Aqtual Appoints Ferhan Qureshi as Chief Technology Officer and Bill Arteca as Head of Biospecimen Strategy

Leadership additions accelerate commercialization of Aqtual’s functional liquid biopsy platform across clinical diagnostics and biopharmaceutical partnerships

HAYWARD, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aqtual, Inc., a precision medicine company developing active chromatin cell-free DNA (cfDNA) diagnostics, today announced the appointments of Ferhan Qureshi as Chief Technology Officer and Bill Arteca as Head of Biospecimen Strategy. The additions strengthen Aqtual's leadership team as the company advances its first therapy-selection test toward clinical validation and commercialization while expanding strategic biopharmaceutical partnerships across autoimmune disease and oncology.

Mr. Qureshi joins Aqtual with more than 25 years of experience translating molecular technologies into clinically deployed diagnostic products. His experience spans assay development, clinical laboratory operations, regulatory execution, and product commercialization across Genentech, Crescendo Bioscience, and Octave Bioscience. At Aqtual, he will lead the transition of the company's active chromatin cfDNA platform into scalable, clinically deployable products for both diagnostics and biopharmaceutical applications.

Mr. Arteca joins Aqtual after founding BioSample Connect, a biospecimen platform acquired by Joined Bio, where he later led growth and operations. Throughout his career, he has built strategic biospecimen programs that accelerate biomarker discovery, clinical validation, and therapeutic development. At Aqtual, he will lead the company's biospecimen strategy, enabling expansion of its functional liquid biopsy platform across diagnostics and strategic biopharmaceutical partnerships.

“We've proven the science,” said Diana Abdueva, PhD, founder and CEO of Aqtual. “The next chapter is about disciplined execution: building products that physicians trust and creating the infrastructure that allows our platform to scale across diagnostics and biopharmaceutical partnerships. Ferhan and Bill have spent their careers leading exactly this transition, and I'm excited to have them help shape Aqtual's next chapter.”

Aqtual’s first clinical diagnostic, a therapy-selection test for Rheumatoid Arthritis, designed to predict which advanced therapy an RA patient will respond to before treatment begins, is advancing through late-stage development as the company prepares for the next phase of validation and commercialization. The same functional liquid biopsy platform is being expanded across additional autoimmune diseases, oncology, and pharmaceutical applications.

“Aqtual’s foundational work proving that we can deliver a functional liquid biopsy by measuring active chromatin cell-free DNA is a massive leap forward for precision medicine,” said Ferhan Qureshi, Chief Technology Officer of Aqtual. “The work I’ve dedicated my career to is ensuring complex molecular technologies retain their scientific integrity as they’re developed, validated, and deployed for clinical use. I’m excited to join the talented team at Aqtual and help unleash the full potential of the platform to both advance drug development efforts with our biopharma partners and deliver clinical products that meaningfully improve patient care.”

For more information about Aqtual, please visit www.aqtual.com or follow on LinkedIn for future updates.

About Aqtual, Inc.

Aqtual, Inc. is a precision medicine company developing products for chronic disease management and oncology utilizing a novel cell-free DNA-based platform. Aqtual’s proprietary platform evaluates protein regulation, epigenetics, and transcriptomics solely using cell-free DNA fragments found in the blood. The platform yields efficient and robust real-time analysis of disease and treatment while overcoming the limitations of previous cell-free DNA methodologies.