Rabia Khan

CEO & Founder
Serna Bio

Dr. Rabia Khan is an immunogeneticist who has built her career at the convergence of science, technology, and medicine. Rabia Khan holds a 2006 – 2013 Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Human and Medical Genetics at McGill University. With a robust skill set that includes Research, Biotechnology, Data Analysis, Business Strategy, Genetics and more, Rabia Khan contributes valuable insights to the industry. Dr. Khan holds a PhD in Human Genetics and an MBA. Prior to founding Serna bio, Dr. Khan was Managing Director of Discovery Sciences at Sensyne Health Plc (now: Arcturis) where she established the scientific strategy, built the data science and discovery teams and led the pharma partnerships with Bayer, BMS, Roche and Alexion and others. She has also held senior roles at BenevolentAI and Meta (acquired by Chan Zuckerberg BioHub).

Most recently, she was Managing Director for the Discovery Sciences Division at Sensyne Health, a publicly listed corporation and collaborator with UK’s National Health Service. There, she established Sensyne’s scientific strategy, built the data science and discovery teams, and led multiple revenue-generating partnerships. She led the 50-member discovery team’s work to launch multiple successful products, alone or with partners.

Prior to joining Sensyne Health, Dr. Khan held senior roles at BenevolentAI and Meta. At Meta (acquired by Chan Zuckerberg BioHub), she led the partnership with the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) to acquire technology that used NLP to research the biomedical corpus. At BenevolentAI, she shaped the discovery strategy in several therapeutic areas, leading the Age-Related Macular Degeneration and Glioblastoma drug discovery programmes. Alongside Prof. Jackie Hunter, Dr. Khan managed the product development process across technical and biology teams.

Dr. Khan regularly presents on subjects related to the intersection of healthcare and technology to advance better patient outcomes and advocates the importance of STEM in industry and education. She was named as 50 Movers and Shakers in BioBusiness – 19 and 30 Rising Leaders in biotech 2020. Currently, she is Founder and CEO of Ladder Therapeutics, a foundation stage biotech, a YCombinator company.