Founder · CEO · Neurologist
Bernard
Ravina.
He spent twenty years treating people with dystonia. Then he built the company to make the drug that did not exist.
He spent twenty years treating people with dystonia. Then he built the company to make the drug that did not exist.
In a Cambridge lab, the bet is simple to state and hard to win: a once-daily tablet that rebalances the brain's dopamine and acetylcholine, and in doing so gives people with dystonia back their freedom of motion. The molecule is called VIM0423. The company is Vima Therapeutics. The person who decided it had to be built is Bernard Ravina.
Ravina is Vima's founder and chief executive. He started the company in 2025 and walked it out of stealth with a $60 million Series A. By March 2026 he had extended that round to $100 million, dosed the first patient in a Phase 2 dystonia trial, and won FDA Fast Track designation for isolated dystonia, a condition that affects more than 160,000 people in the United States and, until now, has had no treatment aimed at its root cause.
What makes the story unusual is the order he did things in. Most biotech founders arrive at a disease through a molecule. Ravina arrived through the clinic. He treated dystonia patients as a practicing neurologist, watched the symptoms reshape their lives, and concluded that the missing piece was not sympathy but chemistry.
Few people in biotech have stood in as many rooms along the path of a drug as Ravina has. He trained at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, then completed neurology training at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also earned a master's in clinical epidemiology and biostatistics. The second degree matters: it means he can design the trial and read the statistics that decide whether it worked.
He began in government science, holding senior positions at NINDS, part of the NIH, focused on neurogenetics. He moved into academic medicine as an Associate Professor of Neurology at the University of Rochester, where he directed the Movement and Inherited Neurological Disorders Unit. Then he crossed into industry, taking clinical development roles at Biogen before becoming chief medical officer at Voyager Therapeutics and later at Praxis Precision Medicines.
The last step before founding was a stint as an entrepreneur in residence at Atlas Venture. That is the firm that went on to lead Vima's Series A. He had, in other words, sat on both sides of the table before he ever pitched his own.
Senior roles in neurogenetics at the National Institutes of Health.
Associate Professor of Neurology; directed the Movement and Inherited Neurological Disorders Unit.
Clinical development roles in neuroscience.
Chief Medical Officer at two clinical-stage biotechs.
Entrepreneur in residence, incubating Vima.
Founder and CEO. Emerged from stealth with a $60M Series A.
Movement disorders like dystonia trace back to an imbalance between two brain chemicals: dopamine and acetylcholine. VIM0423 selectively targets muscarinic cholinergic receptors to address that imbalance, with a once-daily pill instead of an injection or a surgery.
A once-daily tablet, designed for the dopamine-acetylcholine imbalance behind movement disorders.
Targets muscarinic cholinergic receptors in the brain, positioned as potential first-in-class.
Phase 1 showed the drug was safe and well-tolerated up to and above target doses over 28 days.
"It takes everyone to build a biotech and develop a drug."
- BERNARD RAVINA
Launched Vima with a $60M Series A, then extended it to $100M as new investor Frazier Life Sciences joined Atlas, Access Industries, and Canaan Partners.
Advanced VIM0423 from Phase 1 into Phase 2 studies in both dystonia and Parkinson's disease, broadening the company's scope.
Secured Fast Track designation for isolated dystonia, a condition with no root-cause treatment and more than 160,000 US patients.
Served as chief medical officer at Voyager Therapeutics and Praxis Precision Medicines before founding his own company.
Holds a Johns Hopkins M.D. and a Penn master's in clinical epidemiology and biostatistics, designing trials and reading their data.
Built a Vima leadership team spanning R&D, finance, legal, technical, and translational medicine to carry the program.
Vima dosed the first patient in its Phase 2 Stride Dystonia trial and announced the Series A extension to $100 million.
A Phase 2 Parkinson's disease trial is expected to initiate, expanding VIM0423 beyond dystonia.
Topline results from both Phase 2 trials are anticipated, the moment the thesis meets the numbers.