SUNNYVALE, Calif.– Rubedo Life Sciences, a biopharmaceutical company pioneering first-in-class therapies for chronic age-related diseases targeting the senescent cells that drive cellular aging, today announced the appointment of veteran biotech executives Ali Siam as Chief Business Officer and seasoned drughunter Ofir Moreno, Ph.D., as Senior Vice President, Drug Discovery. Both executives will report directly to Rubedo CEO Marco Quarta. Their appointments follow continued momentum at the company, with substantial progress of Rubedo’s small molecule senolytic pipeline and integrated discovery platform.
“We are pleased to welcome Ali and Ofir, who bring invaluable experience and insights to our leadership team for this next stage of growth,” said Marco Quarta, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Rubedo Life Sciences. “The depth of their expertise will be critical in advancing our pipeline of novel first-in-class small molecules that will target key drivers of progression in pulmonary, dermatological, oncological, and fibrotic diseases in the aging population. We have significant opportunities in terms of biology and potential partnerships, and expanding our leadership team with these key hires will bolster the execution of our portfolio strategy.”
“I’m excited to join Rubedo at this important stage, as we advance our pipeline of potential best-in-class candidates targeting chronic age-related diseases,” said Ali Siam, Chief Business Officer, Rubedo. “The current pipeline, and the power of the Alembic discovery platform to identify additional novel selective senolytics, will benefit patients in areas of high unmet need. Having witnessed the evolution of the longevity space first-hand this past decade, Rubedo’s therapeutic approach has broad applicability, and I’m thrilled to join Marco and the team to lead our corporate and partnering strategy as we enter this next phase of growth.”
“The Rubedo team is an exceptionally bright group of people from multi-disciplinary backgrounds, with deep understanding and insights into cellular senescence. The team has developed a state-of-the-art computational platform to target senescent cells,” said Ofir Moreno, Ph.D., Senior Vice President, Drug Discovery. “I feel fortunate to join Rubedo at this exciting time, to continue the development of an industry-leading, best-in-class drug discovery engine and a product pipeline of senolytic agents targeting age-related diseases.”
Ali Siam is Chief Business Officer (CBO) at Rubedo, where he leads business development and corporate strategy. He was previously CBO at Celmatix, a platform biotech with a first-in-class ovarian aging program, where he led the team to multi-target R&D collaborations with Evotec SE and Bayer AG, and supported the development of their corporate and portfolio strategy. Prior to Celmatix, he led corporate strategy, R&D prioritization, portfolio strategy, and due diligence engagements for small to large pharmaceutical, diagnostic, healthcare services, biotech, and institutional investor clients across therapeutic areas as a team leader at L.E.K. Consulting. He also led collaborations with innovators in an emerging technologies-focused whitespace team at AbbVie, in addition to roles in Market Access and Marketing developing go-to-market, launch, and lifecycle management strategy across Oncology, Immunology, Infectious Disease, Neuroscience, and Metabolics. Ali also has strategic marketing and R&D experience from his time at Johnson & Johnson and Boston Scientific, and holds an MBA from Boston College and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Northeastern University.
Ofir Moreno, Ph.D., is Senior Vice President, Drug Discovery at Rubedo. He brings more than 25 years of pharmaceutical R&D experience, spanning early drug discovery through clinical
development. He is a veteran biotech executive, with a passion for integrating advanced techniques and technologies for the discovery and development of new drugs. His experience includes the discovery of novel drugs and prodrugs for oncology, CNS, and cardiovascular indications utilizing a variety of technological platforms, as well as the application of model-informed drug development for the advancement of drugs into first-in-human trials and onward to late-stage clinical trials. Most recently, he was Senior Vice President of Pharmaceutical Sciences at MEI Pharma, where he was instrumental in establishing R&D operations, building MEI’s clinical pipeline, and partnering two drugs for late stage development and commercialization. Prior to MEI, he held positions of increasing responsibility in drug discovery at Merck, Amgen, Corvas International, and Dendreon. Dr. Moreno received his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Harvard University under the guidance of Professor Yoshito Kishi, and a BA in Chemistry and Biology from Cornell University.
