Richard is the CEO and co-founder of RheumaGen. Under his leadership, RheumaGen’s parent company secured $4.6M in seed funding in November 2019. From there, RheumaGen licensed its foundational IP from the University of Colorado, expanded its pipeline to include multiple autoimmune indications, filed an FDA INTERACT document in March 2023 and is preparing for IND submission in 2024 for the company’s lead therapeutic indication of severe, refractory rheumatoid arthritis.

Richard co-founded RheumaGen following nearly a decade of experience in biotech commercialization, research and development, operations management, mergers and acquisitions, and healthcare at DuPont. Richard started in DuPont’s Leadership Development Program in 2009, leading a key M&A due diligence work stream evaluating a potential $5B acquisition of a water-related technology company. Richard’s team identified technologies and capabilities across DuPont’s then-portfolio related to water (conservation, filtration, irrigation, etc.), evaluated each for market size, implementation risk and synergy with the acquisition target, and presented their findings to executives. DuPont’s leadership accepted Richard’s analysis that the strategic fit wasn’t strong enough to justify the acquisition price and implemented his team’s recommendation to halt the acquisition.   

As a Venture Manager in DuPont’s Industrial Bioscience division from 2010-2013, Richard oversaw all aspects of a $200M research and development joint venture with BP (Butamax) that was genetically modifying yeast to produce biobutanol instead of ethanol. Together with his counterpart at BP, Richard’s team ensured that the joint venture had access to the top talent across both companies and implemented best practices in biotechnology commercialization, including development and protection of intellectual property, industrial biotech scale-up, and fundraising. At the time, Butamax was involved in a contentious and high profile patent dispute with its main rival, and Richard learned the value of careful claim construction and the power of a well-developed IP portfolio of over 70 patents. Richard oversaw the design, construction and commissioning of a pilot plant located on a BP site, giving him first-hand experience with some of the challenges and innovations inherent in translating new technology from the lab to a commercial setting. For example, the team found that if the engineered yeast became too efficient and the concentration of biobutanol grew beyond a certain threshold in the fermenter, all of the yeast would die. Richard helped the science teams work through a series of complex potential solutions involving cell biology and process engineering and ultimately find a very simple and successful solution to the problem.  Finally, Richard and his team secured an additional $60M in joint venture funding and approval from the DuPont CEO, DuPont Board of Directors, and BP CEO to construct a $50M commercial facility.

In 2014, Richard joined DuPont’s Sustainable Solutions division in the Strategy, Planning and M&A group.  At that time, DuPont Sustainable Solutions (which has since spun out as a separate company, DSS+) licensed technology and provided operations management consulting to clients across the globe.  Richard negotiated, developed, and launched a ten person joint venture with a Moroccan state-owned enterprise to provide operations consulting services in North Africa as part of a $200M technology licensing package. Richard surveyed the mergers and acquisitions landscape, identified an environmental consulting company as an ideal acquisition, and secured board approval to bid up to $1.2B for the target (which was ultimately acquired by a private equity firm for $1.7B). In 2015, Richard moved to Colorado and became a Healthcare Practice Leader within Sustainable Solutions. There, he partnered with healthcare industry experts to tailor DuPont's consulting methodologies to the healthcare setting, and worked extensively with hospitals and medical testing labs to improve their safety culture and operational efficiency.

Richard has his MBA in Marketing and Entrepreneurship from UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, and a B.A. in Communications from Boston College. He is a dual U.S. and Brazilian citizen, and is fluent in Spanish as well as a native speaker of English and Portuguese. Originally from Vermont, Richard loves skiing, watching college football, and exploring Colorado with his wife and two children.