Maya Rao, PhD

March 30 2023

Alejandra joined NextRNA in 2022 as VP, Head of Biology. A highly accomplished scientific leader, Alejandra has over 25 years of small molecule drug discovery experience in the areas of cancer biology, epigenetics, and infectious diseases. Alejandra has a proven track record of leading biology teams throughout all stages of the discovery process from validation and uncovering of novel targets to drug candidate development and IND and NDA submissions.

Alejandra was previously Vice President and Head of Biological Sciences at Epizyme, where she worked for 11 years. Among other responsibilities, she served as preclinical project lead overseeing life cycle management of the EZH2 inhibitor program, tazemetostat, which won FDA-approval in 2020 as Tazverik®. Before that, she held roles at The Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research and Millennium Pharmaceuticals, now Takeda Oncology. Alejandra is an expert collaborator who has successfully built multidisciplinary teams for the implementation of technology platforms and driving drug discovery programs.

Alejandra has a strong foundation in research, spending years at the MIT Center for Cancer Research, and the Luis Federico Leloir Institute (Argentina). Alejandra received a BS in Chemistry from the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina).

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