- Jeffrey Young named Chief Financial Officer; Ganesh Mugundu, M.Pharm, Ph.D., appointed Vice President, Head of Clinical Development; and Richard Polisson, M.D., appointed Senior Medical Advisor
- Bolstered leadership team positions Paratus to accelerate PS-1001 toward the clinic and build a pipeline of differentiated medicines
BOSTON and SINGAPORE, April 22, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Paratus Sciences (“Paratus”), a global biotechnology company decoding evolution to develop first-in-class medicines for serious diseases, today announced the appointment of Alicia Secor as President and Chief Executive Officer, as well as a member of the company’s Board of Directors. The company also appointed Jeffrey Young as Chief Financial Officer; Ganesh Mugundu, M.Pharm, Ph.D., as Vice President, Head of Clinical Development; and Richard Polisson, M.D., as Senior Medical Advisor, augmenting its leadership team with executives who bring deep experience spanning company building, strategic finance, translational medicine and the development of innovative therapeutics.
“Paratus has all the elements of a company with the potential to build something important: differentiated science, a strong platform and the opportunity to address diseases of serious unmet need,” said Alicia Secor, President and Chief Executive Officer of Paratus. “Just as importantly, the company is already demonstrating that its platform can generate programs with meaningful therapeutic potential. We’re focused on advancing PS-1001 toward first-in-human studies, and I’m excited to work with the team to build on that momentum to advance a deeper portfolio of medicines designed to make a real difference for patients.”
Paratus is decoding evolution to discover and develop first-in-class medicines for serious diseases where today’s therapies fall short. The company integrates evolutionary biology, AI-powered discovery and deep multi-omic data to uncover biologically validated pathways that can inform new medicines, initially focused on cardiometabolic and immune and inflammatory diseases. At the center of this approach is a purpose-built, AI-centric discovery engine built on proprietary bat genomic and tissue-derived multi-omic data, human disease datasets and public mammalian genomic resources, designed to identify novel targets and advance differentiated therapeutics. The platform’s first therapeutic candidate, PS-1001, is a first-in-class pan-inflammasome inhibitor, designed to treat a range of diseases driven by excessive inflammasome activation.
“This company has the opportunity to build from biology that others are simply not equipped to access,” said Amir Nashat, Sc.D., Chair of the Board of Directors of Paratus. “That creates the potential to uncover important new mechanisms and pursue therapeutic opportunities beyond the most crowded pathways. Alicia, Jeff, Ganesh and Richard bring great clinical, development and operational depth to our already outstanding leadership team, which will enable Paratus to take PS-1001 into the clinic and begin to translate Paratus’s scientific edge into a pipeline of medicines that reach patients.”
Alicia Secor, President and Chief Executive Officer
Ms. Secor brings more than 30 years of biotechnology leadership experience, with a strong track record in company building, product development, commercialization, fundraising and strategic transactions across both rare and prevalent diseases. She most recently served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Atalanta Therapeutics, a privately held biotechnology company. Prior to Atalanta, Ms. Secor served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Juniper Pharmaceuticals, a publicly traded pharmaceutical company, until its acquisition by Catalent. She previously held leadership positions at Zafgen, Synageva BioPharma Corp., and Genzyme. She is on the Board of Directors of Zevra Therapeutics, and formerly served on the boards of multiple public companies that were successfully acquired, including Orchard Therapeutics, G1 Therapeutics and GW Pharmaceuticals. Ms. Secor holds a B.S. in health administration from the University of New Hampshire, and an MBA from Northeastern University’s D’Amore-McKim School of Business.
Jeffrey Young, Chief Financial Officer
Mr. Young brings more than 25 years of finance and capital markets experience at life sciences and medical technology companies. He most recently served as Chief Financial Officer at Atalanta Therapeutics, where he played an instrumental role in the company’s $97 million Series B financing. Prior to Atalanta he was Chief Financial Officer, Senior Vice President, and Treasurer at Axial Therapeutics, where he led teams across finance, accounting and tax, HR, among other efforts; facilitated the company’s successful Series B and Series C financings; and developed corporate and commercial strategy. Mr. Young has also served as CFO at Nasdaq-listed companies Juniper Pharmaceuticals, OvaScience, TransMedics Group, and Lantheus Medical Imaging. He began his career at PwC as a certified public accountant. Mr. Young holds a B.S. in business administration from Georgetown University.
Ganesh Mugundu, M.Pharm, Ph.D., Vice President, Head of Clinical Development
Dr. Mugundu has over 20 years of experience advancing innovative therapeutics across immunology, oncology, and rare diseases, from first-in-human through late-stage development. He has a strong track record of leading high-performing, clinical and cross-functional teams and delivering integrated clinical development strategies, and he has led and contributed to over 15 clinical programs. Most recently, he served as Vice President and Head of Early Clinical Development at Astria Therapeutics, where he led scientific strategy and execution across immunologic and allergic disease programs and was a member of the senior leadership team. Previously, he held leadership roles at Takeda, AstraZeneca, and Pfizer, contributing to the advancement of multiple development programs. He holds a Master’s degree in drug design and development from M.S. University, Baroda, India, and a Ph.D. in clinical pharmacology from the University of Cincinnati.
Richard Polisson, M.D., Senior Medical Advisor
Dr. Polisson has more than three decades of experience as a physician in academic medicine and industry research and development. He has practiced as a rheumatologist at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) since 1990, where he served as a faculty member at Harvard Medical School (HMS) as an Associate Professor of Medicine and Clinical Director of the Arthritis Unit at MGH. Prior to joining Paratus, he held senior leadership roles at Sanofi-Genzyme, including Senior Vice President and Head of Translational Medicine at the Sanofi-Genzyme Research and Development Center, overseeing early development programs spanning genetic disease, immune-mediated disease, neurologic disorders, and fibrosis and tissue repair. He has authored more than 120 manuscripts, chapters, and abstracts. He holds a B.S. in biology from Yale University and an M.D. and MHSc in biometry and medical informatics from Duke University School of Medicine.
About Paratus
Paratus is decoding evolution to discover and develop first-in-class medicines for serious diseases where today’s therapies fall short. The company integrates evolutionary biology, AI-powered discovery and deep multi-omic data to uncover biologically validated pathways that can inform new medicines. Paratus is advancing PS-1001, a first-in-class pan-inflammasome inhibitor and its lead program, toward first-in-human studies, alongside a broader pipeline of differentiated therapeutic programs in cardiometabolic and immune and inflammatory diseases.
Paratus is headquartered in Boston, Mass., with research operations in Singapore. Visit paratussciences.com or follow us on LinkedIn to learn more.
Media Contact
Lisa Raffensperger
Ten Bridge Communications
lisa@tenbridgecommunications.com
