NEW ORLEANS — Life science company AxoSim has announced the appointment of Alif Saleh as CEO. Co-founder and previous CEO Lowry Curley has stepped into the role of chief scientific officer. Saleh also joins the AxoSim board of directors, where Curley continues to serve as a member.
“I am thrilled Alif chose to join us for our next chapter of growth and scale,” said Curley in a press release. “His expertise and strong commercial background will accelerate our leadership in the field. I am excited to increase my focus on AxoSim’s science and technology.”
Saleh is credited with raising $500 million to develop and commercialize novel technologies in the life science and biotechnology industry. In 2022, The Healthcare Technology Report recognized him as one of the “Top 50 Healthcare Technology CEOs.” He has served as CEO of Scipher Medicine Corporation and senior vice president of GC International Corporation, and he held various commercial and product management roles at Alfa Laval Corporation in Asia and Europe. He received his Master of Science degree in chemical and genetic engineering from Lund Institute of Technology in Sweden.
“Investments into drug development in neurology are skyrocketing but with the highest failure rate in the industry,” Saleh said. “The time has come to adopt new technologies to increase success rates, and AxoSim is uniquely positioned to facilitate this change. I want to thank the board and employees for entrusting me to lead them through the next area of growth.”
A spokesperson said AxoSim’s brain-on-a-chip platform leverages tissue engineering, neural interfacing and AI to “test groundbreaking interventions in neurology and generate human-relevant data.” The company partners with pharma to accelerate drug development.
AxoSim also recently appointed Drs. David Weiner and Dale Pfost as board co-chairs. Weiner has 30 years of drug discovery experience in neurology. He was previously CEO at Amathus Therapeutics and chief medical officer at Lumos Pharma, aTyr Pharma and Proteostasis Therapeutics. He serves on the science advisory board of the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research.
