Beyond LNPs: Delivering Genetic Medicines with Novel Vehicles

Dr Sanyogitta (Sanya) Puri is currently Senior Director & Head of Non-viral Delivery with the RNA & GT organization at Novo Nordisk. She leads a global department with multidisciplinary teams across Denmark and Boston, that are accountable for a portfolio of nucleic acid therapeutics with novel delivery systems within Novo Nordisk. Prior to this role, Dr Puri was Director of the Advanced Drug Delivery team, AstraZeneca Cambridge, UK, where she led a team of multidisciplinary drug delivery, formulation and clinical development scientists. Over her 10+ years & industrial career, Dr Puri has worked on design and development of oligonucleotide, peptide, mRNA and targeted nanomedicine products across oncology, cardiovascular, respiratory and rare disease areas. Dr Puri holds a degree in Pharmacy from India and PhD in Nanoparticle drug delivery from Nottingham University, UK. Dr Puri is known for being passionate about innovative drug delivery and has a track record of preclinical to clinical translation of novel medicines through both internal capability build and external partnerships.

Kanika Suri, PhD, is passionate about developing innovative, effective, and patient-friendly therapies that address debilitating health conditions. At Takeda, she leads the CMC development of pipeline drug products, spanning proteins, peptides, nucleic acids, and synthetic small molecules, and tackles formulation and delivery challenges across oral, topical, and parenteral routes. Drawing on deep experience in research and development, Dr. Suri excels at translating scientific insight into pragmatic, patient-centric phase-appropriate solutions that advance seamlessly through clinical trials. Her academic journey reflects her commitment to solving complex drug-delivery problems: during her PhD, she developed a novel oral delivery platform for nucleic acids, adding another dimension to her Master’s work investigating bioactive permeation enhancers to improve drug absorption of macromolecules. A champion of innovation and a dedicated advocate for Women in STEM, Dr. Suri combines scientific rigor with purpose-driven leadership to advance the next generation of therapies.

Dr Anand Subramony is Vice President of the DDCS (Delivery, Device, and Connected Solutions) group at Lilly and he provides leadership to early development of combination products and novel drug delivery technologies. Prior to Lilly, Dr Subramony was Vice President within the Biologics Engineering and Targeted Delivery group, at AstraZeneca where he led various cross-functional teams in the areas of nanomedicine, drug conjugates, and drug delivery of new modalities including implantable cell therapy devices. He also provided leadership to external innovation and CoSolve, an open innovation platform. Prior to that Dr Subramony headed the Drug Delivery & Device Development at Medimmune and built an internal team that focused on combination product development, connected devices, digital biomarkers/sensors, as well as advanced novel delivery technologies including oral peptide delivery and other novel controlled release technologies. In other roles, Dr Subramony was Principal Fellow and Head of Novel Delivery Technologies at Novartis (NIBR, Cambridge, MA), head of the Materials Science group at Alza /J&J (Mountain View, CA), and Director of Materials Science & Drug delivery at Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories (Bridgewater, NJ). With his broad experience in pharma biotech, Dr Subramony brings innovation and scientific rigor coupled with execution excellence and sense of urgency to create patient centric products. He has established and managed high-performing teams in all his roles. Dr. Subramony holds an M.S. degree in Materials Science Engineering (IIT, Bombay) and a Ph.D. degree from Purdue University. With several refereed publications and patents, he is a sought-after Key Opinion Leader in the areas of drug delivery and product development.

Vinu Krishnan, PhD, is a Principal Research Scientist in AbbVie’s Synthetic Molecules CMC R&D organization, where he leads the early CMC development of nucleic acid formulations. Dr. Krishnan has more than 10 years of post-PhD and postdoctoral experience in developing drug delivery systems for small molecules and gene therapies. Before AbbVie, he was at Intellia Therapeutics, where he led projects in the discovery and development of targeted LNPs for applications in gene editing. At Fount Bio, an early stage start up, he led projects on developing hydrogels for topical delivery. Dr. Krishnan did his postdoctoral research in drug delivery, advised by Professor Samir Mitragotri at Harvard University. In his research career, Dr. Krishnan has worked with various drug delivery modalities, including polymeric nanoparticles, polymer-drug conjugates, liposomes, LNPs, hydrogels and nanocrystal drugs. He has authored over 25 peer-reviewed publications in scientific journals including Nature BME, Science Advances, PNAS, Angewandte Chemie, Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews, Bioengineering & Translational Medicine, and Advanced Therapeutics. Dr. Krishnan received his PhD degree from the University of Delaware, and Master’s degree from the University of Akron, Ohio.

Dr. Ruchi Shah is a seasoned professional with more than 10 years of experience in the field of nucleic acid delivery, gene editing, vaccines, vaccine adjuvant development, and biologics. Her area of expertise lies in pharmaceutical development of non-viral gene therapies with a focus on formulation and analytical strategies. Ruchi started her career as Scientist at GSK Vaccines in 2015, focusing on SelfAmplifying RNA delivery for vaccines. In the following year, she continued her path at Intellia Therapeutics in delivering CRISPR Cas9-based therapeutics with lipid nanoparticles for hepatic and extra-hepatic delivery. She also worked at Moderna Therapeutics to enable high throughput screening in their platform group. Ruchi’s career progressed rapidly at Eli Lilly and Company where she led internal and external projects to develop lipid nanoparticle formulations for pre-clinical work to deliver a diverse portfolio of RNA therapeutics. In April 2023, Ruchi joined EMD Millipore Corporation within the Targeted mRNA Delivery team as the LNP Formulation Director, heading a lab team that is capable of both lipid design innovation and high throughput experimentation, advancing research and development in this rapidly expanding field. In February 2025, Ruchi Shah joined GSK as the Head of US Drug Product within the Vaccines Technical and Development with a focus on developing mRNA vaccines and therapeutics.