After a round trip, ex-Intellia CEO Bermingham lands back at Atlas

A couple of months ago, Intellia’s leader and founder Nessan Bermingham, Ph.D., left the CRISPR company, but we knew not where.

Today, we found out, and there is little surprise on this occasion as Bermingham has returned full circle, back at Atlas Ventures, the firm that also helped launch Intellia, one of a handful of U.S. biotechs hoping to make good on the early promise of CRISPR gene editing. He first started at the VC firm back in 2002.

Nessan will now be involved “with the formation and leadership of ground-breaking new biotechnology companies as part of the Atlas platform,” the firm said in a brief statement.

“I am thrilled to be working with Atlas again as we translate cutting-edge scientific advances into medicines for patients in need and build great companies,” says Bermingham.

Bermingham co-founded Intellia with Atlas back in 2014, leading the company from its seed investment and incubation at Atlas through to its $108 million IPO.

He first joined Atlas in 2002 and worked on multiple Atlas portfolio companies across various stages

“Nessan is a relentless entrepreneur and operator who has proven his ability to build breakthrough biotech companies from the ground up,” said Jean François Formela, partner at Atlas.  

“We are excited to welcome him back to Atlas and look forward to creating transformational new companies with him.”