The company strengthens its senior leadership team after Foresite Capital’s recently announced $173 million fund to invest in life sciences companies founded within Foresite Labs
Foresite Labs today announced it has strengthened its leadership team with the appointment of Alex Blocker as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Rick Dewey as Chief Scientific Officer (CSO). The two executives will join co-founder and CEO Vikram Bajaj to drive the strategic direction of Foresite Labs, which was created in 2019 to found, build and scale life sciences companies at the intersection of healthcare and data science.
Alex Blocker brings more than 15 years of experience in genomics discovery, computational biology, statistical theory, and distributed computational methods for big data. Formerly Foresite Labs’ Head of Data Science, Alex’s new role as CTO and Chief Data Scientist will focus on expanding the company’s engineering and machine learning efforts. Alex was previously a staff data scientist at GRAIL and served as Technical Lead for computational biology at Verily, where he led analysis of multi-omic studies, guided the design of the Baseline study, and built core elements of data infrastructure.
Dr. Rick Dewey is a board-certified physician-scientist with training in internal medicine and cardiovascular medicine. He previously served as head of genomics discovery at Foresite Labs, directing efforts to use large-scale human genomics, statistical genetics, computational biology, and principles of precision medicine to create and evaluate therapeutic hypotheses and product discovery platforms. Before joining Foresite Labs, Rick served as head of translational genetics at Regeneron Genetics Center (RGC). In his role, he led teams that used large-scale human genomics to systematically understand human biology and disease pathogenesis, critically evaluate therapeutic targets in all stages of discovery and development, and discover novel therapeutic targets.
“Both Alex and Rick have made invaluable contributions to Foresite in their respective roles to date,” said Dr. Vikram Bajaj, CEO of Foresite Labs. “We have supreme confidence that they will continue to provide exceptional work and guidance to the teams, and look forward to all they will achieve within their new roles as CTO and CSO.”
Rick Dewey will focus on supporting target and clinical indication selection for the existing companies launched by Foresite Labs, and plans to create several new companies pursuing breakthrough biology to transform patient outcomes for common and rare diseases. Under Dr. Dewey’s leadership, Foresite Labs’ companies will continue using computational genomics, machine learning, and other data science tools in concert with new datasets to drive foundational insights in human biology and precision medicine.
“The company’s vision to harness the power of data science and precision medicine to influence every sector of healthcare is what initially brought me to Foresite Labs,” said Rick Dewey, chief scientific officer at Foresite Labs. “As the CSO of Foresite Labs, I am excited to expand on our work building the next generation of companies that will improve human health.”
Alex Blocker previously led the development and scale up of Foresite’s engineering and machine learning platforms, which support applications ranging from population genetics to deep learning from cellular images and clinical assay development. In his new role as CTO, Alex plans to expand Foresite’s robust platform to support the generation and analysis of new, richer datasets and the development of more advanced machine learning methods, ultimately building the premier platform for translational computational biology.
“When I first joined Foresite Labs in 2017 as a data scientist in residence, I was motivated by the opportunity to build a new kind of platform that could have a larger impact for all patients,” said Alex Blocker, chief technology officer of Foresite Labs. “I’m excited to expand on the foundations we’ve built to date and scale our reach through even more advanced technology and more diverse data.”
Foresite Labs’ new additions to its senior leadership team come on the heels of Foresite Capital’s recently announced $173 million oversubscribed fund to invest in Foresite Labs funded companies, which followed the firm’s $969 million fund V.
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