Aruvant appoints chief technology officer

Clinical-stage USA-based biotech Aruvant Sciences today announced the appointment of V "Palani" Palaniappan, as chief technology officer (CTO) effective immediately.

In this role, Dr Palaniappan will be charged with growing Aruvant's technical and manufacturing capabilities for current and future programs. With 25 years of research and drug development experience, including extensive work in chemistry, manufacturing and controls, a critical part of drug development, Dr Palaniappan will oversee the manufacturing of ARU-1801, a one-time, potentially curative investigational gene therapy for patients with sickle cell disease administered with only reduced intensity conditioning. Launched in November 2018, Aruvant Sciences is part of the Roivant family of companies.

Dr Palaniappan joins Aruvant from Sarepta Therapeutics (Nasdaq: SRPT), where he was senior vice president, head of global technical operations and head of the Andover and Burlington sites. He was responsible for all stages of development from research through commercial for a portfolio of over 30 compounds using three modalities: antisense RNAs, gene therapy and gene editing. Prior to Sarepta, Dr Palaniappan worked at Takeda for over a decade, where he led teams based in the USA and Japan focused on CMC development and manufacturing of novel modality products, including recombinant biologics and cell-based and live microbe products.