Blade Therapeutics, Inc. is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing cutting-edge treatments for debilitating, incurable fibrotic and neurodegenerative diseases. The company has deep expertise in novel biological pathways – including autotaxin / LPA and calpain biology – that are foundational to cell- and tissue-damage responses associated with fibrosis and neurodegeneration. Blade expects to advance a differentiated pipeline of oral, small-molecule therapies that include a non-competitive autotaxin inhibitor and an inhibitor of dimeric calpains.Cudetaxestat (BLD-0409), which is Blade’s lead investigational medicine, is a non-competitive autotaxin inhibitor with direct anti-fibrotic activity and differentiating characteristics. Cudetaxestat has been granted orphan drug designations in the treatment of IPF and systemic sclerosis. Blade's second asset, BLD-2184, is a CNS-penetrating dimeric calpain inhibitor as a neuroprotective agent in certain orphan neurodegenerative diseases caused by genetic expansion of poly-glutamine repeats (e.g. Huntington’s Disease and Machado-Joseph Disease). Calpains are non-lysosomal calcium dependent proteases. Lead investors in Blade included MPM Capital, Deerfield, Pfizer Ventures, One Ventures, Osage Partners, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Novartis Institute of Biomedical Research.Please visit https://www.blademed.com for more information.

Responsible for planning and leading all operations of discovery and design of small molecule inhibitors, including line management of in-house drug discovery researchers (chemistry and biology groups, computational chemistry, structural biology, informatics and IP efforts).Served as project leader for all InterMune’s HCV structure-guided drug discovery programs and member of the Roche-InterMune Joint Research Committee (JRC) that focused on research to identify and develop next-generation HCV protease inhibitors.Re-focused InterMune’s Drug Discovery efforts from HCV to fibrosis leading to 2 IND development candidates in less than 3 years

• Project Leader - Successfully led multidisciplinary international team to the discovery and acceptance of a development candidate. • Managed chemistry optimization and hit-to-lead teams for immunology, oncology and cardiovascular programs.• Member Berlex Scientific Advisory Council & Global Project Review Committee

• Invention, design and synthesis of analogs for oncology, immunology and cardiovascular programs including:- reversible platelet ADP receptor antagonists as anti-thrombotics. Discovered pro-drug analog that was chosen as development candidate.- AKT/PDK kinase inhibitors for cancer. Designed analog to block site of metabolism that was chosen for advanced in vivo efficacy studies as pre-clinical candidate.- Manual and automated solid- and solution-phase libraries, of Factor Xa, Factor VIIa, and PAI-1 as anti-thrombotics; and CCR1 chemokine receptor antagonists for multiple sclerosis.