Dr. Hegde brings decades of experience discovering and developing new
medicines to clinical-stage biotech at the forefront of applying
artificial intelligence to drug discovery
SALT LAKE CITY–(BUSINESS WIRE)–#biotech—Recursion,
an industry leader in artificial intelligence for drug discovery and
development, today announced the appointment of Sharath Hegde, Ph.D. as
its Chief Scientific Officer. Dr. Hegde has more than 28 years of
leadership experience at the intersection of drug discovery and clinical
development and has seen multiple drugs from discovery through FDA
approval.
“I am incredibly excited to join the talented team at Recursion and
become a part of its vibrant, collaborative culture,” said Dr. Hegde.
“The application of AI to image-based technologies is well-proven in
other industries, and Recursion is leading the way by leveraging its
state-of-the-art machine learning and deep biological expertise to
understand human disease. I am convinced that Recursion’s approach has
the potential to create a paradigm shift in the discovery and
development of transformative medicines, particularly in those cases
where traditional methods have eluded effective treatments for decades.”
Dr. Hegde has participated in the discovery of several New Chemical
Entities (NCE), including now-marketed products YUPELRI® and
VIBATIV® as well as clinical candidates currently in Phase 2
and Phase 3 development. He joins Recursion after more than 15 years at
Theravance Biopharma, a company that has been successful in building a
diversified portfolio with the core purpose of creating medicines to
help improve the lives of patients with serious illnesses. Dr. Hegde
first joined Theravance in 1999 where he rose from positions of
increasing responsibility across pharmacology and biology into his most
recent role as Senior Vice President of Research. Prior to Theravance,
Dr. Hegde spent nine years at Syntex Corporation, later acquired by
Roche. He obtained his Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the University of
Houston and his B.Pharm/M.Pharm from the University of Mumbai.
As part of his anticipation of a broader industry trend, Dr. Hegde
evaluated and studied the intersection of technology and biology in
depth before choosing to move to Recursion. In Recursion, Dr. Hegde
said: “I found a company that, similar to Theravance Biopharma, is
building an impressive employee culture marked by energy, passion,
agility, and most importantly, humility. While Recursion has good
leadership and is a mature startup where I can make a big impact,
ultimately it was the company’s culture that sealed it for me.”
Dr. Hegde joins several senior leaders at Recursion in migrating from
the San Francisco Bay Area to Salt Lake City. Called Silicon
Slopes, the Greater Salt Lake City area is increasingly being
recognized as an international high-tech hub, able to attract incredible
entrepreneurs and substantial venture funding.
“We have built a drug discovery platform that combines biology,
chemistry, machine learning, and software, yet is very much grounded in
high science,” said Recursion CEO Chris Gibson, Ph.D. “We needed a Chief
Scientific Officer who could marry extensive experience leading drug
discovery teams with an enthusiasm to reimagine the whole process and do
it differently. In Sharath we have found that exceptional aptitude for
the effective advancement of new medicines from discovery to development and
a true openness to both embracing and challenging new technologies and
approaches. He will enable our team to bring new treatments to patients
in a way that’s compatible with industry standards, at the same time
that we execute upon our disruptive vision for reimagining the process
and scale of discovery.”
Since its founding in 2013, Recursion has built one of the world’s
largest datasets mapping human cellular biology, using high-content
imaging, and advanced two of its ML-discovered small molecules into
clinical trials. The company plans to advance additional programs into
clinical development, on its own or with partners, over the next 18
months.
For more information on Recursion or to join the team solving complex
questions facing biology, please visit www.recursionpharma.com.
About Recursion
Recursion is a clinical-stage biotechnology company combining
experimental biology and automation with artificial intelligence in a
massively parallel system to efficiently discover potential drugs for
diverse indications, including genetic disease, inflammation,
immunology, and infectious disease. Recursion applies causative
perturbations to human cells to generate disease models and associated
biological image data. Recursion’s rich, relatable database of more than
two petabytes of biological images generated in-house on the company’s
robotics platform enables advanced machine learning approaches to reveal
drug candidates, mechanisms of action, and potential toxicity, with the
eventual goal of decoding biology and advancing new therapeutics to
radically improve lives. Recursion is headquartered in Salt Lake City
and in 2019 was designated a Fast Company “Most Innovative Company.”
Learn more at www.recursionpharma.com,
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Contacts
MEDIA CONTACT
Amanda Guisbond
Communications
Director
amanda.guisbond@recursionpharma.com