“My hope is to help contribute to the effort so that we can get more and better therapies to market,” Kalayoglu said, “and get them there faster.” (Photos by Scott Suchman.)

Kalayoglu said that his undergraduate studies in medical microbiology and immunology opened doors for him. (Photos by Scott Suchman.)

Video: Healthways Murat V. Kalayoglu, MD, PhD and Yale University Provost Peter Salovey, PhD discuss using behavioral economics and the science of motivation to enhance sustained engagement in healthy behaviors.

Medicine, Business a Recipe for Success

Skilled in medical science, ophthalmologist Murat Kalayoglu BS1994, PhD1998, MD2000 comes at life with an entrepreneur’s vigor — bringing an energy that is changing the face of both medicine and business.

He attributed his successful career to an outstanding UW–Madison education and to getting the experiences that powered his future.

Kalayoglu is the son of Munci Kalayoglu, who joined the UW medical school’s faculty at the invitation of surgeon Folkert Belzer in 1983 and helped create the university’s liver transplant program.

Kalayoglu said that his undergraduate studies in medical microbiology and immunology opened doors for him. During his first year on campus, he was given the chance to work in the lab of Gerry Byrne. “Gerry gave me — a freshman undergraduate — my own research project, allowed me to participate in lab and departmental meetings, and met with me one on one,” Kalayoglu said. “That a busy investigator at a large university would give an 18-year-old his time and a chance to do real research is a testament to the investigator, his department, and the university. I was hooked.”

After graduation, Kalayoglu enrolled in the university’s MD/PhD program and became an ophthalmologist. He did research at Harvard and earned an MBA at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management in 2006. He used those experiences to carve his entrepreneurial niche. He cofounded HealthHonors, a firm based on behavior change. HealthHonors was acquired by Healthways and, true to his serial entrepreneur roots, Kalayoglu launched a new Boston-area firm called Topokine Therapeutics in 2010.

That firm developed compounds to alter fat cells. One of its products was an ointment that reduces fat pockets around the eyes. Repeating a familiar theme, Topokine was bought out by pharmaceutical giant Allergan in April 2016.

Kalayoglu shifted his focus to follow a passion of oncology and became chief executive officer of Cartesian Therapeutics in Silver Spring, Maryland. Cartesian develops therapies to treat multiple myeloma and other cancers.

“My hope is to help contribute to the effort so that we can get more and better therapies to market,” Kalayoglu said, “and get them there faster.”