Tarek Zeidan, Ph.D. is an experienced pharma and biotechnology leader with more than 15 years developing small and large molecules from discovery to commercialization. He brings extensive expertise in developing medicines for multiple routes of administration including oral dosage form as well as sterile, injectable products. A people-oriented leader with passion for mentorship and coaching, he strives to build a culture of trust, transparency and inclusion.

Tarek started his career at Alkermes Inc. working on developing long-acting injectables. He is the co-inventor of the LinkeRx® technology platform, which uses prodrugs to deliver medicine over several weeks. One of his key contributions is overseeing the technical and CMC activities for several programs, most notably Aristada® and Aristada Initio®. In addition, he was the Technical Team Lead for ALKS 4230 (nemvaleukin alpha), an engineered fusion protein being developed for the treatment of mucosal melanoma and platinum resistant ovarian cancer. During his tenure at Alkermes, he was involved in different functions within the R&D organization, such as pre-formulation, formulation development, and analytical development. While taking on increasing responsibilities, he developed significant experience in R&D leadership from discovery to commercial.

Prior to joining LifeMine, Tarek was the Head of Analytical R&D group at Lyndra Therapeutics working on the LYNXTM technology, a platform to deliver long-acting oral therapies. He led the analytical activities for LYN-005, an investigational program designed to deliver the antipsychotic drug risperidone as a single capsule, administered weekly via oral delivery.

Tarek received a B.S. in chemistry from the American University of Beirut and earned his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Florida State University, where he studied the kinetics of enediyne cyclization and investigated the mechanism for the photochemical cycloaddition reactions between dienes and acetylenes. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Northwestern University studying the dynamics of photoinduced charge separation in short DNA hairpins. Tarek has more than 50 cumulative peer-reviewed publications, patents, and presentations.