Sekar Kathiresan

Sekar Kathiresan is a physician-scientist and human geneticist, currently serving as a chief executive officer and co-founder of Verve Therapeutics. His research is focused on understanding the genetic risk factors of heart attack and blood lipids to improve cardiac care. His research has led to notable discoveries of genetic mutations which confer resistance to cardiovascular diseases, including the discovery of protective mutations in the ANGPTL3 gene.

Prior to joining Verve in July 2019, he served as director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Genomic Medicine and was the Ofer and Shelly Nemirovsky MGH Research Scholar. He also served as director of the Cardiovascular Disease Initiative at the Broad Institute and was a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

In 2023, Verve established a global collaboration with Eli Lilly for advancing programs in cardiovascular disease, and the pharmaceutical giant announced a $1.3 billion deal to buy Verve in 2025 as they sought to expand their experimental medicines pipeline by targeting the three lipoprotein drivers of atherosclerosis: low-density lipoproteins, triglyceride-rich lipoproteins, and lipoprotein(a).