Rivus Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to treating cardiometabolic diseases driven by obesity, today announced the expansion of its leadership team with the appointments of David Grainger, Ph.D., as Chairman of Development and Meg Fitzgerald, J.D., as Chief Legal Officer. Additionally, the company is opening a South San Francisco office where Rivus will continue to expand and scale in California.
“We are thrilled to strengthen our management team with the addition of David, who has extensive expertise in drug discovery and development, and Meg, who has more than 20 years of legal experience in the biopharmaceutical industry,” said Jayson Dallas, M.D., Chief Executive Officer. “Together with our Bay Area team’s move into dedicated office space in the biotech hub of South San Francisco, we are well positioned to drive forward the clinical development of our promising pipeline of controlled metabolic accelerators (CMAs) to treat obesity and obesity-related metabolic disorders.”
The appointments of Dr. Grainger and Ms. Fitzgerald will accelerate Rivus’s growth as it builds on positive Phase 2a data reinforcing the potential of the new class of medicines the company has pioneered. Dr. Grainger will oversee the strategy, design and implementation of the clinical development for Rivus’ pipeline of CMA drug candidates, including the company’s lead investigational candidate, HU6. Ms. Fitzgerald will provide strategic legal guidance aligned with the company’s goals and ensure compliance with regulatory bodies, overseeing intellectual property, and managing legal risks.
“In my 30 plus years in the biopharma industry, I have dedicated my career to advancing medicines that will bring true innovation to patients,” said Dr. Grainger. “This is exactly why I have joined Rivus. I strongly believe that CMAs have the unique potential to transform the way we approach obesity and related cardiometabolic diseases and address widely acknowledged challenges with current therapeutic options. I have partnered with the Rivus team in an advisory capacity for several years and look forward to working more closely with them as we approach the imminent readout of our Phase 2b M-ACCEL study in MASH and advance HU6 into the next pivotal phase of development.”
Dr. Grainger has served as an advisor to Rivus’s Board of Directors since 2019. He is a co-founder and partner at Medicxi, one of Europe’s largest life sciences venture capital groups, where he served as Chief Scientific Advisor and Venture Advisor and was a director of more than a dozen biotech companies in the UK and U.S. He previously served as Chief Innovation Officer at Centessa Pharmaceuticals, where he oversaw research across Centessa’s pipeline of 16 programs ranging from discovery to Phase 3 clinical trials. He has founded more than 30 biotech companies, including Functional Therapeutics, (acquired by Boehringer Ingelheim), XO1 (acquired by Janssen Pharmaceuticals) and the out-sourced drug developers Total Scientific and RxCelerate. Dr. Grainger started his career as a Principal Investigator in the Department of Medicine at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom, where he led an internationally recognized research group and published more than 80 first author papers in leading journals. Dr. Grainger holds over 150 patents and patent applications and earned an M.A. and Ph.D. in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge.
“Rivus is at a pivotal point in its journey, and I am excited to join the San Francisco-based team as we continue to expand our local Bay Area footprint,” said Ms. Fitzgerald. “I am energized by the team’s upcoming milestones on the horizon, including the anticipated Phase 2b M-ACCEL readout, and look forward to helping drive the continued growth of the company as we work to fully realize the potential of our transformative pipeline of CMAs.”
Prior to joining Rivus, Ms. Fitzgerald was Chief Legal and Compliance Officer at Codexis, Inc., Chief Compliance Officer and General Counsel at Allakos, Inc. and held the role of Privacy Officer and Associate General Counsel at Aimmune Therapeutics, Inc. Previously, she served as Vice President of Corporate Law at ZS Pharma, Inc., where she played a key role in negotiations that resulted in the $2.7 billion sale of ZS Pharma to AstraZeneca. Earlier in her career, Ms. Fitzgerald held increasingly senior leadership roles at Genentech, Inc., ultimately serving as Associate General Counsel and Director of Transactional Law. She served as an associate attorney at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman and earned a B.A. and an M.A. from Stanford University and a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.
