Dr. Michael Hufford, PhD

Chief Executive Officer, LyGenesis

Dr. Michael Hufford, PhD, is co-founder and CEO of LyGenesis, a biotechnology company focused on organ regeneration.

LyGenesis's lead program in liver regeneration is preparing to transition into clinical development, beginning with a Phase II clinical trial for patients with end stage liver disease.

Dr. Hufford says,“Our cellular therapies enable patients’ lymph nodes to be used as bioreactors to regrow functioning ectopic ‘mini-organs’ that support or replace the functioning of the diseased originals.”

Dr. Hufford is an entrepreneur and drug developer with more than 20 years of experience developing small molecules (Cypress Bioscience), biologics (Amylin Pharmaceuticals), as well as drug delivery technologies (e-Nicotine Technology).

He has also consulted extensively to drug development programs in a wide variety of therapeutic areas, spanning clinical trial design (invivodata, NeuroCog Trials, PinneyAssociates), patient-reported outcomes (invivodata), neuropsychological outcomes (NeuroCog Trials), and prescription to over-the-counter (OTC) switch programs (PinneyAssociates).

Dr. Hufford also co-founded and is the CEO of Harm Reduction Therapeutics, a nonprofit pharmaceutical company focused on preventing opioid overdose deaths, bringing a low-cost naloxone product to the OTC market. He earned his undergraduate degree from Purdue University and his master’s and doctoral degrees in clinical psychology from the University of Pittsburgh before completing a Research and Clinical Fellowship in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.