Valo Health Adds Award-Winning Neurobiologist Virginie Buggia-Prevot Ph.D. and Computational Scientist Andrea Rossi Ph.D.

BOSTON, Nov. 10, 2020 /​PRNewswire/​— Valo Health, LLC (Valo), the tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny that is work­ing to trans­form how drugs are dis­cov­ered and devel­oped, today announced the addi­tion of two major hires: award-win­ning neu­ro­bi­ol­o­gist Vir­ginie Bug­gia-Pre­vot, Ph.D., and lead­ing data sci­ence expert, Andrea Rossi, Ph.D.

We found­ed Valo with the goal of redefin­ing the drug dis­cov­ery and devel­op­ment process so that we can treat some of the world’s most chal­leng­ing ill­ness­es more quick­ly and effec­tive­ly than ever before,” said Valo CEO David Berry, Ph.D. MD. At the core of our approach is a recog­ni­tion that human-cen­tric data cou­pled with lead­ing-edge com­pu­ta­tion can enable a trans­for­ma­tion in how drugs are cre­at­ed, reduc­ing cost and time, while increas­ing success.”

We are thrilled to wel­come Vir­ginie and Andrea to the Valo team,” said Brett Black­man, Val­o’s Chief Inno­va­tion Offi­cer. Vir­ginie’s deep expe­ri­ence, entre­pre­neur­ial spir­it, and lead­er­ship in tar­get dis­cov­ery of com­plex neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­eases will be tremen­dous assets to our grow­ing drug dis­cov­ery and trans­la­tion­al efforts. Andrea’s exper­tise in inte­grat­ing com­pu­ta­tion­al strate­gies in drug dis­cov­ery gives us an unpar­al­leled advan­tage in build­ing upon our new oper­at­ing sys­tem for the drug dis­cov­ery process, help­ing to cre­ate next-gen­er­a­tion life sci­ences solutions.”

Vir­ginie Bug­gia-Pre­vot, Ph.D. joins the Boston-based Valo team from the Ther­a­peu­tics Dis­cov­ery team at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas MD Ander­son Can­cer Cen­ter and from the Neu­rode­gen­er­a­tion Con­sor­tium, where she dri­ves nov­el research aimed at improv­ing the lives of patients with neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­eases. Bug­gia-Pre­vot was named to In Vivos 2020 list of 30 Ris­ing Lead­ers in the Life Sci­ences for her work on ear­ly-stage tar­get dis­cov­ery in neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive con­di­tions, includ­ing the neu­ro­tox­ic effects of can­cer treat­ment, with the goal of devel­op­ing nov­el ther­a­peu­tics. Bug­gia-Pre­vot received her Ph.D. from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Nice-Sophia Antipo­lis, and her Mas­ter’s and Bach­e­lor’s degrees from the Joseph Fouri­er University.

I’m thrilled to join Valo so that I can be part of this great team that is tak­ing a new rev­o­lu­tion­ary approach to tack­le one of the great­est med­ical chal­lenges of our time: devel­op­ing life-chang­ing ther­a­pies for patients affect­ed by neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­eases,” said Vir­ginie Bug­gia-Pre­vot, Ph.D.

Andrea Rossi, Ph.D. will join Val­o’s data sci­ence team based in San Fran­cis­co from Atom­wise. At Atom­wise, Rossi worked as a Prin­ci­pal Sci­en­tist of Chem­in­for­mat­ics and Machine Learn­ing and was respon­si­ble for lead­ing the devel­op­ment of chem­in­for­mat­ics meth­ods for small-mol­e­cules activ­i­ty and selec­tiv­i­ty pre­dic­tion. Rossi received his Ph.D. from the Inter­na­tion­al School for Advanced Stud­ies SISSA/ISAS, in Tri­este, Italy, and his Mas­ter’s and Bach­e­lor’s degrees in The­o­ret­i­cal Physics from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Florence.

I am excit­ed to join Valo Health to com­bine my pas­sion for data sci­ence, machine learn­ing and drug dis­cov­ery. I am look­ing for­ward to uti­liz­ing state of the art tech­niques in chem­in­for­mat­ics and com­pu­ta­tion­al chem­istry to advance the process of small mol­e­cule drug dis­cov­ery and devel­op­ment with the Valo team,” said Andrea Rossi, Ph.D.

About Valo
Valo Health, LLC (Valo) is using human-cen­tric data and machine learn­ing-anchored com­pu­ta­tion to trans­form the drug dis­cov­ery and devel­op­ment process. By inte­grat­ed data across the drug devel­op­ment life­cy­cle, the dis­cov­ery and devel­op­ment of life-chang­ing treat­ments can be accel­er­at­ed, with the poten­tial to reduce cost, time, and fail­ure rate. The com­pa­ny’s Opal Com­pu­ta­tion­al Plat­form™, a ful­ly-inte­grat­ed, com­po­nen­tized, end-to-end drug devel­op­ment plat­form, offers a unique approach to ther­a­peu­tic devel­op­ment, that enables Valo to advance a robust pipeline of can­di­dates across car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease, oncol­o­gy, and neu­rode­gen­er­a­tion. Head­quar­tered in Boston, MA, Valo has offices in San Fran­cis­co, CA, Prince­ton, NJ, and Bran­ford, CT. To learn more, vis­it www​.val​o​health​.com.