Recursion, a digital biology company industrializing drug discovery, today announced the appointment of Dr. Robert Hershberg to its board of directors. As an independent board member, Dr. Hershberg will bring a depth and breadth of pharmaceutical industry experience to the company’s board of directors at a time when it is driving multiple clinical-stage assets forward and continuing to establish partnerships within the biopharma sector.
“As a scientific founder-CEO and business development executive, Rob has the type of industry experience and expertise that will be tremendously helpful as we move quickly to become a clinical-stage company with multiple assets focused on developing these through subsidiary companies as well as strategic partnerships,” said Chris Gibson, Ph.D., Co-Founder and CEO, Recursion. “Following the recent appointment of our Chief Corporate Development Officer Dr. Shafique Virani, we are now in a better position than ever before to translate the many discoveries off our development engine into assets and get them to market and patients, fast.”
Also this week, Recursion announced the appointment of Dr. Shafique (Shaf) Virani as its Chief Corporate Development Officer. Dr. Virani will serve as both Recursion’s Chief Business Officer and Chief Executive Officer of its newly formed Development Corporation, which will take a subset of Recursion’s assets into clinical-stage partnerships with biopharma companies. Today Recursion has three clinical-stage assets in development and one wholly owned subsidiary company, CereXis.
Dr. Robert Hershberg was the Chief Scientific Officer and Executive Vice President and Head of Business Development and Global Alliances at Celgene where he held positions of ascending responsibility at Celgene since August 2014. Prior to Celgene, he served in several roles at VentiRx Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, which he co-founded in 2006 and was Chief Executive Officer from 2012 until the company’s acquisition by Celgene in February 2017. Dr. Hershberg currently serves as a clinical faculty member at the University of Washington School of Medicine. He holds a Ph.D. in biology from the University of California, San Diego’s Affiliated Ph.D. Program with the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and an M.D. and a B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles.
“Recursion is at the forefront of applying cutting edge technology to drug discovery,” said Dr. Hershberg. “Their unique approach to applying machine learning and automation to human cell images and other types of data has the potential to more accurately identify and quickly produce many, novel discoveries, now and in the years to come. I am honored to join Recursion’s board of directors and apply my experience in biopharmaceutical development and company building to a biopharma company that is on a rapid growth trajectory.”
For more information on Recursion, or to view its clinical-stage pipeline and opportunities for partners, please visit www.recursionpharma.com.
About Recursion
Recursion is a digital biology company industrializing drug discovery. Recursion does this by combining automation, artificial intelligence, machine learning, in vivo validation capabilities and a highly cross-functional team to discover novel medicines that expand our collective understanding of biology. Recursion’s rich, relatable database of 4 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, novel chemistry, and potential toxicity, with the eventual goal of decoding biology and advancing new therapeutics that radically improve people’s lives. Recursion is proudly headquartered in Salt Lake City. Learn more at www.recursionpharma.com, or connect on Twitter and LinkedIn.
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