Dr Novak will be responsible for Fate’s drug discovery and development activities focused on advancing its pipeline of stem cell modulators, small molecules or biologics that guide cell fate in-vivo for therapeutic benefit.
Dr Novak was most recently senior director and head of discovery technologies at Roche where he directed novel target discovery and assessment and formed and led Stem Cells for Research, a team designed to implement the use of stem cells as a drug discovery platform.
Additionally, prior to Roche, he worked at Wyeth where he held the positions of senior research scientist and associate director. At Wyeth, Dr Novak coordinated research for ion channel modulation and orphan G protein-coupled receptor identification and established a transcriptional profiling lab to apply leading gene expression technologies to exploratory research efforts.
Paul Grayson, president and CEO of Fate Therapeutics, said: “Dr Novak has a proven record of implementing technologies to establish platforms for target discovery and validation.
“As the team at Fate continues to identify novel mechanisms to selectively intervene in adult stem cell biology, Dr Novak’s expertise is expected to be invaluable in translating those breakthroughs into drug candidates for clinical testing.”