San Francisco-based UNITY Biotechnology has appointed Anirvan Ghoshas CEO and member of the Board of Directors, effective March 30, 2020. Dr. Ghosh joins UNITY from Biogen, where he served as Senior Vice President, Head of Research and Early Development. Current UNITY CEO, Keith Leonard, will be leaving his operating role due to personal circumstances, but will continue as Chairman of the Board of Directors.

"We are thrilled to attract a world-class scientist and leader of Anirvan’s stature to propel UNITY to the next level of achievement," said Keith Leonard. “Augmenting our already strong executive team with Anirvan’s insights and experience will ensure that UNITY has the opportunity to realize its full potential. I look forward to continuing the journey and providing important continuity as I work with Anirvan in my capacity as Chairman.”

UNITY President and co-founder, Nathaniel (Ned) E. David, Ph.D. added, “I am really excited to work with Anirvan. He brings an incredible breadth of experience to our mission to extend healthspan. I look forward to partnering with him to maximize the emerging promise of cellular senescence and to explore additional therapeutic applications beyond osteoarthritis and ophthalmology.”

During his tenure at Biogen, Dr. Ghosh led a team of 350 scientists and clinicians responsible for preclinical and early clinical development (Phase 1 and Phase 2 studies) in all of Biogen’s therapeutic areas and led a marked expansion of Biogen’s clinical pipeline. Between 2017 and 2020, ten programs advanced from pre-clinical research into human clinical studies and several of these programs have demonstrated positive proof-of-concept results in human studies and are currently in pivotal registration-enabling clinical trials. Dr. Ghosh was also involved in expanding Biogen’s portfolio through key partnerships, including acquisition of early stage assets in Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, ophthalmology, multi-asset platform collaborations in RNA regulation through anti-sense oligonucleotides, and small molecule approaches for targeted protein degradation and targeted splicing modulation.

“There has been tremendous progress in our understanding of the cellular and molecular biology of aging, especially cellular senescence, in the past ten years, and UNITY has been at the forefront of efforts to translate that understanding into the next generation of medicines to slow, halt or reverse the progression of age-related diseases,” said Dr. Ghosh. “This is some of the most exciting science I have seen that could have a transformative impact on medicine, and I could not pass up this opportunity to lead UNITY into its next phase. I am deeply impressed with the portfolio that UNITY has developed with the keen insight and long-term vision of the Board.”

Prior to his time at Biogen, Dr. Ghosh served as founding CSO at E-Scape Bio, and Global Head of Neuroscience Discovery and Biomarkers at Roche. In those roles, Dr. Ghosh led research and drug discovery for programs addressing neurodegenerative diseases as well as neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders.

Prior to joining industry, Dr. Ghosh served as a professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University and the University of California, San Diego. Dr. Ghosh received a BS in Physics from the California Institute of Technology, a PhD in Neuroscience from Stanford University, and postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School. The impact of his scientific contributions is reflected in over 100 scientific publications in top-tier journals, including Science and Nature. He has been a recipient of numerous awards, and as a recognized scientific leader, he has chaired leading scientific congresses including Gordon Research Conferences and Cold Spring Harbor Meetings.

Dr. Ghosh joins UNITY from Biogen, where he served as Senior Vice President, Head of Research and Early Development.