Pioneering therapies to restore brain and metabolic health
Leal Therapeutics is developing first-in-class, novel, neuro-metabolic therapeutics for high unmet need CNS disorders.
Asa Abeliovich, MD, PhD
CEO & Founder, Director
Asa Abeliovich brings more than 25 years of academic and industry experience in CNS disorders. Asa was the Chief Executive Officer and Founder at Prevail Therapeutics, which was acquired by Eli Lilly in 2021. Prior to that, Asa was Co-Founder of and consulting Chief Innovation Officer at Alector. Asa was a tenured Associate Professor of Pathology, Cell Biology, and Neurology at Columbia University, as well as a member of the Taub Institute for Alzheimer’s Disease and the Aging Brain. He served as an Attending Physician in Neurology at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital and the New York Psychiatric Institute. Asa holds M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), respectively, and Bachelor’s degrees in life sciences and humanities from MIT.
Asa Abeliovich, MD, PhD
/in BOD, Leadership/by eallisonCEO & Founder, Director
Asa Abeliovich brings more than 25 years of academic and industry experience in CNS disorders. Asa was the Chief Executive Officer and Founder at Prevail Therapeutics, which was acquired by Eli Lilly in 2021. Prior to that, Asa was Co-Founder of and consulting Chief Innovation Officer at Alector. Asa was a tenured Associate Professor of Pathology, Cell Biology, and Neurology at Columbia University, as well as a member of the Taub Institute for Alzheimer’s Disease and the Aging Brain. He served as an Attending Physician in Neurology at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital and the New York Psychiatric Institute. Asa holds M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), respectively, and Bachelor’s degrees in life sciences and humanities from MIT.
Ottavio Vitolo, MD
/in Leadership/by eallisonChief Medical Officer
Ottavio Vitolo is a neuropsychiatrist and neuroscientist with over two decades of experience in translational research and clinical development across academia and industry. His work spans small molecules, biologics, and gene therapies for rare and common neurological and psychiatric disorders. Most recently, he served as consulting Chief Medical Officer at Muna Therapeutics and Damona Pharmaceuticals and co-founded and led Vitam Therapeutics developing a novel ketamine derivative for mood disorders. He has held executive and senior leadership positions at Cerevance, Alcyone Therapeutics, Shire, Pfizer, Homology Medicines, and Relmada Therapeutics, where he advanced dextromethadone for the treatment of depression from Phase 1 to Phase 3. In addition to his industry leadership, he maintains a clinical practice focused on neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative conditions and holds a teaching appointment at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
Eduardo Paredes, PhD, MBA
/in Leadership/by eallisonChief Technology Officer
Eduardo Paredes is our Chief Technology Officer. He has extensive experience in all aspects of CMC operations and project management, process/analytical development, control strategy and validation, and CMC regulatory filings. Previously, Eduardo led Process Innovation, Process Transfer and Process Development at Nitto Denko Avecia. Eduardo has been in the oligonucleotide field for over a decade in many facets including basic research, CMO operations and now drug development. He holds a Ph.D., M.S, and B.S in Chemistry from the Center for Nucleic Acid Science and Technology at Carnegie Mellon University. Eduardo is originally from Mexico but has lived in the US for over 20 years.
Herve Rhinn, PhD
/in Leadership/by eallisonExecutive VP, Discovery and Bioinformatics
Herve Rhinn is our Executive Vice President of Discovery & Bioinformatics. Herve was previously in charge of Bioinformatics and Discovery at Prevail Therapeutics and, prior to that, led the Target Discovery, Functional Genomics and Immuno-Neurology groups at Alector. He spent 10 years at Columbia University, in Asa Abeliovich’s lab, holding an Assistant Professor position in the Pathology Department. There he worked on generating and integrating large-scale omics datasets to elucidate the effect of the disease-associated genetic variants in neurodegenerative disorders and developed innovative analysis methods that identified genetic determinants of human brain aging. Prior to this, he worked in Daniel Scherman’s lab on non-viral gene therapy for CNS lysosomal storage disorders and on traumatic brain injury and cerebral ischemia models. An engineer by training (Master of Engineering, Ecole Polytechnique, France) he holds a Ph.D. in Biology (Pierre and Marie Curie / Sorbonne University, Paris, France).
Laura D. Heckman, PhD
/in Leadership/by eallisonExecutive VP, Translational Sciences
Laura D. Heckman is our Executive Vice President of Translational Sciences. She has extensive experience in a range of neurological disorders, including neurodevelopmental, neurodegenerative, and neuropsychiatric, and in CNS therapeutics drug development. Prior to joining Leal, she led preclinical development for CNS therapeutics programs at Prevail Therapeutics and Spark Therapeutics, advancing multiple therapies into the clinic for neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental disorders. She holds a B.A. in Biology from the University of Pennsylvania, a Ph.D. in Molecular and Human Genetics from Baylor College of Medicine, and completed her postdoctoral training at The Rockefeller University.
Giulio Tomassy, PhD
/in Leadership/by eallisonSenior VP, Translational Sciences
Giulio Tomassy is our Senior Vice President of Translational Sciences. He received his Ph.D. in Cellular and Developmental Biology from the University of Rome, where he studied the expression and function of the cholinergic system in the dorsal root ganglia neurons. During his postdoctoral work he studied at Telethon institute of Genetics and Medicine in Naples and at Harvard University; during those years, he contributed to deciphering several aspects of the development of the cerebral cortex, including a seminal work that discovered a cell subtype-specific interaction between oligodendrocytes and projection neurons in shaping cortical myelination. Since then, he’s worked in CNS drug development at Biogen and Sanofi where, among other things, he led the IND-enabling preclinical work for Tofersen (SOD1 ASO), BIIB078 (C9orf72 ASO) as well as a novel AAV-based gene therapy for Myotonic Dystrophy.
Lawrence Severt, MD, PhD
/in Leadership/by eallisonVP, Clinical Development
Lawrence Severt is our Vice President of Clinical Development. He has extensive experience in clinical neurodegenerative diseases. Lawrence began his medical career in a large academic movement disorders practice in the Mount Sinai system in New York, where he treated patients with complex neurological diseases and served as principal investigator for numerous clinical trials. When he moved to industry, he joined the clinical development teams at Allergan/AbbVie to bring two oral CGRP-receptor antagonists from early phase to market (Ubrelvy and Qulipta). Lawrence holds an M.D./Ph.D. degree from the Medical College of Virginia, a Graduate Diploma in Neuroscience from the Australian National University, and a Bachelor’s degree in East Asian Studies from Princeton University. Outside of Leal, Lawrence enjoys getting his hands dirty in his vegetable garden and getting his feet dirty on adventures with his dog, Jack.
Jeff Bernier
/in Leadership/by eallisonVP, Clinical Operations
Jeff Bernier is our VP of Clinical Operations and joined Leal in 2024. He has 30 years of drug development experience, including phase I-IV clinical project management and oversight across multiple therapeutic areas, primarily in rare disease and CNS. He was most recently Head of Clinical Operations at NLS Pharmaceutics, and previously was at Shire (now Takeda) for ~17 years.
Hong Jiang, MS
/in Leadership/by eallisonVP, DMPK and Bioanalytical Development
Hong Jiang is our Vice President of DMPK and Bioanalytical Development. She joined Leal with more than two decades of industry experience spanning from drug discovery to commercialization in the field of analytical science and development. Her past roles include serving as Head of Oligonucleotide Analytical Development at Biogen and as a Scientist in Cardiovascular & Metabolic Disease and the DMPK platform at Novartis. She obtained her Master of Science degree from University of Texas at Austin.
Nishka Mittal, MS
/in Leadership/by eallisonVP, Business Development and Operations
Nishka Mittal is our VP of Business Development and Operations and joined Leal in 2022. She began her career at Deutsche Bank in the Healthcare Investment Banking group, where she advised biopharmaceutical clients on strategic and financial transactions, before joining OrbiMed Advisors, a leading healthcare investment firm. She holds a Master’s degree in Biomedical Sciences from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Bachelor’s degrees in Biology and Economics from Duke University.
Brian M. Kile, PhD
/in Leadership/by eallisonVP, CMC
Brian Kile is our VP of CMC and has served as the analytical subject matter expert for drug substance and drug product manufacturing across Leal’s pipeline since 2022. Brian received his Ph. D in Analytical Chemistry from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he studied the release of neurotransmitters in disease state models using a variety of analytical techniques. He went on to accumulate experience in different aspects of analytical method development and strategy as a Forensic Examiner with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Brian began a second career in pharmaceutical manufacturing at Nitto Denko Avecia where he led a team responsible for analytical method development and validation for a multitude of oligonucleotide therapeutic modalities from preclinical to commercial phases
Paul T. Yarabe, MBA
/in Leadership/by eallisonVP, Program and Portfolio Management
Paul T. Yarabe is our VP of Program and Portfolio Management. He has experience in program management, budget planning, CMC supply chain, regulatory/clinical operations, clinical development, and grant writing. Prior to joining Leal, he served as the global program manager for Rocket Pharmaceutical’s Danon Disease AAV gene therapy asset, helping to advance the program from preclinical to a registrational Phase 2. He holds a B.A. in Molecular and Cellular Biology from Harvard College, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.