New Haven-based Yale University spinout Revalia Bio announced Wednesday that it has named a former Eli Lilly executive as its new president and CEO.
Casimir “Caz” Starsiak III will now lead the bioscience company as it looks to expand its pharmaceutical partnerships and commercial operations.
Starsiak, who took over on Sept. 1, succeeds co-founder Greg Tietjen, who moved into the newly created role of chief innovation officer.
Starsiak most recently served as associate vice president of enterprise AI and research software product management at Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly. He led teams developing software supporting drug discovery and clinical trials, including artificial intelligence products.
Previously, Starsiak was senior vice president of product and operations at diagnostics company Genalyte and spent more than six years at Verily, Alphabet’s life sciences company. His roles there included general manager of the Baseline clinical trials platform.
At Revalia, Starsiak will focus on commercial expansion, pharmaceutical partnerships and scaling operations. Tietjen, meanwhile, will oversee integration of the company’s research, technology and product development.
Tietjen and Starsiak will work with co-founder and Chief Operating Officer Jenna DiRito as Revalia expands its research capacity and pharmaceutical relationships.
Revalia uses perfusion technology to keep donated human organs functioning outside the body, allowing researchers to study how experimental drugs behave in human organs before entering clinical trials.
The company uses organs obtained through organ procurement organizations with donor-family consent after they have been deemed unsuitable for transplantation.
Starsiak said his goal is to make data generated from functioning human organs an integral part of pharmaceutical drug development.
