Landsdowne Labs Names Bryan Laulicht CEO

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06/13/2023 - 09:05 AM

Company cofounder and CTO to lead button battery safety tech company toward commercialization

FAIRFIELD, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- The Directors of Landsdowne Labs, LLC, are pleased to announce the appointment of Bryan Laulicht to Chief Executive Officer.

Laulicht, a company cofounder, has served as Lansdowne’s Chief Technology Officer since the company’s formation in 2017. He has also co-founded and served in leadership positions at two other companies focused on applying biophysics and bioengineering approaches to fulfilling unmet medical and safety needs. Both of those companies have been acquired for a combined total greater than $500M.

Lansdowne’s technology, applied to small, coin-like “button” batteries, is designed to avert injury or death when the tiny batteries--used in billions of consumer devices worldwide-- are swallowed. Studies show that every year, thousands of children and adults accidentally ingest such batteries, too often with dire results.

Laulicht, who will assume his new position on July 3, 2023, was instrumental in developing Landsdowne’s technology-- first as a post-doctoral associate in the laboratories of Robert Langer, of MIT, and of Jeffrey Karp, PhD, at Harvard, and, later, at Landsdowne.

“Bryan Laulicht is an ideal person to lead Landsdowne toward its commercial launch,” said Doug Roth, a Landsdowne Board member who is Managing Director of Investments at Connecticut Innovations (CI), a quasi-state agency that is a lead investor in the company. “Not only is Laulicht intimately familiar with the technology and the day-to-day operations of the company, but he is an experienced leader who has co-founded and built two other companies in the therapeutics, medical devices and biomaterials arenas.”

Those companies are:

Bullseye Therapeutics, Inc. --a Dover, Massachusetts, company providing smart injector technologies to improve the efficacy of ocular AAV Gene therapies-- acquired by Meira Gene Therapies (Nasdaq: MGTX).
Perosphere Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (formerly Perosphere, Inc.) -- a Danbury, Connecticut, company with a best-in-class anticoagulant reversal agent for use in life-threatening major bleeds and patients requiring urgent surgery—acquired by AMAG Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: AMAG).

Laulicht holds a BA in Biophysics from Columbia University, a PhD in Medical Science from Brown University, and was a Postdoctoral Associate in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology.

Laulicht said: “I look forward to furthering Landsdowne’s mission to develop and commercialize our proprietary button battery safety technology platform. Our goal is to reduce the risk of severe injury or death when coin-sized batteries are accidentally swallowed.”

In a long-planned transition, on July 3, 2023, Laulicht will succeed Melissa Fensterstock, a Landsdowne co-founder who has served as CEO since 2017. Under Fensterstock’s leadership, the company grew from academic concept to market-ready status through the formation of a global partnership with one of the world’s largest metal and mining companies; patent approval; the winning of an NSF grant; and the raising of venture capital investment. Previously, Fensterstock worked across the life science sector--running corporate development for a small publicly traded biotechnology company; serving as a consumer product leader; and spinning out companies from Columbia and Johns Hopkins Universities. Fensterstock, who will remain involved with Landsdowne Labs in advisory and other Board capacities, will join a major “deep tech” venture fund that is based in Boston.

Landsdowne Labs, LLC, formed in 2017, is a spinout from the laboratories of world-renowned Robert Langer at MIT and of Jeff Karp at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, in Boston. The company’s first product, ChildLok, is an innovative button battery technology designed to deactivate batteries following accidental ingestion, made possible by advanced material science. Landsdowne Labs is commercializing this groundbreaking technology for global companies seeking a turnkey, low-cost solution to the growing button battery health crisis. Landsdowne is headquartered in Fairfield, Conn.