chief Compliance Officer. In this role, he led the commercial legal and compliance functions. While at Acceleron, Dr. Khara led or supported a wide range of legal matters including facilitating the launch of Reblozyl® (luspatercept-aamt), Acceleron’s first commercial product, building the company’s commercial compliance program, and the successful acquisition of the company by Merck. Prior to Acceleron, Dr. Khara worked at the law firms of Arnold & Porter LLP and Sidley Austin LLP, where he helped biopharma companies in various stages of development navigate legal issues related to the clinical development of new assets, launch of new drug products, business development transactions, compliance, and enforcement. Dr. Khara received a Pharm.D. from the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy at Rutgers University and a J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School.

Min is the Head of Innovation and brings 20 years of experience in drug discovery and development spanning a range of therapeutic areas. Prior to Disc, as the Senior Director of Biology at Proteostasis Therapeutics, she led a multi-year collaboration program with Astellas Pharma, focusing on discovery and early development of a small molecule therapeutic targeting a rare genetic liver disease. At Proteostasis, Min also oversaw multiple small molecule programs to target genetic diseases that result in the dysregulation of the proteostasis network. Prior to Proteostasis, Min held roles with increasing responsibilities in discovery biology, pharmacology, biomarker development and translational research at FORMA Therapeutics, Agios Pharmaceuticals and AVEO Oncology. Min received a Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from the Oak Ridge National Lab/University of Tennessee and completed her postdoctoral training at the Whitehead Institute of MIT.

Jason is the Head of Intellectual Property of Disc Medicine. Previously, Jason was Vice President of Intellectual Property at Acceleron Pharma, where he led intellectual property strategy development and worldwide implementation for the company’s commercial, clinical-stage, and pre-development programs. In particular, he led or supported a wide range of legal matters including patent strategy for Reblozyl®️ (luspatercept-aamt) and sotatercept (currently in development by Merck & Co. for treatment of pulmonary hypertension), building the company’s IP intellectual property team, and the successful acquisition of the company by Merck. Prior to Acceleron, Jason worked at the law firm of Ropes & Gray, where he helped clients in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries on a wide range of intellectual property issues, including patent portfolio development, life-cycle management, patent prosecution, patent listing and delisting matters, patent term restoration, patent litigation, and assessments regarding patentability, validity, non-infringement, and freedom-to-operate. He received a Ph.D. in Molecular Microbiology & Microbial Pathogenesis from Washington University in St. Louis.

Katherine is Vice President of Portfolio and Program Management and manages and coordinates the development and growth of Disc Medicine’s pipeline of therapies across its scientific, regulatory, and financial functional teams.  Before joining Disc Medicine in 2021, she served as a Senior Global Program Manager for drug development at both Novartis Pharmaceuticals and Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research (NIBR) in the hematology, ophthalmology (managing NIBR’s first gene therapy program), and respiratory disease areas.  Katherine started her career in the pharmaceutical industry as an American Board-Certified toxicologist at Genzyme (now Sanofi) before moving to NIBR to establish its very first toxicology laboratory and later serving as a preclinical safety expert.  Katherine also represented Novartis as co-lead of a partnership and alliance committee composed of industry leaders from major pharmaceutical companies to implement measurable residual disease (MRD) as a measure for evaluating the efficacy of acute myeloid leukemia clinical treatment and regulatory and market perspectives.  Katherine received her Master of Public Health from Harvard University, MBA from Boston College, and PhD (Pharmacology and Toxicology) from the University of California at Davis.

Melanie is the Vice President of Clinical Development and Head of Medical Affairs. She brings over 14 years of experience in drug development. Prior to joining Disc Medicine, she was Vice President of Product Strategy at Reata Pharmaceuticals. At Reata, she held roles of increasing responsibility to help oversee cross-functional early- to late-stage development of multiple assets, and was instrumental in the approval of SKYCLARYS (omaveloxolone). Melanie has a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and a B.A. in Chemistry from North Carolina State University and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.