# Shafique Virani

> Shafique Virani is a neurosurgeon-turned-biotech dealmaker who serves as Chief Business Officer of Noetik, an AI-native cancer therapeutics company in South San Francisco. He has spent two decades turning early-stage science into landmark partnerships, including one of the largest drug discovery deals ever struck at Recursion, and earlier built a neuroscience and rare-disease portfolio at Roche/Genentech that produced approved medicines like Risdiplam and Enspryng. At Noetik he is selling a new idea to pharma: not AI services, but licensable AI infrastructure for biology.

- **Role:** Chief Business Officer at Noetik
- **Organizations:** Noetik, Recursion, BridgeBio Pharma, Navire Pharma, CoA Therapeutics, Roche/Genentech, QurAlis
- **Nationality:** British
- **Education:** M.D. (Medicine), University of Nottingham, FRCS (Fellowship), Royal College of Surgeons of England, Neuroscience / Neurosurgery training, University of Cambridge
- **Known for:** Instrumental in forging Recursion's partnerships with Bayer and Roche/Genentech - the latter among the largest drug-discovery partnerships ever struck, Built a Roche/Genentech portfolio that included Risdiplam for spinal muscular atrophy and Enspryng for neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder, Served as CEO of two BridgeBio subsidiaries, Navire Pharma and CoA Therapeutics

## Career timeline

- **2003** — Completes neurosurgical training in Cambridge, UK and Boston
- **2007** — Joins Roche/Genentech, eventually serving as VP and Global Head of Neuroscience, Ophthalmology and Rare Disease partnering (13-year tenure)
- **2019** — Becomes CEO of Navire Pharma and CoA Therapeutics, subsidiaries of BridgeBio Pharma
- **2020** — Appointed Chief Corporate Development Officer at Recursion; later also interim Chief Medical Officer
- **2024** — Appointed to QurAlis Board of Directors
- **2024** — Joins Noetik as Chief Business Officer (March)
- **2024** — Noetik closes oversubscribed $40M Series A (August)
- **2026** — Noetik licenses OCTO-VirtualCell foundation models to GSK in anchor partnership (January)

## Achievements

- Instrumental in forging Recursion's partnerships with Bayer and Roche/Genentech - the latter among the largest drug-discovery partnerships ever struck
- Built a Roche/Genentech portfolio that included Risdiplam for spinal muscular atrophy and Enspryng for neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder
- Served as CEO of two BridgeBio subsidiaries, Navire Pharma and CoA Therapeutics
- Helped position Noetik to license its OCTO-VirtualCell AI foundation models to GSK

## Latest updates

- **2026-01** — Noetik licensed its OCTO-VirtualCell AI foundation models to GSK in an anchor partnership to transform cancer therapeutic R&D.
- **2024-12** — Noetik unveiled OCTO-VirtualCell and Celleporter, foundation models of spatial biology trained on ~40 million cells from 1,000+ tumor samples.
- **2024-08** — Noetik closed an oversubscribed $40 million Series A financing.

## Links

- Website: https://noetik.ai
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shafique-virani-md-frcs-9999338/

---

Profile page: https://yespress.io/shafique-virani
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-06