NEW ORLEANS ─ Dale Pfost and David Weiner have been appointed co-chairs of AxoSim’s board of directors. Pfost and Weiner have decades of experience building biotechnology companies spanning therapeutics, diagnostics and life science tools and technologies. AxoSim develops 3D organoid neurodiscovery platforms.
“Our recent acquisition of a third platform technology positions AxoSim for growth, and we are fortunate to have these two talented industry veterans assuming key leadership roles,” said Lowry Curley, PhD, AxoSim co-founder and CEO. “Dale and Dave bring successful track records in building life sciences businesses, with broad and complementary skill sets. Dale’s work in life science tools and venture finance is highly relevant, as is Dave’s expertise in leading neurological drug discovery and clinical development. Both have founded new enterprises, spearheaded major financings, served as CEOs and managed M&A activities. As active participants in the New Orleans healthcare ecosystem, they know us well, and we are delighted to welcome them to the senior team.”
“AxoSIm embodies the entrepreneur’s sweet spot–when market need, technological innovation, timing and team all align,” said Pfost. “The growing prevalence of neurological diseases places enormous burdens on patients, their families and society. Yet despite billions in investment, neurology R&D continues to disappoint. AxoSim’s transformational approach addresses a key contributor to these failures—the lack of relevant disease models—by providing functional human data from its microphysiological system organoid technologies early in the process. AxoSim aims to become an industry leader in helping to deliver urgently needed new drugs and I welcome the opportunity to contribute to its success.”
Pfost has served as CEO of six biotechnology companies, three of which became publicly traded with valuations exceeding $2 billion. Recently, he retired as CEO of Chemomab Therapeutics, after serving as CEO of Lodo Therapeutics until its acquisition. Earlier, he was founding CEO of gene-silencing innovator Acuity Pharmaceuticals, which merged to form OPKO Health. He was founding CEO of Oxford GlycoSciences and genomics pioneer Orchid BioSciences, and as CEO led cancer company Receptor BioLogix to an acquisition. As a student he founded a company acquired by SmithKline Beckman that produced the Biomek, a leading laboratory automation system still in use today.
Pfost was a general partner at venture capital firm Advent Life Sciences and acting CEO of MicroBiome Therapeutics, which he co-founded. He earned a BS degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a PhD in physics from Brown University. He is the co-author of 10 scientific papers and an inventor on 10 patents.
“Having experienced first-hand the unmet patient need in neurology and the frustration of the many failed R&D efforts in the field, I wholeheartedly support AxoSim’s mission of harnessing advances in MPS technologies that allow researchers to obtain functional human data much earlier in the R&D process,” said Weiner. “This allows researchers to assess investigational drugs in the lab, rather than spending many years and millions of dollars to identify successes or failures in the clinic. Neurology is poised to achieve the type of progress we have recently seen in oncology, and I look forward to working with the AxoSim team to advance this important technology.”
Weiner has 30 years’ experience in the discovery and development of novel therapeutics. He is currently chief medical officer of Swan Therapeutics and a co-founder of Bend Therapeutics. Previously he served in multiple leadership roles in neurology and rare disease-focused biotechnology companies, including CEO of Amathus Therapeutics and chief medical officer at Lumos Pharma, aTyr Pharma and Proteostasis Therapeutics. Earlier in his career, Weiner held key drug development roles at EMD/Merck Serono and spent a decade in discovery research and clinical development at Acadia Pharmaceuticals. He received a BA degree cum laude with highest honors from Brandeis University and an MD degree from the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, SUNY Buffalo. He did a post-doctoral fellowship in neuropharmacology at the University of Vermont and was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research Scholar. Weiner has co-authored over 30 scientific publications and multiple patents. He serves as a director, consultant and scientific and clinical advisory board member to biotechnology companies and foundations, including the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research.
AxoSim’s NerveSim, BrainSim and microBrain platforms use human-induced pluripotent stem cells to develop 3D biomimetic models of human brains and nerves, also known as microphysiological systems or organoids. With NerveSim, AxoSim can study whole nerve conduction to support drug discovery efforts in chronic pain, neurotoxicity, and peripheral neuropathy, while BrainSim includes key brain cell types for the study of myelination-related conditions such as multiple sclerosis. The recent addition of the microBrain technology, with its ability to chart electrical activity in the brain, supports research efforts in disorders such as epilepsy, Rett Syndrome and Parkinson’s disease.
