Nikola Kojic, M.D., Ph.D., is Chief Innovation Officer and Co-Founder of Oryon Cell Therapies, Inc. In 2020, Dr. Kojic founded Oryon together with Dr. Ole Isacson. Dr. Kojic served as the company’s Chief Executive Officer from its founding until February 2026, when he assumed his current role of Chief Innovation Officer. Prior to Oryon, he was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Takeda Pharmaceuticals. Before joining Takeda, Dr. Kojic was Head of Biology Discovery at VL51, an early-stage Flagship Pioneering neuroscience company. His entrepreneurial start was at Portal Instruments, a biotech company developing a novel needle-free subcutaneous injection platform. He joined Portal as employee number three and served as Vice President of Clinical and Scientific Development.
Prior to Portal, Dr. Kojic had a prolific academic career, which took him from a Mechanical Engineering undergrad at UC Berkeley to MIT for an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering. After his M.S., Dr. Kojic then received his M.D.-Ph.D. through the Health Science and Technology (HST) program, with an M.D. from Harvard Medical School and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from MIT. His Ph.D. mentor was Dr. Jeff Drazen, who was the editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine and Distinguished Parker B. Francis Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. After his medical training at Harvard Medical School, he completed two postdocs in biomaterials and cancer research. During his academic career, Dr. Kojic published more than 25 peer-reviewed papers (with more than 10 as first author) in various journals such as Nature, Biophysical Journal, Experimental Biology, and co-authored a textbook entitled Computer Modeling in Bioengineering, in addition to holding two patents.
