Rene is our SVP and Head of Drug Discovery Sciences and is responsible for driving all chemistry, DMPK and lead discovery activities for Avilar’s pipeline. Rene is a senior drug hunter with nearly 25 years of experience and a track record of delivering drug candidates from lead generation into clinical trials with necessary attributes to be commercially viable (inventor of ivosidenib, Tibsovo). He is inventor on over 200 patent applications and nearly 30 issued US patents. Prior to Avilar, he was owner & principal of Tetrahedral Consulting, where he helped advance medicinal chemistry efforts and led research programs across small and large companies. Rene previously was SVP, Head of Drug Discovery and founding member of the executive team at Faze Medicines, VP, Head of Small Molecule Drug Discovery at KSQ Therapeutics, and Director, Medicinal Chemistry at Agios Pharmaceuticals. Rene started his career at Boehringer-Ingelheim, where he spent 13 years in drug discovery and rising to Senior Research Fellow. Rene completed his PhD at the University of British Columbia in Organic Chemistry and did a postdoctoral fellowship at Colorado State University.
