There is a protein on the surface of diseased cells in your arteries that tells your immune system to look away. It is called CD47. Cancer researchers have been fighting it for years. Pavan Cheruvu decided cardiovascular disease needed to get in on that fight - and built a company, raised $145 million, and ran a successful Phase 1 trial to prove the point.

Cheruvu grew up in Tampa, Florida, the child of South Indian immigrants who came to the US and became naturalized citizens. By the time he was an undergraduate at Duke University, he was pulling a 4.0 grade point average across a triple science major in biomedical engineering, electrical engineering, and chemistry - and simultaneously building things. At age 20, he held a patent on a portable urine analyzer and was testing an alternative pacemaker design on sheep in a Duke lab. That same year, he was named a Rhodes Scholar. The trajectory was already moving fast.

"Our view is that there's been an enormous leap in our understanding of the root cause of many forms of cardiovascular disease - and that those root causes are linked to pathways of inflammation and the immune response."

- Pavan Cheruvu, CEO, Bitterroot Bio

Oxford gave him two master's degrees - computer science and neuroscience - before he returned to the US to pursue medicine through the joint Harvard Medical School and MIT Health Sciences and Technology program. He completed his residency in internal medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital, then trained as a cardiovascular medicine fellow at UCSF. The credentials are almost comically long. But they are not decorative. Each institution deposited something specific: Duke built the engineer, Oxford sharpened the systems thinker, Harvard and MIT merged biology with technology, Johns Hopkins grounded him in patients, and UCSF focused him on hearts.

Before moving into industry full-time, he spent time as a policy intern at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy - a rare early detour that gave him a view of science from the highest leverage point in the government. He then joined McKinsey, where he advised large- and mid-cap biopharma firms on R&D strategy and M&A across North America, Asia, and Europe. That stint was not a career detour. It was reconnaissance.

What is CD47 - and why does it matter for heart disease?

CD47 is sometimes called the "don't eat me" signal. It's a protein expressed on cell surfaces that tells circulating immune cells - macrophages in particular - to leave a cell alone. In healthy tissue, this is useful. In atherosclerotic plaques, it becomes a liability.

Research from Irving Weissman's lab at Stanford (the same lab that co-founded Forty Seven, acquired by Gilead for ~$5 billion) showed that elevated CD47 levels appear in the blood vessels of people with thickened, diseased arteries - where the protein helps harmful cells form and stabilize plaques. Blocking CD47 could, in theory, re-activate the immune system to clear those plaques. That is Bitterroot Bio's bet.

BRB-002, Bitterroot's lead program, is a first-in-class immune-modulating protein therapy designed to target the CD47/SIRPα pathway. In preclinical studies, meaningful plaque reduction was achieved at CD47 occupancy levels of just 6-26%. In the Phase 1 study, BRB-002 achieved up to 100% receptor occupancy - with no serious adverse events.

Cheruvu joined Roivant Sciences early, serving as Chief of Staff to the CEO and then as Chief People Officer. He was a key part of the machine that made Roivant one of the most talked-about biopharma platforms of its era. Then in 2018, he was named President and CEO of Axovant Sciences - a gene therapy company that he rebranded as Sio Gene Therapies - becoming one of the earliest physician-CEOs in gene therapy.

Sio was hard. The company pivoted from central nervous system programs to gene therapy for rare diseases, navigated clinical setbacks, and ultimately was unable to find a buyer. It liquidated in 2022. This is the part of Cheruvu's biography that most profiles skim past. It shouldn't be. Running a company through that kind of ending - and then turning around to found something new within a year - is a specific kind of resilience. Not optimism. Not stubbornness. Something more surgical.

BRB-002 — Clinical Development Progress
Discovery Complete
Preclinical Complete
Phase 1 Positive Data
Phase 2 In Progress
Phase 3 Ahead
Approval Goal

Bitterroot Bio was founded in 2021, operating in stealth mode for two years. The company was built around co-founders Nicholas Leeper, a Stanford cardiologist, and Irving Weissman, the stem cell biologist whose CD47 research provided the scientific foundation. In June 2023, Bitterroot emerged publicly with a $145 million Series A - co-led by ARCH Venture Partners and Deerfield Management, with additional support from GV, Koch Disruptive Technologies, and Alexandria Venture Investments. It was described as the largest-ever raise for a preclinical cardiovascular-focused biotech.

"We see a real opportunity here to build a world leader in what we call cardio-immunology - taking well-validated approaches that have been tried in other areas and applying them to the cardiovascular domain for the first time."

- Pavan Cheruvu, at Bitterroot Bio's public launch, June 2023

The clinical development has moved quickly. First human dosing of BRB-002 occurred in April 2024. Enrollment completed in October 2024. In January 2025, positive Phase 1 results were announced: safe at all doses tested, no serious adverse events, and dose-dependent target engagement reaching up to 100% CD47 receptor occupancy at the highest doses. Results were presented at the American College of Cardiology Annual Scientific Session in Chicago in March 2025. Phase 2 - now in actual atherosclerosis patients - is underway.

Twenty-eight employees. One lead program. A field called cardio-immunology that barely existed five years ago. That is the current state of the Bitterroot Bio table. It is intentionally lean - a scientific thesis company, not a platform play. Cheruvu has been explicit that the goal is not to scatter resources. The goal is to prove the immune hypothesis for cardiovascular disease and then follow the data wherever it leads.

"Cardiovascular disease represents an enormous global health burden, and there is a pressing need for safe and effective therapies."

Pavan Cheruvu, Bitterroot Bio Launch Press Release

"We believe that targeting CD47 might have benefits not just in atherosclerosis, but in other inflammation-driven cardiovascular diseases as well."

Pavan Cheruvu, Fierce Biotech Interview, 2023

"If you look at the pace of innovation over the last 15 to 20 years, it's been very limited."

On the state of cardiovascular drug development

"It's a privilege to step into the role of Board Chair at a time when Imbria is making meaningful clinical progress."

On joining Imbria Pharmaceuticals Board, September 2025

In September 2025, Cheruvu was named Independent Chair of the Board of Directors at Imbria Pharmaceuticals, a separate cardiovascular company working on hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. He runs Bitterroot Bio and chairs Imbria's board simultaneously. This is not a vanity title situation. Imbria's lead compound, ninerafaxstat, is in clinical development for non-obstructive HCM. The appointment reflects Cheruvu's growing gravitational pull in the cardiovascular biotech ecosystem - and suggests his network is treating him as a builder, not just an operator.

He lives in New York City with his wife, Deepu Madduri - an oncologist and clinical investigator at Mt. Sinai Hospital - and their daughter. Two physicians, two clinical research programs, one household. The Cheruvu-Madduri home is probably not short on dinner table material.