Rahul D. Ballal

Rahul has served as Imara’s President and Chief Executive Officer and as a member of the board of directors since June 2018. He has more than 15 years of life sciences experience in business development, strategic partnerships, venture capital, and company financing. Rahul joined Imara from Northern Biologics and Versant Ventures, where he served as Chief Business Officer and an Entrepreneur-in-Residence, respectively. At Northern Biologics, he built a first-in-class immuno-oncology portfolio, led a broad strategic partnership with Celgene, and managed several key functional roles at the executive level. At Versant, he negotiated foundational assets for existing portfolio and new companies, sourced several new deals, and participated in investment team activities.

Rahul was previously Vice President, Business Development at Flexion Therapeutics, where he led several business development transactions, supported multiple functions during Flexion’s initial public offering, and completed a key $175 million strategic partnership with Patheon UK. Prior to Flexion, he held business development and leadership positions at Novartis Venture Fund, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and Redmind Inc. Rahul earned a B.S. in biology from Brown University, a M.S. in bioinformatics from Johns Hopkins University, and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Georgetown University. He is also a Kauffman Fellow.