Sergey Rakhilin, PhD

Sergey Rakhilin, PhD, serves Executive Director of the Sickle Cell Disease (CP-SCD) Consortium at the Critical Path Institute working to improve and streamline the regulatory approval process of novel sickle cell disease treatments. For more than 15 years, Dr. Rakhilin worked in the pharmaceutical industry specializing in drug development from target identification to clinical studies and biomarker analysis. His work at Novartis, Biogen IDEC, PharmaIN, and other companies contributed to the development of several drugs against hematological, neurodegenerative diseases and muscle atrophy.

After receiving his M.Sc. in chemistry and Ph.D. in biochemistry from Moscow State University in Russia, Sergey completed postdoctoral training at the University of Chicago and Rockefeller University in New York. He has published several papers in top journals, including Science, Neuron and PNAS and is listed as an inventor on multiple patents.

Rakhilin is passionate about accelerating the drug development process against rare diseases using small molecules and gene modifying approaches. Sickle cell disease treatments appear to be at the forefront of such developments, making it one of the top nominations for gene therapy. Removing potential hurdles in drug development, the approval process, and developing new approaches in regulatory science could rescue thousands of lives affected by this devastating disease.