Akshay Vaishnaw
President, Research & Development; Alnylam Pharmaceuticals
Dr. Vaishnaw joined Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. in 2006 as VP Clinical Research and has then subsequently served in various R&D roles with increasing responsibility. Akshay is currently the President of R&D. At Alnylam he leads the discovery and development of their pipeline of RNAi therapeutics, which includes the recently approved compound, Onpattro for hATTR amyloidosis. Prior to 2006, he was at Biogen as Senior Director, Translational Medicine. In his seven years at Biogen Akshay was involved in many aspects of clinical research and business development, and led the effort for the approval of alefacept (Amevive™) for psoriasis. Akshay received his M.D. from the University of Wales College of Medicine, U.K., and Ph.D. from the University of London, U.K., in Molecular Immunology. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, U.K. Akshay is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Scholar Rock Inc., and a member of the Board of Directors for Editas Medicine Inc. From 2014-2018, he served a Board member of Visterra Inc before its sale to Otsuka Pharmaceuticals.