Alumni Excellence Award Recipient: Jaysson Eicholtz ’99

When Columbus, Ohio-based company, Forge Biologics, was founded in January 2020, the biotech firm promised cutting-edge gene therapy manufacturing and therapeutics development. But the company’s ability to do that depended on more than scientific genius. It needed state-of-the art laboratory space and a headquarters that could push the bounds of medical innovation. 

Enter Martin Jaysson Eicholtz ’99, one of three co-founders and the self-professed “nuts-and-bolts guy.” 

As the company’s Chief Operating Officer, Eicholtz converted a former Borders bookstore distribution center into hope for those suffering from chronic and deadly genetic illnesses. But there were profound challenges. The Covid shutdown, and the impact that the pandemic had on global supply chains, made it almost impossible to buy equipment, meet vendors or bring people into the 175,000 square-foot facility. 

“All of the scripts were gone,” says Eicholtz, noting that new equipment – everything from biosafety cabinets to measuring instruments – couldn’t be delivered. In many instances, new equipment wasn’t available at all. 

Eicholtz resorted to Plan B. 

“We bought everything on auction,” he adds. “We’d buy used equipment, get it serviced, pick it up ourselves in a truck and bring it back. That allowed us to hit the ground running. We had a headstart.” 

By the time Forge Biologics became fully operational in 2023, it would employ more than 300 people, raise more than $200 million in capital and become one of the most talked-about gene therapy contract development and manufacturing organizations (CDMO) in the country. 

None of it could have happened without Eicholtz, who has worked for organizations of every size, including massive pharmaceutical companies such as Sanofi, smaller biotech firms and academic medical centers. 

Through it all, he learned how facilities age, how equipment fails and how poorly designed spaces slow down science. 

“I can’t help them scientifically,” he says. “But I can build a good space. I can build something that runs nonstop. That supports as many trials as possible. We were very deliberate with Forge. We wanted to build something we could live in for decades.” 

Eicholtz describes the facility as a city within a shell. Inside, he planned modular clean-room clusters nicknamed “tuning forks.” Nothing was bolted permanently to the floor. Equipment could be rolled out. New technology could roll in. “If gene therapy goes away and something replaces it,” Eicholtz says, “we can adapt.” 

He retired from Forge Biologics in May 2024, after the company was acquired five months earlier. While much of his work is done behind-the-scenes, Eicholtz has seen firsthand the emotional impacts made possible by his infrastructure work. 

Earlier in his career, he did work for Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus. There, scientists manufactured one of the earliest gene therapies for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), a disease that is often fatal by age 2. The life-changing impact on the family and the course of that child’s life helped shape his approach to manufacturing and operations in gene therapy. 

Eicholtz has been guided by a simple mission: “A good space is a used space.” It's this principle that drives him to make more, serve more clients and help more patients get the treatments they need.