Suguna Rachakonda

Bio:

Suguna is currently the VP President of BD&L at Insilico Medicine, based in Cambridge, MA. In this role, Suguna drives strategic partnerships that translate AI-enabled drug discovery into high-value pharma collaborations. She leads partner strategy across early and clinical-stage assets, aligns cross-functional teams to build compelling data packages, and structures deals to maximize value for both parties

She began her industry career at United Therapeutics in medicinal chemistry then joined Pharmasset (acquired by Gilead), where she contributed to advancing antiviral programs in HIV and Hepatitis B and was a significant contributor to the discovery and development of Sovaldi®, a curative therapy for Hepatitis C.

She later led technology commercialization at Kent State University managing the university’s innovation portfolio and, subsequently, spent six years at the Cleveland Clinic’s NIH Center for Accelerated Innovation, where in both roles she was deeply involved in search and evaluation and end-to-end business development and licensing, advancing early-stage innovations into licensable assets and NewCo’s.

During the pandemic, she returned to biotech at Dewpoint Therapeutics, in Boston a pioneer in condensate biology leveraging advanced in-silico approaches to unlock novel disease mechanisms and therapeutic opportunities. She was part of the Corporate Development team and played a key role in driving business development and executing strategic collaborations and partnerships with pharma.

Suguna earned her PhD at the University of Hyderabad in organic chemistry and conducted her post-doctoral research at Tulane University on developing nanomaterials for drug delivery. She further expanded her business acumen by earning an MBA from STERN School of Business, NYU. She is a co-author of 30 publications and an inventor on 14 patents.