Rabia Khan

Rabia holds a PhD in immunogenetics from McGill University and an MBA from Concordia University. She is the founder and CEO of Ladder Therapeutics, a Y-Combinator backed biotech focused on unlocking the potential of RNA biology to advance drug discovery and development.

Ladder Therapeutics was founded on the principle that targeting RNAs (the transcriptome) will unlock novel biology. The Company is building the first map of the druggable transcriptome to accelerate the discovery of new treatments for disease.

Prior to founding Ladder Therapeutics Rabia was Managing Director, Discovery Sciences at Sensyne Health plc where she established the scientific strategy, built the data science and discovery teams recruiting over 50 machine learning and clinical researchers in 6 months, and was responsible for delivering a number of significant pharma partnerships including Bayer, BMS, Roche and Alexion.

Rabia has also held senior roles at BenevolentAI and Meta. At Meta (acquired by Chan Zuckerberg BioHub), she was pivotal in the partnership with the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) to acquire horizon-scanning technology that used NLP to research the biomedical corpus. At BenevolentAI, she helped shape the discovery strategy, and led the Age-Related Macular Degeneration and Glioblastoma drug discovery programs and served as the interface between the technical and biological teams alongside Prof. Jackie Hunter.

Rabia regularly presents on embracing the intersection of healthcare and technology to advance better patient outcomes and advocates the importance of STEM in industry and education. She was named as 50 Movers and Shakers in BioBusiness and 30 Rising Leaders in Biotech 2020 .