Veena Viswanath

Veena Viswanath joined Escient as Vice President of Translational Biology and Drug Discovery in September of 2020. Dr. Viswanath has over a decade of experience in the industry focused on translational medicine and understanding the drug development process from target identification through early-stage clinical development. Prior to her new role with Escient, Dr. Viswanath spent the past decade with Allergan, Inc., most recently serving as the Executive Director of Research Biology. Dr. Viswanath has an impressive track record of leading novel platforms from discovery through proof-of-concept and highly collaborative global project teams with cross-functional impact to advance the development pipeline across multiple ocular and neuroscience therapeutic areas. Additionally, she has experience in leading strategic in-licensed partnerships in neuroscience and ophthalmology early development. Dr. Viswanath served as the research group leader for the key therapeutic area of ocular surface diseases to build strategy and portfolio for dry eye disease and bridge clinical gaps through innovative biomarker discovery. She is the inventor of more than a dozen issued patents and author of many peer-reviewed research articles, and she is passionate about identifying and developing talent.

Dr. Viswanath earned her Ph.D. from the University of Southern California, where her research focused on characterization of the role of apoptosis and oxidative stress in neurodegenerative diseases. She continued her research as a postdoctoral and institute fellow at Genomics Institute of Novartis Research Foundation.