Bryan Stuart

Stuart became chief executive officer and a director of Atavistik Bio in July 2023. The company sits in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the dense stretch of biotech that runs from Kendall Square outward, and it is chasing an idea that is easy to state and hard to execute: use the small molecules cells already make - metabolites - as a way to find hidden places on proteins where a drug could bind.

That idea has a name inside the company. The Atavistik Metabolite-Protein Screening platform, or AMPS, treats naturally occurring metabolites as bait. Where a metabolite touches a protein, there is often a functional pocket that conventional screening never sees. Atavistik pairs that screening approach with an AI-enabled discovery engine, then designs small molecules to sit in those pockets and change what the protein does. The company describes the reach as broad on purpose - kinases, enzymes, receptors, transcription factors, protein complexes, and even RNA.

Stuart's job is to turn that science into medicines and milestones. His background is unusually well suited to it. Before Atavistik he was CEO of Fulcrum Therapeutics, where he had first joined as chief operating officer. Earlier he was president and CEO of Yarra Therapeutics, a subsidiary of Array BioPharma, and CEO of Kastle Therapeutics. Both focused on rare and severe diseases.

The pattern in his resume is acquisition. He was chief business officer of Civitas Therapeutics, which Acorda Therapeutics bought. He led business and corporate development at EKR Therapeutics, acquired by Chiesi Farmaceutici, and at Ovation Pharmaceuticals, acquired by Lundbeck A/S. That is a career spent close to the moment when a company's value gets tested and paid for - which is a useful vantage for someone now trying to build durable value rather than sell it.

He earned his MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management and his undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois. He was placed at Atavistik through the executive search firm Occam Global, joining a company built on academic science from metabolism researchers Ralph DeBerardinis and Jared Rutter.

In December 2025 Atavistik announced a $120 million Series B financing, led by Nextech Invest and The Column Group with participation from existing investor Lux Capital and new backer Regeneron Ventures. In March 2026 the company added a $40 million extension, bringing total round proceeds to $160 million.

The money is pointed at two lead programs: an oral, allosteric AKT1-selective inhibitor for hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia, and a JAK2 V617F mutant-selective inhibitor for myeloproliferative neoplasms. Both are meant to reach clinical proof of concept, the point where a platform stops being a promise and starts being a drug.