Bernat Olle, Ph.D.

Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Olle is a co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Vedanta Biosciences. He has been a member of the founding teams of several companies of the PureTech portfolio and served as a member of the Board of Directors of Vedanta Biosciences and Follica Biosciences.

In 2013 Dr. Olle was named "Innovator of the Year" in MIT Technology Review Spain's "Innovators under 35" awards. He also received the 2019 Barry M. Portnoy Immigrant Entrepreneur Award from The Immigrant Learning Center.

He completed his doctoral work at the Chemical Engineering Department at MIT, where he developed a novel method for large-scale bacterial culture. During his graduate work, Dr. Olle was awarded the "la Caixa" fellowship. Dr. Olle received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Universitat Rovira i Virgili, in Catalonia, his M.S. and PhD. in Chemical Engineering Practice from MIT, and his M.B.A. from the MIT Sloan School of Management. He has published his work in journals including Nature and Nature Biotechnology.

Ending the War on Microbes | Bernat Olle | TEDxCambridge

Dan Couto

Chief Operating Officer

Mr. Couto has 25 years of experience in biotechnology, biologics drug development and CGMP manufacturing, including at Merck Sharp Dohme Biologics UK (formerly Avecia Biologics) where he served as Vice President of Commercial Manufacturing Operations and was responsible for late stage and commercial manufacturing operations. In addition, Mr. Couto has held senior positions with several biotech companies including Nuvelo, Genzyme Transgenics and Advanced Biosystems and, most recently, was Senior Vice President of Manufacturing and Facilities Operations at ContraFect Corporation where he was responsible for chemistry & manufacturing controls, supply chain, quality assurance and facilities.

Mr. Couto holds multiple U.S. patents. He received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Jeffrey Silber, M.D.

Chief Medical Officer

Dr. Silber joined Vedanta as its first Chief Medical Officer in September 2020.  He has over 30 years of academic and pharmaceutical industry experience, having most recently served as Senior Vice President in Clinical Development and Head of Development Sciences at EMD Serono/Merck KGaA.  While there, he oversaw Global Program Leadership, Global Patient Safety, Fertility/Endocrine Clinical Research, and more recently Biostatistics & Epidemiology and Translational Medicine.  

Before joining EMD Serono, Dr. Silber was Vice President and Head of Strategic Portfolio Development at AbbVie.  Prior to that, he served in roles of increasing responsibility in Vaccines, Anti-infectives, and Neuroscience over a 16-year career at Merck & Co., ultimately rising to the position of Vice President and Therapeutic Area Head, Vaccine Clinical Research. He previously served as an Assistant Professor of Medicine at UMDNJ/Robert Wood Johnson School of Medicine in Camden, NJ. 

Dr. Silber received his B.A. from Harvard and his M.D. from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.  He completed training in Internal Medicine at NYU Medical Center/Bellevue Hospital and in Infectious Diseases at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. 

Mark Mullikin

Chief Financial Officer