Meliora Therapeutics Appoints Claudio Chuaqui as Head of Drug Discovery

Meliora Therapeutics, a biotech company pioneering a machine learning-driven approach to mechanism-driven oncology drug development, announced the appointment of Claudio Chuaqui, Ph.D, as Senior Vice President (SVP), Head of Drug Discovery. Dr. Chuaqui will lead the drug discovery group which includes biology, medicinal chemistry, biochemistry/biophysics, and computational chemistry.

Dr. Chuaqui brings more than 20 years of drug discovery experience to Meliora Therapeutics. He was most recently SVP of Research at Syros Pharma, a publicly-traded company, and previously held roles at AstraZeneca, Celgene, and Biogen. Dr. Chuaqui is listed on 50 issued patents and applications, and more than 40 journal publications. He co-invented Tagrisso, a FDA approved non-small cell lung cancer therapy marketed by AstraZeneca, and co-invented and led the development of three additional clinical-stage assets. He holds a B.Sc in Chemistry from the University of Manitoba and a Ph.D. in Chemical Physics from the University of Waterloo.

“We’re delighted to welcome Claudio to Meliora Therapeutics. He brings more than 20 years of experience leading high-performing drug discovery teams and a proven track record of progressing small molecules into the clinic and beyond,” said David Li, CEO & Co-Founder, Meliora Therapeutics. “He will be an invaluable asset to Meliora and our leadership team as we accelerate development of our proprietary computational platform and develop a pipeline of mechanism-focused oncology drugs.”

“I am excited to join Meliora at such a dynamic time. Meliora is bringing the latest genomic, computational, and machine learning techniques to change the current paradigm of oncology drug discovery,” said Claudio Chuaqui, Ph.D, SVP, Head of Drug Discovery. “By identifying the true mechanisms-of-action of chemical compounds, Meliora’s platform will allow more accurate, effective, and rapid drug development. I look forward to working with the team to develop a pipeline of potential first-in-class and best-in-class oncology therapies.”