SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Twist Bioscience Corporation, a company enabling customers to succeed through its offering of high-quality synthetic DNA, today announced the appointment of Ray Tabibiazar, M.D., as senior vice president of corporate development and business strategy as well as acting general manager of Twist Bioscience’s division focused on biologics drug discovery.
“Ray has been working with us as an advisor for two years, and we are thrilled to have him join us full time as we expand our focus on biologics drug discovery,” said Emily M. Leproust, Ph.D., CEO and co-founder of Twist Bioscience. “In addition to his ongoing efforts to extend our reach in our core synthetic biology and genomics markets, we look forward to Ray leading the team to forward integrate our drug discovery offerings, serving more customer needs and ultimately building important solutions for antibody discovery.”
Dr. Tabibiazar joins Twist Bioscience from Aravive Biologics, Inc., a company he founded where he served as the executive chairman of the board until the consummation of the company’s recent public financing that he led through a reverse merger with Versartis, Inc. (now known as Aravive, Inc.). He currently serves as a non-executive director of the combined public company. Under his leadership, the company advanced its lead program from DNA sequence to completion of Phase 1 studies in less than two years, was granted Fast Track designation by U.S. Food and Drug Administration and was named by FierceBiotech as one of 2017’s Fierce 15 biotechnology companies. In addition to his role at Aravive, Dr. Tabibiazar also served as managing director of 526 Ventures, a life sciences strategic consulting company working with both public and private biopharmaceutical firms. Previously, he served as a venture partner at Bay City Capital LLC. Prior to his time at Bay City Capital, he held a number of executive positions in biotechnology companies including chief scientific officer of Aviir, a molecular diagnostic company, and vice president of translational research for VIA Pharmaceuticals, a cardiometabolic therapeutic company. Before moving to the biotechnology industry, Dr. Tabibiazar was a practicing cardiologist and an adjunct clinical instructor of medicine at Stanford University. He received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School and trained as an internist and cardiologist at Stanford University, while also receiving finance education at Stanford Business School. Dr. Tabibiazar has received board certifications in Internal Medicine, Cardiovascular Medicine, Nuclear Medicine, and Cardiovascular Imaging. He has won numerous honors and research awards, has authored several peer reviewed papers, and is an inventor on several patents.
“Twist Bioscience is an exceptional company that has developed a disruptive DNA synthesis platform to industrialize the engineering of biology,” commented Dr. Tabibiazar. “Having worked with the company in an advisory role, I’m eager to continue building important value-add solutions focused on antibody discovery and development as we employ our expertise in library development and antibody optimization to create a truly differentiated offering for our current and future customers. In addition, I am very excited to forge new partnerships to enhance the discovery of hard to drug targets like G-coupled protein receptors (GPCRs).”
Twist Bioscience’s Pharmaceutical Drug Discovery Efforts
Twist is developing proprietary tools, including a wholly-owned anti-GPCR library and an antibody optimization solution, to enable an end-to-end solution in biologics drug discovery and early development, from target to investigational new drug (IND) application, adding value as a partner to biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies.
About Twist Bioscience Corporation
We are a leading and rapidly growing synthetic biology and genomics company that has developed a disruptive DNA synthesis platform to industrialize the engineering of biology. The core of our platform is a proprietary technology that pioneers a new method of manufacturing synthetic DNA by “writing” DNA on a silicon chip. We are leveraging our unique technology to manufacture a broad range of synthetic DNA-based products, including synthetic genes, tools for next generation sample (NGS) preparation, and antibody libraries for drug discovery and development. We are also pursuing longer-term opportunities in digital data storage in DNA and biologics drug discovery. We make products for use across many industries including healthcare, industrial chemicals, agriculture and academic research. For more information about our products and services, please visit www.twistbioscience.com. Twist Bioscience is on Twitter. Sign up to follow our Twitter feed @TwistBioscience at https://twitter.com/TwistBioscience.
