Essra Ridha is an EIR and President/Chief Medical Officer of Spolia Therapeutics. A physician-scientist with deep expertise in therapeutic development, she has advanced innovative therapies for rare neurological, metabolic, cardiovascular, and immunological disorders.

Her industry career spans leadership roles in pioneering biotechnology companies—including AVROBIO, where she most recently served as CMO leading HSC-based gene therapy programs, and Sangamo Therapeutics, where she advanced CAR-T regulatory cell therapies—as well as senior positions in global pharmaceutical organizations, GlaxoSmithKline and Bristol-Myers Squibb.

Essra earned her medical degrees from the Royal Free and University College London Medical School and holds a BSc (Hons) in Neuroscience with Basic Medical Sciences from University College London. She undertook specialty training in Cardiology at the Royal Brompton Hospital and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. She is a Fellow of both the Royal College of Physicians of London and the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine. An advocate for global standards in emerging science, she has served on the WHO’s Expert Advisory Committee contributing to the development of global standards for the governance of human genome editing.