Aaron Schacht

Chief Executive Officer

Aaron Schacht is Chief Executive Officer, President, and a board member of BiomEdit, an animal health biotechnology company he founded in 2022 through a strategic carveout from Elanco Animal Health (NYSE: ELAN) and a strategic partnership with Ginkgo Bioworks (NYSE: DNA). With over 35 years in life sciences and animal health, Aaron believes in empowering his teams to create, innovate, and revolutionize products and solutions that can truly impact lives.

Since founding BiomEdit, Aaron has built the company into a platform business developing Programmable Veterinary Biologics^™, engineered living therapeutics addressing infectious disease, sustainability, and chronic disease across five animal species. Under his leadership, BiomEdit has successfully raised two rounds of capital exceeding $55M combined. Since BiomEdit’s founding in 2022, the company has advanced the first-of-its-kind engineered bacterial therapeutic, Clostridium Perfringens Alpha Toxin and NetB Antibody Fragment, Live Limosilactobacillus Vector or CPerf LLV* (aka BE-101), to USDA conditional licensure, targeting a novel non-antibiotic veterinary biologic to address necrotic enteritis in broiler chickens, a disease costing the industry an estimated $6 billion annually.

Aaron’s leadership has earned industry recognition, including the 2023 Visionary CEO award from S&P Global Animal Health. BiomEdit was named Best Start-Up in Animal Health by S&P Global in 2022 and won Deal of the Year at the 2026 TechPoint Mira Awards for its Series B round. Under his leadership, BiomEdit has also secured significant non-dilutive funding from leading organizations, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Global Methane Hub, Bezos Earth Fund, NIH, and USDA, capital that has extended the company’s R&D runway and accelerated its path toward commercialization.

Before founding BiomEdit, Aaron spent six years at Elanco Animal Health leading research and development, regulatory affairs, and business development. He transformed Elanco’s innovation model, led the strategic acquisitions of Bayer Animal Health, Aratana Therapeutics, and Kindred Biosciences, and was part of the founding executive team that took Elanco public in 2018. His R&D teams brought more than a dozen products to market during his tenure, including Interceptor Plus, Credelio, Galliprant, Clynav, Experior, and Elura.

Prior to Elanco, Aaron spent 25 years at Eli Lilly and Company, starting as a discovery research chemist and moving through roles in R&D, strategy, external innovation, and product development. His last role there was leading the late stage development program that resulted in the approval of Emgality, a CGRP neutralizing monoclonal antibody for migraine and cluster headache prevention.

Aaron serves on the boards of Gallant, Mileutis, Ophirex, Purdue Research Foundation and Indiana Biosciences Research Institute. Aaron is also Chair Emeritus of Agrinovus Indiana. Aaron earned his bachelor’s degree in chemical sciences from the University of Illinois in 1990.