Tenaya Therapeutics Appoints Faraz Ali as Chief Executive Officer

Mr. Ali will take over leadership of the company from JJ Kang, Ph.D., a Principal at The Column Group who has served as Tenaya's founding President. Dr. Kang will continue to serve on the Board. "Faraz's previous experiences with novel therapies for rare diseases as well as for larger indications will be a great asset to Tenaya as the company evaluates and advances its research pipeline towards the clinic. The breadth of his business experiences is an excellent complement to the deep scientific expertise at Tenaya," said Dr. Kang.

"I am very excited to join forces with the Tenaya team, The Column Group, and the Gladstone Institutes at this important inflection point for the company and for the gene therapy field," said Faraz. "I have been impressed with the quality and pace of science at Tenaya, and I look forward to building out the team and capabilities that we need to bring this science forward to the clinic and to advance therapies that can have a meaningful impact on the lives of individuals living with heart failure."

Mr. Ali was most recently Chief Business Officer at REGENXBIO, where he had accountability for corporate development, commercial planning, portfolio strategy, alliance management, and corporate communications.  Prior to that, he was a Vice President at bluebird bio, where he had accountability for new product planning, program management, patient advocacy, and external affairs.  Mr. Ali also had roles of increasing global commercial leadership at Genzyme Corporation, where he helped launch multiple first-in-class enzyme replacement therapies for rare diseases.  He started his career at General Electric, including technical roles at GE Healthcare and business assignments at GE Corporate.  Mr. Ali received his M.B.A. degree from Harvard Business School and his B.S. degree from Stanford University.