SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, California–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Maze Therapeutics, a company converting genetic discoveries into new precision drugs, today announced that Sekar Kathiresan, MD, a co-founder of Maze, has joined the company’s Board of Directors. dr Kathiresan is an experienced cardiologist, co-founder and chief executive officer of Verve Therapeutics, and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. His work focuses on using human genetics to understand the causes of disease and improve prevention. Among his scientific contributions, Dr. Kathiresan helped unveil new biological mechanisms underlying heart attacks, discovered mutations that protect against heart attack risk, and developed a genetic test for personalized heart attack prevention.
“Sek has dedicated his career to creating a better understanding of the genetic drivers of cardiovascular disease to drive better patient care, similar to how we at Maze have directed our research to better understand the genetic drivers of disease and these Insights translate into meaningful medicines,” said Jason Coloma, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Maze. “His wide-ranging experience as a practicing cardiologist, scientist and now biotech executive brings Maze an important perspective as we apply the insights from our Compass platform to discover and advance programs for patients in need. We are delighted to welcome him to the board and I look forward to working with him.”
“Maze strives to use insights from genetics to develop powerful new treatments and transform the future of medicine,” said Dr. Kathiresan. “As a co-founder of Maze, I am thrilled to have witnessed the progress the company has made with its platform and programs in just a few short years. Maze has grown from a concept in 2019 to a company that has already started a clinical program and continues to develop a robust platform and pipeline. I am proud to join the board and contribute to Maze’s continued growth.”
Before Verve was Dr. Among other things, Kathiresan is director of the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Center for Genomic Medicine, director of the Cardiovascular Disease Initiative at the Broad Institute and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. There the research laboratory of Dr. Kathiresan on understanding the hereditary basis for blood lipids and myocardial infarction. For his research contributions, he was recognized by the American Heart Association with its highest scientific award, a Distinguished Scientist Award, and by the American Society of Human Genetics with the 2018 Curt Stern Award. dr Kathiresan graduated summa cum laude with a BA in history from the University of Pennsylvania and received his MD from Harvard Medical School. He completed his clinical training in internal medicine and cardiology at MGH and his post-doctoral research training in human genetics at the Framingham Heart Study and the Broad Institute.
About Maze Therapeutics
Maze Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company applying advanced data science methodologies along with a robust set of research and development capabilities to advance a pipeline of novel precision medicines for patients with genetically defined diseases. Maze has developed the Maze Compass™ platform, a proprietary, purpose-built platform that combines human genetic data, functional genomic tools and data science technology to discover new connections between known genes and their impact on susceptibility, onset timing and speed of disease map the course of the disease. With the help of Compass, Maze is building a broad portfolio of proprietary and partner programs. Maze is based in South San Francisco. For more information, please visit mazetx.com or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.
