Avista Therapeutics Employee Directory
Biotechnology ResearchPennsylvania, United States11-50 Employees
Avista Therapeutics is a Pittsburgh-based biotechnology company focused on developing gene therapies for retinal diseases, including rare inherited conditions that profoundly affect patients' quality of life. The company applies a computationally guided platform to design and validate a proprietary set of AAV vectors intended to improve cell-type specific delivery, enable lower dosages, and achieve efficient expression via a minimally invasive intravitreal approach. Its work relies on quantitative in vivo evaluation and clinical ophthalmology expertise to advance candidates toward clinical testing, with the aim of translating new therapies to patients. Avista operates as a small to mid-sized biotech firm and is a portfolio company of UPMC Enterprises, founded on research from Drs. Leah Byrne, Jose Sahel, and Paul Sieving. A recent development includes the January 2026 launch of an Innovation Platform to address barriers in AAV targeting, large gene delivery, and manufacturing through the combination of structural biology, protein design, and clinical expertise.