Industry Experts

Dr. Zoya Gluzman-Poltorak, PhD, MBA, is CEO and Co-Founder of Forta Bio, where she is advancing programmable oligonucleotide therapeutics for cell-selective,extrahepatic delivery. She brings more than 25 years of biotech leadership across geneand cell therapy, genome editing, targeted biologics, and nucleic acid therapeutics, and has led or supported the development of seven FDA INDs.

At Forta Bio, Dr. Gluzman-Poltorak leads development of the ODC™ and ODI™ platforms, technologies originally developed at City of Hope, which combine therapeutic payloads with modular targeting approaches, including scavenger receptor-mediated uptake and aptamer-based targeting, to deliver oligonucleotides beyond the liver and into therapeutically relevant immune and cancer cell populations. Her work focuses on one of the central challenges in oligonucleotide therapeutics: how to align delivery strategy, oligonucleotide chemistry, payload format, and translational screening models early in discovery to support downstream manufacturability, safety, and clinical development.

Before founding Forta Bio, Dr. Gluzman-Poltorak held senior development and translational leadership roles across multiple biotech companies, where she built cross-functional teams, advanced therapeutic programs from research to clinic, and secured more than $250 million in public and private funding, including support from BARDA, DoD, NIH, and industry collaborators.