Calico Life Sciences: Aarif Khakoo
Calico Life Sciences, a Google backed company focused on developing treatments for age-related diseases, has appointed Aarif Khakoo, as head of drug development. After Google was restructured into Alphabet Inc. in 2015, Calico became a subsidiary of Alphabet along with Google and other companies.
In this role, he will lead early-stage development for the company focusing on therapeutic candidate selection and pre-IND studies through Phase II clinical development.
Before joining Calico, Khakoo was most recently VP and head of translational medicine, global development at Amgen, in which his work focused on early clinical development. Prior to his work at Amgen, Khakoo worked at MD Anderson Cancer Center, exploring the implications of clinically significant cardiac toxicities in patients treated with cancer therapies.
Arthur Levinson, CEO, and founder of Calico, commented on the appointment, “Aarif has spent much of his career in one of the most critical areas of drug development – as a bridge between basic research and early clinical development where critical decisions are made about the viability of potential therapeutics. This experience will serve Aarif and Calico well as we continue to discover new potential molecules for aging and age-related diseases. I am looking forward to his many contributions to our efforts as he leads our drug development programs.”
According to Khakoo, “The company has built an impressive portfolio of early- and late-stage research candidates from their aging discovery and age-related disease efforts, and I’m looking forward to working with the team and our external collaborators to move the lead therapeutic candidates into clinical studies in the future.”
Khakoo received his medical degree and a master’s degree in business administration at Columbia University. In addition to his role at Calico, he maintains an academic appointment as an adjunct clinical associate professor at Stanford University.
