Nicole Lykens
Co Founder & Chief Technology Officer Valaya Bio
Nicole Lykens is the CTO and Co-Founder of Valaya Bio and an expert in the discovery, development, and targeted delivery of oligonucleotide therapeutics (ASO, RNAi). With over 15 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry, she has advanced therapeutic platforms across CNS, metabolic, and rare disease indications.
Prior to founding Valaya, Nicole held leadership positions at Novo Nordisk, Dicerna Pharmaceuticals, and LifeSplice, where she led discovery teams, defined delivery strategies, and established cross-sector scientific collaborations. At Valaya, she leads the development of next-generation RNA modalities and delivery platforms, focusing on integrating emerging technologies to transition innovative therapeutics from concept to clinical application for diseases of aging.
Seminars
- Addressing whether investment/funding enthusiasm surrounding cell-type specific delivery is running ahead of the biology and where it is justified
- Considering whether to keep optimizing transferrin receptor shuttles which are heavily clinically validated or make the riskier bet on novel ligands to tune delivery
- Locating where the biggest opportunity for the delivery community to make progress in cell-type specific delivery is (RMT, nanoparticles, RNAi chemistry), and the gaps that need to be filled to get there faster
- Understanding the drivers of RNAi-related toxicity
- Optimizing delivery, chemistry & dosing to improve therapeutic index
- Building confidence in safety as RNAi expands beyond the liver
