Maze Therapeutics Appoints Sekar Kathiresan, M.D., to its Board of Directors

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Maze Therapeutics, a company translating genetic insights into new precision medicines, today announced that Sekar Kathiresan, M.D., a Maze co-founder, has joined the company’s board of directors. Dr. Kathiresan is an experienced cardiologist, co-founder and chief executive officer of Verve Therapeutics, and a lecturer in medicine at Harvard Medical School. His work has focused on leveraging human genetics to understand the root causes of diseases and to improve preventive care. Among his scientific contributions, Dr. Kathiresan has helped highlight new biological mechanisms underlying heart attacks, discovered mutations that protect against heart attack risk, and developed a genetic test for personalized heart attack prevention.

“Sek has dedicated his career to creating a better understanding of the genetic drivers of cardiovascular disease to bring forward better care for patients, much in the way we at Maze have dedicated our research to better understanding the genetic drivers of disease and turning those insights into meaningful medicines,” said Jason Coloma, Ph.D., president and chief executive officer of Maze. “His broad experiences as a practicing cardiologist, a scientist, and now a biotech chief executive bring an important perspective to Maze as we apply learnings from our Compass platform to discover and advance programs for patients in need. We are pleased to welcome him to the board, and I look forward to partnering with him.”

“Maze is looking to leverage insights from genetics to develop impactful new treatments and transform the future of medicine,” said Dr. Kathiresan. “As a co-founder of Maze, I am thrilled to have witnessed the progress the company has made with its platform and programs in just a few short years. Maze has evolved from a concept in 2019 to a company that has already launched a clinical program and continues to develop a robust platform and pipeline. I’m proud to join the board and contribute to Maze’s continued growth.”

Prior to Verve, Dr. Kathiresan’s roles included director of the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Center for Genomic Medicine, director of the Cardiovascular Disease Initiative at the Broad Institute and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. There, Dr. Kathiresan’s research laboratory focused on understanding the inherited basis for blood lipids and myocardial infarction. For his research contributions, he has been recognized by the American Heart Association with its highest scientific honor, a Distinguished Scientist Award, and by the American Society of Human Genetics with the 2018 Curt Stern Award. Dr. Kathiresan graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in history from the University of Pennsylvania and received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School. He completed his clinical training in internal medicine and cardiology at MGH and his postdoctoral research training in human genetics at the Framingham Heart Study and the Broad Institute.

About Maze Therapeutics

Maze Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company applying advanced data science methods in tandem with a robust suite of research and development capabilities to advance a pipeline of novel precision medicines for patients with genetically defined diseases. Maze has developed the Maze Compass™ platform, a proprietary, purpose-built platform that combines human genetic data, functional genomic tools and data science technology to map novel connections between known genes and their influence on susceptibility, timing of onset and rate of disease progression. Using Compass, Maze is building a broad portfolio of wholly owned and partnered programs. Maze is based in South San Francisco. For more information, please visit mazetx.com, or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.