Upma Sharma, PhD
Upma Sharma has dedicated her career to transforming medicine with materials. Under her leadership, Arsenal Medical has established its platform of purpose-built biomaterials, achieved FDA breakthrough device status and IDE approval for ResQFoam™, and secured over $65M of non-dilutive funding from a diverse group of partners, including the Department of Defense, DARPA, NIH (both National Cancer Institute and National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute), and Massachusetts Life Sciences Center.
Upma joined the company as a research scientist, and her role quickly expanded. She led Arsenal’s ResQFoam foundational program from concept to the clinic, guiding product development, GMP contract manufacturing, the regulatory process through IDE approval, and clinical trial design. Today, Upma leads the expansion of Arsenal’s biomaterial platform for strategic growth across high-value clinical indications.
Prior to joining Arsenal, Upma was a key member of the Lyra Therapeutics team that created a novel bioresorbable scaffold. She oversaw the development of this technology for the treatment of chronic sinusitis, including leading a Phase I clinical study. The data from that study led to subsequent venture funding and the eventual IPO of Lyra Therapeutics.
Upma earned a Ph.D. from Princeton University in Chemical Engineering and a B.S.E. from Purdue University. During a post-doctoral fellowship in Bioengineering at Rice University, she was awarded a NIH Training Grant in Nanobiology. Upma has authored more than 20 peer-reviewed scientific publications and is an inventor on more than 40 issued or pending patents worldwide, including 20 US issued patents.