Our leadership

Dr. David Meeker, a member of Rhythm’s Board of Directors since 2015 and Chairman of the Board since 2017, was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of the Company in July 2020. Most recently, he served as President and CEO of KSQ Therapeutics for approximately three years. Previously, David was the Executive Vice President and Head of Sanofi Genzyme, the specialty-care global business unit of Sanofi that focused on rare diseases, multiple sclerosis, oncology, and immunology. He joined Genzyme in 1994 as Medical Director and, over the course of his tenure, served the company as Vice President of Medical Affairs, Chief Operating Officer, and Chief Executive Officer. He led Genzyme’s commercial organization and global market access functions and managed the launch of several treatments for rare genetic diseases, including Aldurazyme®, Fabrazyme® and Myozyme®. Prior to his tenure with Genzyme, David was Director of the Pulmonary Critical Care Fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Ohio State University. Dr. Meeker earned his MD from the University of Vermont Medical School and completed the advanced management program at Harvard Business School.

Jennifer Lee joined Rhythm Pharmaceuticals in November 2020 as Executive Vice President North America. Jennifer brings more than 20 years of strategy and commercial experience in rare diseases. Most recently, she was the Chief Commercial Officer at Krystal Biotech. Prior to that, she served as Vice President, Head of Genetic Diseases at Sanofi Genzyme, where she was responsible for the U.S. commercial strategy and implementation for seven brands and launch preparation within rare diseases. During her time at Sanofi Genzyme, Jennifer also held leadership roles as Vice President, Head of Global Nephrological Diseases, Senior Director of Global Marketing in Fabry disease, Senior Director of Global Market Access and International Marketing for the cardiovascular business, and Director of Business Development. Jennifer holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a master’s in public health from Harvard University. 

Yann Mazabraud joined Rhythm as Executive Vice President, Head of International, in October 2020. Yann brings more than two decades of experience leading rare disease global commercial strategy, market access and marketing. He joined the Company from Trevi Therapeutics, where he served as Chief Commercial Officer and Head of International for two years. Prior to that, he held several leadership positions at Sanofi Genzyme, including, Head of Latin America, U.S. General Manager and North America Head, Rare Diseases. He also served as a member of the Sanofi Genzyme Executive Leadership Team. While at Genzyme and Sanofi Genzyme, he led and managed several launches for rare genetic diseases in Europe, Latin America and the United States across multiple areas including genetics, pediatrics, nephrology, neurology, and endocrinology. Yann holds a master’s degree in management from Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de La Rochelle. 

Hunter Smith has been our Chief Financial Officer since August 2017, and served as our interim Chief Executive Officer from March to July 2020. Since joining Rhythm, Hunter led the company in an initial public offering that netted the Company $125 million, as well as two follow-on public offerings that netted approximately $346 million. As a member of the management team, Hunter has played a critical role in charting Rhythm’s corporate strategy and enabling its growth and development. He has over 25 years’ experience in global finance and management roles across multiple industries and financial disciplines, including expertise in business analysis and planning, mergers and acquisitions, capital raising and investor relations. He joined Rhythm from Celgene Corporation, where he served as Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer of the Company’s Inflammation and Immunology Business Unit. In this role, Hunter provided finance leadership for the global launch of Otezla®, co-led the integration of Receptos, Inc. following its acquisition by Celgene, and led global business planning and analysis for operations in over 16 countries. Before joining Celgene, Hunter worked for fourteen years in roles of increasing responsibility at Bunge Limited, including Director of Investor Relations, Chief Financial Officer–Asia, Chief Risk Officer, Corporate Treasurer, and Chief Financial Officer of Bunge’s Sugar and Bioenergy Segment. He holds an MBA in Finance from NYU’s Stern School of Business and a BA in History, with honors, from Northwestern University. Hunter serves on the Board of Directors of Aeglea BioTherapeutics, Inc., and he previously served as an Independent Director of Genessee & Wyoming Inc. and as a member of the Compensation and Governance Committees, from 2015 until its acquisition by Brookfield Infrastructure Partners in December 2019. 

Joe Shulman was promoted to Chief Technical Officer in 2022. He had joined Rhythm as our Senior Vice President, Technical Operations in July 2020. Joe brings more than 20 years of industry experience and is responsible for chemistry, manufacturing, and controls (CMC), clinical and commercial supply chains, and cGMP quality assurance and quality control. Prior to joining Rhythm, Joe served as Senior Vice President of Technical Operations at Ra Pharmaceuticals, acquired by UCB in 2020, where he oversaw all aspects of CMC development, pre-commercialization supply chain planning and strategy as a member of the executive leadership team. Before that, he was senior vice president of global technical operations at Novelion Therapeutics, where he had responsibility for CMC, quality assurance, program management, patient/hub services, and global patient supply of Juxtapid® and Myalept®, two globally marketed products for rare metabolic diseases.  Earlier in his career, Joe held roles of increasing responsibility at biotechnology companies in the areas of CMC, technical operations, and program and alliance management. He holds an MBA from Boston University and earned a BS in chemical engineering from Miami University. 

Dr. Alastair Garfield joined Rhythm in July 2024 as Chief Scientific Officer. He rejoins Rhythm after serving as Senior Vice President and Head of Translational Sciences and Strategy at Rectify Pharma, where he helped deliver first-in-class therapeutics for rare disease. Prior to joining Rectify, Dr. Garfield was Senior Vice President and Head of Translational Research at Rhythm. He also held roles at Pfizer, where he was a lab head in the Cardiovascular Metabolic Disease Research Unit and led novel obesity target identification.

Dr. Garfield’s holds a first-class degree in molecular and cellular biology and a Ph.D. in molecular genetics from the University of Bath, UK. His postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Cardiff, UK and University of Cambridge, UK focused on neural pathways and genes underlying mammalian energy balance. As an assistant professor at the University of Edinburgh, UK and visiting professor Harvard Medical School, Dr. Garfield’s independent research expanded the field’s understanding of the hypothalamic melanocrotinergic networks regulating metabolism, body weight and appetite. His research has been published in leading scientific journals including Nature, Nature Neuroscience, Neuron, and Cell Metabolism. Dr Garfield has authored numerous original research and review articles on the MC4R pathway, including “Melanocortin-4 receptor-regulated energy homeostasis,” which was published in Nature Neuroscience in 2016 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26814590/).

Ms. Cramer joined Rhythm as Chief Human Resources Officer in July 2021. She brings 20 years of leadership experience in organizational effectiveness, talent development and human resources (HR) transformation with globally diverse life sciences and financial services companies. She joins Rhythm from Foundation Medicine, where she most recently served as Head of People Solutions and was responsible for leading HR delivery for its more than 1700 employees. Prior to that, Ms. Cramer held senior HR positions at Cambridge Associates, PAREXEL International and Epsilon Data Management. Earlier in her career, Ms. Cramer served in a wide range of positions at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and General Electric, where she began her career as a graduate of the Human Resources Leadership Program. She holds an MBA from Georgetown University. 

Dana Washburn joined Rhythm Pharmaceuticals in September 2022 as Senior Vice President of Clinical Development. Dana brings more than 20 years of experience in biopharmaceuticals and medical devices as a physician executive. Most recently, he was Executive Director and Global Medicine Leader at Alexion Pharmaceuticals, which became AstraZeneca Rare Disease following its July 2021 acquisition. Prior to that, Dana was Chief Medical Officer at Lyra Therapeutics, Corporate Vice President and Head of Global Medical Services for Parexel International, and CMO of Lantheus Medical Imaging. Earlier in his career, he was a cardiologist at the Framingham Heart Center, and he also served as Assistant Director of the Cardiovascular Hemodynamic and Imaging Laboratory at Tufts Medical Center. Dana holds a medical degree from the University of Massachusetts.

Elisabeth Crönert-Bendell joined Rhythm in April 2021 bringing over 20 years of country level, regional and global strategy and commercial experience in specialty care and rare diseases. Most recently, she was Head of the Neuroscience Business Franchise and Head of New Product Planning at Kyowa Kirin International. Prior to that, she was a senior vice president at Sanofi where she led the strategy for Neuroscience and Rare Disease at the Genzyme Business Unit. Elisabeth also worked in strategic consulting at Monitor (now Monitor-Deloitte). She also held leadership roles of increasing responsibility in Sanofi from Sales & Marketing roles in the French affiliate to global positions (head of the rare cardio franchise, head of new product planning). Elisabeth is a physician who specializes as a neurologist and holds an MBA from INSEAD. 

Jim Flaherty, our Senior Vice President and General Counsel, joined Rhythm in July 2019 and is responsible for all legal and compliance matters.  Prior to joining us, Jim spent six years at Fresenius Medical Care, a dialysis and renal care company, where he served as VP & Associate General Counsel supporting the Renal Therapies Group pharmaceutical and medical device division, Frenova Renal Research, the Renal Research Institute (RRI), and the FreseniusRx pharmacy. Before that, Jim was with the law firm Foley Hoag in Boston for eleven years, where he advised pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device companies on a variety of legal issues, including intellectual property, commercial, and regulatory matters, among others.  Before Foley Hoag, Jim began his career with Johnson & Johnson, serving as Regulatory Affairs Manager at the Codman neurosurgical division. Jim is a registered patent attorney and earned his bachelor’s degree at Harvard University, Master of Science in Regulatory Affairs and Health Policy (RAHP) at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, and law degree, summa cum laude, at Suffolk University Law School.