Thomas W. Chalberg MBA, PhD, AB

Thomas W. Chalberg, Ph.D. is a Partner of Polymerase Capital. He is also a Founder of Genascence Corporation. Previously, Tom served as interim Chief Operating Officer of Oncorus, Inc. As part of the launch team, Tom raised $61M in Series A financing and built the company’s infrastructure, manufacturing, and team. Prior to that, Tom was a founder and former Chief Executive Officer of Avalanche Biotechnologies (now Adverum Biotechnologies, ADVM), a developer of AAV-based gene delivery technology for ophthalmology. Tom led Avalanche through multiple rounds of financing, including one of the biotech industry’s most successful initial public offerings. As the first employee, he introduced several products into research and development and grew the company to over 75 employees. Tom orchestrated the development of the key intellectual property, including as a key inventor on several issued and pending patents relating to Avalanche's technology, and was Principal Investigator and Co-Investigator on SBIR and STTR grants from the National Institutes of Health. In addition, Tom forged multiple collaborations and licensing transactions with universities, biotechnology companies, and pharmaceutical partners, including the collaboration with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, which was recognized as "Breakthrough Deal of the Year" by License.

Earlier in his career, Tom worked as a group product manager with Genentech, where he led the strategy team for Lucentis, and was a board member of DigiSight Technologies in Portola Valley, California. Thomas Chalberg began his career as an operations research consultant with ZS Associates in San Mateo, California.

Tom has received awards and recognition from the Foundation Fighting Blindness and the World Economic Forum for his contributions to biotechnology. He received his AB in biochemistry from Harvard College and Ph.D. in genetics from Stanford University School of Medicine, where he was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Predoctoral Fellow. Tom also earned an MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, focusing on his studies on biotechnology and entrepreneurship.