Michael Cho is a seasoned management executive, entrepreneur, and attorney with more than 30 years of experience spanning business management, startup entrepreneurship, legal advisory services, business development, government contracting, and international business. A registered patent attorney and member of the State Bars of California and Washington, Michael brings an unusually broad foundation — combining legal acumen, operational leadership, and commercial instincts — to the challenges of building and scaling an early-stage biotechnology company.

Michael joined Kinea Bio as an Advisor and Board Director in 2020, contributing to the company's early strategic direction in the development of novel drug development platforms and therapeutic strategies for gene therapy applications targeting neuromuscular diseases. He returned to Kinea Bio in September 2023 as Chief Financial Officer and Chief Strategy Officer, where he leads corporate development, research and commercial partnerships, IP licensing transactions, financial management, and equity and debt financing in support of the company's gene therapy pipeline.

Over the prior decade, Michael built a track record of executive leadership at Curi Bio, a Seattle-based biotechnology company, serving first as Chief Executive Officer from 2016 to 2023 and subsequently as Chief Strategy Officer through May 2026. Across his ten years of executive leadership at Curi Bio, Michael guided the company through the development and commercialization of human iPSC-derived cell and tissue models, biosystem devices and instruments, and drug discovery and screening tools and services — growing it from an early-stage startup into a globally recognized platform company with significant commercial revenues. Under his leadership, Curi Bio raised more than $40 million in equity and research grant funding, including SBIR awards exceeding $10 million, built a broad intellectual property portfolio, launched more than five commercially distributed products that have become standard tools in pharmaceutical drug discovery programs worldwide, and advanced corporate development, equity financing, strategic partnerships, and IPO planning.