Mr. Olson has nearly two decades of experience in the biopharma industry as a business development leader, where he has contributed to the advancement of multiple investigational therapies including extensive experience in rare diseases. He has led or supported more than $15 billion in both buy-side and sell-side aggregate transaction value.
Before joining Ultragenyx, he served as CBO at Stoke Therapeutics, where he led all aspects of Stoke’s landmark ex-North America partnership with Biogen for zorevunersen. Prior to Stoke, Mr. Olson served as vice president, head of business development, at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, where his business development accomplishments included the $2.8 billion co-development and co-commercialization collaboration with Roche to develop zilebesiran, a novel siNRA for hypertension and the $2 billion strategic financing with Blackstone. Before that, he was vice president and head of Rare Disease and Immunology Global Business Development at Takeda as a result of Takeda’s acquisition of Shire plc. Earlier in his career, he held various business development, venture capital and strategy roles of increasing responsibility at Genzyme Corporation. Prior to joining industry, he was an investment banking analyst and associate, as well as a research assistant at the Yale University School of Medicine.
Mr. Olson earned a B.A. in zoology from Connecticut College, an M.S. in cellular and molecular biology from New York University, and an MBA from the University of Virginia Darden School of Business.
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