Loren Eng is the president of the Spinal Muscular Atrophy Foundation, a nonprofit organization that develops treatments for SMA, the leading genetic cause of death in young children. Since its inception, the foundation has funded over $150 million in research and therapeutics development. The foundation collaborates with leading academic medical centers, the federal government (DoD, NIH, CDC, FDA), and nearly every pharmaceutical company in the world, including Roche, Biogen, and Novartis. When the SMA Foundation was established in 2003, there were no treatments for SMA. Due to the foundation’s investments and drug discovery efforts, today there are two FDA-approved drugs. There are another five in advanced clinical development and several more in pre-clinical development. One of the foundation’s first investments resulted in Spinraza, which was the first drug approved for SMA. In 2017, Spinraza won the Prix Galien Award for Best Biotechnology Product of the year. In 2019, Dr. Frank Bennett (a foundation collaborator at Ionis Pharmaceuticals) and Dr. Adrian Krainer (a collaborator at CSHL) received the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for the development of Spinraza. The SMA Foundation funded the basic science research and clinical trials network, and worked on the full scope of the therapeutics development, which led to the drug Spinraza.

Loren and the work of the foundation have been featured in national media including ABC News, Bloomberg Markets, Forbes, Fox News, The New York Times, Nightline, Parents magazine, and Today. She has spoken before Congress on numerous occasions regarding SMA, NIH funding, and biomedical research. She and the SMA Foundation have been recognized with the Child Neurology Foundation Award, the Giblin Foundation Award, and the Columbia Crown Award.

The accomplishments of the SMA Foundation will serve as the basis for a required semester-long course at Harvard Business School starting in 2020. The case studies for the course will be based on specific situations that the foundation has encountered in its near 20-year history of drug discovery.

Prior to establishing the SMA Foundation, Loren worked in investment banking, merchant banking, and business development for media. She received a BA with honors from Wellesley College, and an MBA as well as an MA in education from Stanford University. Loren serves on the boards of Columbia University Medical Center, the Harvard University Stem Cell Institute, and the SMA Foundation; she is a past trustee of the Bank Street College of Education.