Rahul Ballal, PhD

CEO

Rahul is a biotech executive with more than 15 years of experience in building companies, business development, and company financing. Rahul previously served as Imara’s (IMRA) president and chief executive officer from Series A, through an IPO, raising $200MM in capital and completing a merger with Enliven Therapeutics (ELVN) . Prior to this role at Imara, he served as chief business officer of Northern Biologics and as an entrepreneur-in-residence at Versant Ventures.  Previously, Rahul was vice president of business development at Flexion Therapeutics (FLXN) and an associate at ASM ventures. Additionally, Rahul serves on the Board of Directors of Agios Pharmaceuticals (AGIO), Enliven Therapeutics (ELVN) and Vaderis Therapeutics AG.  Rahul holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Georgetown University, an MS in bioinformatics from Johns Hopkins University and a BS in biology from Brown University.

Paul Yaworsky, PhD

CSO

Paul Yaworsky is the founding CSO of Mediar Therapeutics. He joined Mediar from Pfizer, where he spent more than 20 years focused on drug discovery and development. At Pfizer, Paul created the initial scientific and business plan for fibrosis research. Most recently, he served as COO, Inflammation & Immunology Research, where he led strategy and operations for the research unit from early discovery into the clinic including first-in-human through Phase 2 proof-of-concept for both biologic and small molecule approaches for Inflammation and Immunology assets.

A native of Canada, Paul holds a PhD in Molecular Neuroscience from the Mayo Clinic Graduate School of Biomedicine and a BSc in Molecular Genetics from the University of Toronto.