Rita Balice-Gordon, Ph.D.

Rita Balice-Gordon is the Chief Executive Officer of Muna Therapeutics, a new biotech company focused on developing novel therapeutics for patients with neurodegenerative diseases, which recently raised $73M in a Series A funding round from US and European investors. Prior to joining Muna, she was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Novo Seeds/Novo Holdings. Previously, Dr. Balice-Gordon was Global Head of Rare and Neurological Diseases as Sanofi, Inc., leading drug discovery and development portfolios that included small molecules, biologics and gene therapies. Prior to joining Sanofi, she led the psychiatry and pain drug discovery portfolios in the neuroscience and pain research unit at Pfizer, Inc. Earlier in her career, Dr. Balice-Gordon was Professor of Neuroscience and Chair of the neuroscience graduate group at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, where she currently holds an appointment as Adjunct Professor in the Department of Neuroscience. Dr. Balice-Gordon has authored more than 100 scientific papers, received numerous accolades for her work, and has chaired or served on many National Institutes of Health (NIH), national and international committees.

She earned her Ph.D. in neurobiology from the University of Texas at Austin.