Christopher Leo (Past Speaker)

Dr. Christopher Leo joined Back Bay at its founding in 2010.  Chris’s focus areas include business unit, product, market strategies and diligence support across large pharma, biotech and specialty pharma clients.  In addition, he has significant expertise at the interface of the industry and academic community around strategies for sourcing and commercializing novel technology.

Christopher joined Back Bay from Genzyme, where he led strategic and competitive planning projects for the company’s $2 billion Rare Genetic Disease and $500 million Biosurgery business units. He supported both the brand teams on commercial issues related to strategic marketing and competitive positioning as well as the R&D organization on the assessment of new product/market opportunities.

Prior to Genzyme, Christopher was a Director with Leerink Swann’s Strategic Advisory group, where he led assignments comprising commercial, R&D and growth strategies for both big pharma/med-tech and emerging growth clients. Christopher was also a Principal in Wood Mackenzie’s life science consulting practice and prior to that, was Director of the Belfer Cancer Genomics Center at the Dana- Farber Cancer Institute.

Christopher completed his doctorate in Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and followed by a post-doctoral fellowship in the Department of Pathology at Harvard Medical School. He earned his undergraduate degree at Holy Cross College.

Christopher is married with two daughters and enjoys golf and following his beloved New England Patriots when not attending his daughters’ swim meets, soccer games or basketball tournaments.