Leadership
Dr. Matt Devalaraja
Matt Devalaraja is the chairman & co-founder at Medisynbio Inc. He is currently the President and CEO of Nipuna Therapeutics, a precision immunology company. He is a serial entrepreneur with a keen interest in improving human health. He was the founder, CSO and Head of R&D of Corvidia Therapeutics, which was acquired by Novo-Nordisk for $2.1B in 2020. Dr. Devalaraja is an immunologist with more than 20 years of experience in drug discovery and development across multiple therapeutic areas.
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Dr. Devalaraja is a veteran in the pharma and biotech segment with past experiences as Director of Emerging Innovations Unit at AstraZeneca, where he enabled multiple clinical studies and developed the core hypothesis of precision cardiovascular therapeutics that formed the basis for Corvidia spinout. He also was Head of Immunology Research, Pharmacokinetics and Toxicology groups at Human Genome Sciences, and was integral to the approval of Benlysta for Lupus and Raxibacumab for Anthrax.
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Dr. Devalaraja started his career at Pfizer in Ann Arbor and brought forth the first biologic program for Pfizer’s Global Immunology portfolio. As Head of Biologics Discovery at Pfizer Ann Arbor, he initiated multiple programs across various therapeutic areas, including immunology and cardiovascular space, many of which have advanced to late stages of clinical development. Dr. Devalaraja received his Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky and completed his Post-Doctoral training at Vanderbilt University.
Dr. Michael Davidson
Dr. Davidson is scientific advisor and board member. Michael is Professor of Medicine and Director of the Lipid Clinic at the University of Chicago and board-certified in internal medicine, cardiology, and clinical lipidology.
His extensive research on statins, novel lipid-lowering drugs, anti-obesity agents and nonpharmacologic risk factor reduction has established him as a key opinion leader in this area. He has coordinated more than 1,000 clinical trials in areas of preventive cardiology, published more than 400 articles for leading medical journals and has written 3 books on Lipidology. Expertscape ranks him the #4 lipid expert in the world. Michael is also CEO of New Amsterdam Pharma. Previously he was the founder and Chief Medical Officer of Corvidia Therapeutics which sold to Novo Nordisk, cofounding Chief Medical Officer of Omthera Pharmaceuticals which was later acquired by AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals, and founder of the Chicago Center for Clinical Research. Michael received his BA/MS from Northwestern University and MD from The Ohio State University School of Medicine
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Dr. Sai Tummala
Sai Tummala is the founder & CEO at Medisynbio Inc. Dr. Tummala is a drug discovery scientist with more than 15 years of experience in drug discovery, preclinical model development and management expertise across multiple therapeutic areas. Gnotobiotics and Microbiome modulation is his passion.
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Prior to founding Medisynbio, Dr. Tummala was Assoc Vice President at Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation where he enabled multiple pre-clinical studies and established the first germ-free mouse facility facilitating the microbiome studies. His contributions lead to exploration of the role of glycans and mucin in gut health with publication in science magazine 2019.
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Dr. Tummala started his career at Esperion therapeutics later acquired by Pfizer Inc, in Ann Arbor and worked on projects involving HDL mimetics, reverse lipid transport, Cholesterol efflux, SAA peptides, ABCA-1 transporters related to atherosclerosis and vascular inflammation segments. Dr. Tummala received his M.B.A from Jack welch Management Institute and is a Diplomate of the American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine.