Valo Health Appoints Karin Conde-Knape, Ph.D., as Chief Scientific Officer

Lex­ing­ton, MA, Tues­day, Feb­ru­ary 3 – Valo Health, Inc. (“Valo”), a com­pa­ny pio­neer­ing the use of human data and AI to accel­er­ate drug dis­cov­ery and devel­op­ment, today announced the appoint­ment of Karin Conde-Knape, Ph.D., as Chief Sci­en­tif­ic Offi­cer (CSO). Dr. Conde-Knape brings more than two decades of exper­tise in drug devel­op­ment and trans­la­tion­al sci­ence and a pas­sion for patient-cen­tric innovation. 

Dr. Conde-Knape will join Valo fol­low­ing an exten­sive career at Novo Nordisk, where she had mul­ti­ple roles includ­ing Senior Vice Pres­i­dent of Ear­ly Devel­op­ment and Glob­al Drug Dis­cov­ery. She led research and ear­ly devel­op­ment across mul­ti­ple ther­a­peu­tic areas through inter­nal and exter­nal inno­va­tion approach­es. At Valo, she will over­see sci­en­tif­ic strat­e­gy and exe­cu­tion, advanc­ing a diverse port­fo­lio of inter­nal pro­grams and glob­al col­lab­o­ra­tions aimed at deliv­er­ing trans­for­ma­tive ther­a­pies for patients.

“Dr. Conde-Knape’s sci­en­tif­ic lead­er­ship, pas­sion for patient-cen­tric inno­va­tion, and proven track record in drug dis­cov­ery will be invalu­able as we con­tin­ue to scale our plat­form and deliv­er on our mis­sion to trans­form drug dis­cov­ery through AI-enabled human causal biol­o­gy and pre­dic­tive chem­istry,” said Bri­an Alexan­der, MD, MPH, CEO of Valo. ​“We are thrilled to wel­come her to the team dur­ing such an excit­ing time for the com­pa­ny and our industry.”

Dr. Conde-Knape’s appoint­ment fol­lows the planned retire­ment of Mike Graziano, Ph.D., Valo’s cur­rent CSO, who will tran­si­tion to the role of Sci­en­tif­ic Advi­sor. Dr. Graziano has been instru­men­tal in advanc­ing Valo’s sci­ence, plat­form and part­ner­ships, lead­ing the devel­op­ment and advance­ment of sev­er­al inter­nal and part­nered programs. 

“I have long admired Valo’s vision, ways of work­ing, and bold approach to reimag­in­ing drug dis­cov­ery,” said Dr. Conde-Knape. ​“By start­ing with human data and apply­ing advanced ana­lyt­i­cal tools and tech­niques, we can bet­ter under­stand dis­ease causal­i­ty and design new drugs based on those learn­ings. I look for­ward to build­ing on Valo’s momen­tum and part­ner­ing with the team to deliv­er more ther­a­peu­tic break­throughs for patients.”

Dr. Conde-Knape holds a Ph.D. in Nutri­tion­al Bio­chem­istry from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut and has authored numer­ous pub­li­ca­tions in dif­fer­ent areas of car­diometa­bol­ic dis­ease biol­o­gy and trans­la­tion­al research. Pri­or to her role at Novo Nordisk, she spent sev­er­al years at Hoff­mann-La Roche in the Car­dio­vas­cu­lar and Metab­o­lism Dis­cov­ery and ear­ly devel­op­ment areas, respon­si­ble for phar­ma­col­o­gy teams as well as dis­cov­ery and bio­mark­er teams. She also led exter­nal inno­va­tion in Europe and Asia Pacif­ic in Car­dio­vas­cu­lar and Metab­o­lism at John­son & John­son. Dr. Conde-Knape has been named one of the ​“Fiercest Women in Life Sci­ences” by Fierce Phar­ma, and one of the top 20 women break­ing new ground in bio­phar­ma R&D by End­points News.

About Valo Health:
Valo is redefin­ing drug dis­cov­ery and devel­op­ment through its AI-enabled human causal biol­o­gy and closed loop chem­istry plat­forms. Valo uses AI to under­stand dis­ease causal­i­ty, iden­ti­fy patient sub­types across het­ero­ge­neous dis­eases, and pin­point nov­el drug tar­gets. The com­pa­ny val­i­dates tar­gets using pro­pri­etary 3D engi­neered human tis­sue mod­els that mim­ic mature human phys­i­ol­o­gy and struc­ture. The Company’s closed loop chem­istry plat­form enables rapid devel­op­ment of poten­tial mol­e­cules from tril­lions of start­ing points. Valo’s approach aims to iden­ti­fy more impact­ful drug tar­gets and small mol­e­cule ther­a­peu­tics, faster, and with greater pre­ci­sion than tra­di­tion­al R&D meth­ods. Valo was found­ed by Flag­ship Pio­neer­ing in 2019. Fol­low us on LinkedIn and X.

Media Con­tact:

Erin Smith
esmith@val­o­health.com