BenchSci Expands Board of Directors with Appointment of Dr. Mikael Dolsten
Industry Veteran and Former Pfizer Chief Scientific Officer Brings Extensive R&D and Leadership Experience to Advance BenchSci's Mission of Improving the Speed and Quality of Preclinical R&D
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TORONTO — BenchSci, a world leader in AI solutions for preclinical research and drug discovery, today announced that Mikael Dolsten, M.D., Ph.D., has joined its board of directors.
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Dr. Dolsten, recently retired from Pfizer Inc., brings over three decades of extensive leadership and scientific expertise. During his 16-year tenure as Chief Scientific Officer and President of Pfizer Research & Development, Dr. Dolsten oversaw the regulatory approval of more than 36 medicines and vaccines. His efforts spearheaded advancements in drug discovery, with over 150 drug candidates progressing to clinical studies, and he played a vital role in the company's global response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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'This is an incredible moment for BenchSci. We are honoured that Mikael has chosen to join us and lend his immense talent to our mission,' shared Liran Belenzon, CEO of BenchSci. 'Mikael's track record of leadership in pharmaceutical R&D will be invaluable as we continue to expand the reach of our AI-powered co-pilot for scientists. By helping R&D teams integrate generative AI into their workflows, we're enabling them to discover novel drug candidates faster and drive meaningful breakthroughs. Mikael's insights will be key in ensuring our technology makes a transformative impact on drug discovery.'
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Dr. Dolsten's leadership experience spans some of the world's largest pharmaceutical organizations, including Wyeth Research, Boehringer Ingelheim, AstraZeneca, and Pharmacia. His remarkable career has been marked by contributions to approximately 50 drug and vaccine approvals, and through his VC experience, he's been involved in corporate transactions exceeding $100 billion in value.
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'BenchSci is doing something truly transformative with AI—redefining how we tackle preclinical research and speeding up drug discovery in ways I couldn't have imagined a decade ago,' said Mikael Dolsten, M.D., Ph.D. 'After spending my career immersed in pharmaceutical innovation, I'm inspired by the passion and vision of this team. Their work has the potential to solve some of the toughest challenges in R&D and, most importantly, bring life-saving treatments to patients faster. I'm thrilled to be part of this journey.'
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Beyond his executive leadership roles, Dr. Dolsten has held influential positions on several public and private boards, including Agilent Technologies, Rocket Pharmaceuticals, Orbis Medicine, and Arbor Biotechnologies. Additionally, he serves as an investment advisor to leading organizations such as Blackstone Life Sciences, Google's GV, and Bain & Company. His advisory roles extend to public health initiatives, where he has collaborated with U.S. and U.K. governments and served organizations like the Scripps Research Institute and the Foundation for the NIH.
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Since its inception, BenchSci has pioneered the application of AI through its platform, ASCEND, which acts as a scalable AI assistant for preclinical scientists. ASCEND transforms preclinical R&D by decoding biomedical research, multi-omics data, and integrating it with proprietary customer data. This creates an unbiased map of the underlying disease biology, empowering scientists to discover novel insights and accelerate R&D. ASCEND supports core functions from target identification to experimental design, validation, and translational workflows, increasing productivity. By streamlining preclinical research and prioritizing the most promising experiments, ASCEND accelerates the path to life-saving treatments.
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BenchSci remains steadfast in its mission to solve the number one reason drug discovery projects fail—getting the biology wrong.
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BenchSci is a world leader in AI solutions for drug discovery on a mission to exponentially increase the speed and quality of life-saving R&D to help bring new medicines to patients faster. We apply AI to understand how disease biology works throughout the drug discovery pipeline to solve the number one reason drug discovery projects fail—getting the biology wrong. Our platform, ASCEND, acts as a scalable AI assistant for preclinical organizations, increasing the productivity of the preclinical R&D pipeline across therapeutic areas. Backed by top-tier investors, including Generation, iNovia Capital, TCV, F-Prime, Gradient Ventures (Google's AI fund), and Golden Ventures, BenchSci has raised over $200 million. Our platform accelerates science at 16 top-20 pharmaceutical companies and over 4,500 leading research centers worldwide. We're a Deloitte Technology Fast 50™ and Fast 500™ winner and a certified Great Place to Work®. For more information about BenchSci, visit www.benchsci.com.
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