Nebojsa Janjic, Ph.D., is a co-founder, CEO and President of Crestone, Inc. Dr. Janjic has been involved with Boulder-based biotechnology companies throughout his professional career, beginning with NeXagen/NeXstar, the original aptamer company he joined at its inception in 1992 where he was responsible for creating a pipeline of drug candidates, which now include two FDA-approved aptamer-based drugs. His contributions included the discovery, preclinical development and early clinical development of Macugen, a first-in-class treatment for wet macular degeneration. Macugen, which received FDA approval in 2004, was named Innovative Pharmaceutical Product of the Year in 2005 and recognized by Nature Reviews Drug Discovery in 2013 as one of the most transformative drug classes of the prior 25 years.
After NeXstar merged with Gilead, Dr. Janjic co-founded Replidyne in 2000, a company focused on discovery and development of small-molecule antibacterial agents with novel mechanism of action. Initially a discovery-stage company, Replidyne built a pipeline of drug candidates across all stages of pre-clinical and clinical development through a combination of internal R&D and licensing. After Replidyne merged in 2008 with a medical device company uninterested in pharmaceuticals, he co-founded Crestone in 2009 to continue the development of antibacterial programs. Concurrently with the founding of Crestone, he joined SomaLogic, a company focused on proteomics, aptamer-based life sciences products and drug candidates, where he served as CSO through 2024.
Dr. Janjic received his B.S. degree in Molecular Biology and Ph.D. in Physical Organic Chemistry from the University of Washington in Seattle and completed his postdoctoral training at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla as a Cancer Research Institute Fellow.
