In February, Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson cut four top executives as part of a bid to simplify the company’s management structure. Among them was Ameet Nathwani, M.D., its chief medical officer and chief digital officer, who—like many a colleague before him—made the leap from Big Pharma to small biotech.
Nathwani takes the helm of Dewpoint Therapeutics from founding CEO Amir Nashat, who stays on as chair of the company’s board. The move comes just weeks after Dewpoint closed a $77 million series B round.
“Amir has deftly guided Dewpoint through two significant rounds of financing, assembled an impressive team, and helped craft a company passionate about understanding the role of condensates across diseases,” Nathwani said in a statement. “I look forward to growing the company as we harness this cutting-edge science and the power of our platforms to discover and develop unique life-changing therapeutics.”
Dewpoint specializes in biomolecular condensates, membraneless organelles whose main job is to surround and contain reactants—like proteins and nucleic acids—for chemical reactions inside cells. Researchers and drug developers have long known about them, but condensates have been poorly understood and, so, untapped as drug targets.
Dewpoint built technology to solve that problem. Its high-throughput platform allows the company to test libraries of potential drugs for specific effects in condensates to find new ways of treating various diseases. The company is looking into new treatments for cancer, neurodegeneration, metabolic disease and immunology on its own and partnering with a pair of Big Pharmas on HIV, heart disease and women’s health.
“We are thrilled to have a leader with such an outstanding record of getting new drugs to patients as Dewpoint continues on its mission of translating the science of biomolecular condensates into much-needed medicines,” Nashat said of his successor in a statement Tuesday.
That record comes from decades at multiple Big Pharma companies. Before he joined Sanofi as chief medical officer in 2016, Nathwani held various roles over 12 years at Novartis, ending up as global head of medical affairs. He has led the Swiss pharma’s critical care business as well as its cardiovascular and metabolism unit. Nathwani has led the development of more than 20 drugs, including GlaxoSmithKline’s Coreg and Novartis’ Galvus, Diovan and Entresto.