Pioneering breakthrough treatments
for neurodegenerative diseases

David Lucchino, MBA

President & CEO

David Lucchino is the President and CEO of Brenig Therapeutics. David brings over two decades of extensive executive leadership experience to his current role. Throughout his career, he has been pivotal in the launch, growth, and operation of numerous successful companies within both the biotechnology and medical device sectors.

His experience spans a wide range of critical activities, including delivering meaningful returns to investors, securing regulatory approvals in the US and EU, navigating corporate mergers and acquisitions, leading a company through its IPO on the Nasdaq, championing patient advocacy, and chairing the largest global life sciences economic development organization.

Before leading Brenig Therapeutics, David co-founded Frequency Therapeutics with Professor Robert S. Langer of MIT and other co-founders. Their vision was to pioneer a new approach to regenerative medicine, with a primary focus on restoring hearing for the most common type of hearing loss. The company also pursued a second program aimed at remyelination in multiple sclerosis.

Prior to Frequency, David served as President and CEO of Entrega Bio, a biotechnology firm specializing in oral drug delivery technology. Earlier in his career, David co-founded Semprus BioSciences, again in collaboration with Dr. Langer. At Semprus, he spearheaded the FDA and European CE marketing clearance for a product designed to reduce infections and blood clotting, ultimately leading to the company’s acquisition. His professional journey also includes a role at the investment firm Polaris Partners, and he began his career as a co-founder of LaunchCyte, LLC, a biotech investment firm backed by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center that successfully created substantial shareholder value.

David is the past Chairman of the Board of Directors of MassBio, serving during a period of unprecedented growth in the region’s life science industry. During his chairmanship, he was appointed to the Governor of Massachusetts’ Economic Development Planning Council to represent the Life Science Industry. Furthermore, he was instrumental in establishing “Project Onramp,” a groundbreaking program creating opportunities within local life science companies for students from underserved communities.

David currently serves on the board of directors of the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation (MMRF). He was appointed by Governor Charlie Baker to the Massachusetts STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) Advisory Council and is a distinguished member of the College of Fellows for the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering.

David holds a B.A. from Denison University, an M.S. from the Newhouse School of Journalism at Syracuse University, and an M.B.A. from the MIT Sloan School of Management as an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow.

Nikolay Savchuk, PhD

Chief Operating Officer

Nikolay Savchuk, PhD is a serial entrepreneur and experienced international investor in the healthcare and IT industries for 30years. Dr. Savchuk is the co-founder and Managing Partner at San Diego-based Torrey Pines Investment LLC, Chairman of the Board of Viriom Inc.

The scope of main interest of Dr. Savchuk is life sciences including rational drug design, AI and expert systems design control science, drug discovery and digital health technologies. Dr. Savchuk led and continues to manage successful investments in pharmaceutical and drug development companies. He is an inventor and author of over 100 patents and research publications.

Tien Dam, MD

Chief Medical Officer

Tien Dam, MD is the CMO of Brenig Therapeutics. Tien brings over two decades of extensive clinical research experience to her current role. Throughout her career, she has been pivotal in drug development, within both the biotechnology and pharmaceutical organizations.

Before leading Brenig Therapeutics, Tien was the Vice President of Clinical Development at Neumora Therapeutics. She was responsible for strategy and execution of all clinical programs across neuropsychiatry and neurodegeneration, including Major Depressive Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, Schizophrenia, Agitation Associated with Dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and ALS.

Prior to Neumora Therapeutics, Tien was the Head of Movement Disorders at Biogen, where she led disease area strategy and business development for the Therapeutic Area. She oversaw the development of multiple programs in Parkinson’s disease, atypical Parkinsonism, Essential tremor, Huntington’s disease, and ataxia. She supported multiple targets including tau, alpha-synuclein, LRRK2, GBA, ataxin, and GABA with small molecules, monoclonal antibodies, anti-sense oligonucleotides, and gene therapy. Tien is an advisor and industry representative for non-profit organizations and patient advocacy groups. Prior to Biogen, Tien worked at Merck and supported programs in Alzheimer’s disease, insomnia, and anesthesia.

Prior to joining the pharmaceutical industry, Tien was in academia with research, teaching, and clinical responsibilities during her tenure in the Departments of Medicine at Columbia University and University of California, San Diego. She was the Principal Investigator of multiple grants from the NIH and Foundations and has 60+ peer-reviewed publications.

Tien holds a B.S. in Biomedical Sciences from University of California, Riverside, an M.D. from University of California, Los Angeles. She completed an Internal Medicine residency and Geriatrics fellowship at the University of California, San Diego.

Idean Marvasty

Chief Financial Officer

Bio will be updated soon

Alexei Pushechnikov

Head of MedChem, CMC

Dr. Alexei Pushechnikov has over 25 years of experience in medicinal chemistry and biomedical research with emphasis on early drug discovery. Throughout his career he successfully led integrated discovery programs as well as being a prolific academic researcher exploiting RNA molecules and epitranscriptomic regulators as drug targets for treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. His achievements related to various aspects of the drug discovery process are reflected in over 40 peer-reviewed publications and patents. His key area of expertise in medicinal chemistry is an application of computational methods, i.e. chemoinformatic, bioinformatic, big/large data mining, machine learning & AI, QSAR, ligand- and structure-based CADD for the de novo design of small molecules.

Ruben Karapetian

Head of Discovery Biology

Dr. Ruben Karapetian is a leading expert in non-clinical development, safety assessment, and animal pharmacology.

Before joining Brenig, he served as a research professor at the University of Coimbra in Portugal and held leadership roles in clinical pharmacology and non-clinical development at several contract research organizations (CROs).

Throughout his 25 years  career in life sciences, Ruben has contributed to the development of five marketed pharmaceuticals, supporting programs from early discovery through non-clinical development and clinical pharmacology.

Vasily Kazey

Head of Pharmacology

Dr. Vasily Kazey earned his PhD in neuroscience from Moscow State University in 2002. Following this, he gained international experience as a visiting scientist at Justus Liebig University in Germany. In 2004, he transitioned to drug discovery, joining ChemDiv in San Diego, USA, before establishing and managing the Lead Discovery Department at Chemical Diversity Research Institute in Moscow. Dr. Kazey’s leadership led to successful collaborations with pharmaceutical giants like Eli Lilly and MerckSerono. He later co-founded Exacte Labs, a bioanalytical laboratory, which now operates independently.