Industry Luminary Brings Pharmaceutical and Financial Leadership to Team of Influential Experts Guiding BioAI Innovator’s Continued Growth
Industry Luminary Brings Pharmaceutical and Financial Leadership to Team of Influential Experts Guiding BioAI Innovator’s Continued Growth
BOSTON and TEL-AVIV, Israel – November 28, 2022 — Quris, an artificial intelligence (AI) innovator disrupting the pharmaceutical arena, today announced the appointment of Henry A. McKinnell, Jr., Ph.D., former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Pfizer Inc. and former Chairman of Moody’s, as Chairman of the company’s newly formed Advisory Board.
Dr. McKinnell brings an exceptional track record in pharmaceutical innovation and financial and
business leadership to Quris. In his new role, he will help drive Quris’s mission to close the clinical prediction gap – developing safer drugs faster and driving a resurgence in drug advancements for rare diseases by dramatically reducing the cost and risks of drug innovation.
Dr. McKinnell noted, “The costly failure rate of drug candidates in clinical trials has driven diminishing returns, caused prices to soar for consumers and crippled drug innovation for decades. The Quris platform better simulates the human body’s reaction to drugs using AI-powered, miniaturized patients-on-a-chip rather than animal testing models. I see potential for Quris to not only help close the clinical prediction gap and dramatically reduce the cost and risks of drug innovation, but also to develop safer drugs, faster, and to drive a resurgence in drug advancements for rare diseases.”
Members of the Advisory Board will focus on providing guidance on business, strategy, regulatory matters, and licensing efforts to the Quris management team and board of directors. Global business leaders from multiple industries now join McKinnell on the Quris Advisory Board, including Moshe Yanai, a disruptive data-storage technology leader, Luba Greenwood, J.D., managing partner of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Venture Fund, Binney Street Capital and a professor at Harvard University, Matthew Bronfman, Chairman and CEO of BHB Holdings, Dr. Moshe Tzvi Neuman, a regulatory affairs expert and founder of Bio-Medical Research Design Ltd., and Rami Ungar, founder of Ungar Holdings Ltd. and Ray Shipping Ltd.
In addition to serving as Chairman and CEO of Pfizer Inc., Dr. McKinnell also previously served as the Chairman of the Board of Moody’s Corporation and Chairman of the Board of the Accordia Global Health Foundation. Before retiring, he dedicated decades to Pfizer in a variety of senior positions including President of Pfizer Asia, President of Pfizer’s medical devices group, President of Pfizer Pharmaceuticals Group, and Chief Financial Officer. Earning numerous awards throughout his career, Dr McKinnell has also in chairman and vice chairman roles for the World Economic Forum, Health Industry Manufacturers Association (now known as AdvaMed), Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, Food and Drug Law Institute, Business Roundtable, Stanford University Graduate School of Business Advisory Council, and the Connecticut Science Center. His previous directorships include ExxonMobil Corporation, John Wiley & Sons, Optimer Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Emmaus Life Sciences, Inc., and Angiotech Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Offering a disruptive Bio-AI platform to accurately determine which drug candidates will safely work in humans, Quris drastically improves clinical safety prediction, reduces drug development cost and duration, and minimizes the reliance on ineffective animal testing by integrating AI with groundbreaking patients-on-a-chip, real-time nano-sensing, and stem cell genomic diversity technologies. With 18 granted and pending patents, Quris is the first AI clinical-prediction platform that simulates clinical trials by leveraging a patented organ-on-chip system through the use of stem-cell derived tissue and AI to simulate a real human body’s reaction to drugs without relying on time-intense, inaccurate animal-testing.
Quris spun out the new, business-focused Advisory Board from the original Scientific Advisory Board (SAB), comprised of a team of prolific pharma and drug industry visionaries who will continue to focus on steering the company’s scientific breakthroughs. Members of the Quris SAB include Nobel Laureate Aaron Ciechanover, who serves as Chairman, Dr. Robert S. Langer, co-founder of Moderna, Dr. Kobi Richter, pioneer of cardiovascular intervention therapeutics, Prof. Nissim Benvenisty, a stem cell pioneer, Prof. Fernando Patolsky, a nano-biosensing visionary, and Prof. Alex Bronstein, an AI trailblazer.
“Our drug development models are broken. It is time to embrace the Bio-AI era and use technology advancement to accurately predict which drug candidates will safely work in humans without animal testing, said Quris CEO Dr. Isaac Bentwich. “Breaking out our advisory boards of esteemed industry leaders and adding Dr. McKinnell’s perspective will focus their efforts on supporting both our scientific endeavors and business growth, ensuring that Quris stays at the forefront of the drug development evolution.”
Learn more about all Advisory Board and Scientific Advisory Board members or watch this video for their perspective on how Quris will change the drug development process.
About Quris
Quris, the world’s first Bio-AI clinical-prediction platform ensures the safety and efficacy of new drugs. Revolutionizing the drug development process, the company is pioneering clinical trials on chips – testing thousands of novel drug candidates on hundreds of miniaturized “patients-on-a-chip”. Its fully automated, self-training AI platform accurately predicts clinical safety and efficacy for novel drugs faster and more cost effectively than ever before – all while minimizing animal testing. Dual-headquartered in Boston and Israel and backed by strategic biotech and big data investors, Quris is led by a proven team of AI and medical research powerhouses who are already preparing its lead discovery for clinical trials. For more information, visit www.quris.ai.