Nicholas Vita is the CEO and co-founder of Apriligen, Inc (www.apriligen.com), a privately held gene therapy platform company founded to develop curative therapies for rare pediatric diseases of the blood. Apriligen’s lead candidate is expected to enter the clinic in a pivotal phase I/II clinical trial in 2H2025. Previously, he was CEO, co-founder and member of the board of Columbia Care Inc. which he built from concept to ~3,000 employees and over 0MM in revenue. Prior to that, he was a partner, healthcare portfolio manager and a member of the investment committee at Arx Investment Management (“Arx”) a multi-billion dollar credit focused investment fund. He joined Arx from Goldman, Sachs & Co. Inc. where he was a Vice President on the Healthcare Investment Banking Team. Nick has founded several 501c3s including The Styrke Foundation for Rare Disease and Treatment (www.styrke.org) to fund translational work to bring more curative therapies for rare diseases to the clinic and the Hundred Million Ways Foundation (recently merged with another non-profit), dedicated to combating the national opioid epidemic. Together, those foundations have raised and allocated millions of dollars to fulfill their respective missions. Among his personal and professional acknowledgements, Nick was awarded a Tribeca Film Festival Disruptive Innovation Award and a Manhattan Project Award the following year for his continuing national efforts to combat the opioid crisis. He was named “Captain of Industry” by the American Trade Association for Cannabis and Hemp (ATACH), was selected as a “Top 100” Most Influential/Corporate Chiefton/Innovator by several periodicals of record. Nick has been a guest lecturer at various universities, has served as a subject matter expert for a number of media outlets, is a graduate of Columbia College, Columbia University and was selected as a Knight of Magistral Grace (KM) of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta. He currently serves as a member of the board of Apriligen, Inc., Nantucket Community Sailing and the Brunswick School.