Acelyrin, Inc. announced the appointment of Shephard (Shep) Mpofu, MD, MRCP, FRCP as Senior Vice President of Development. Dr. Mpofu will be responsible for leading clinical development as well as translational sciences and will also join the company?s Senior Leadership Team. Dr. Mpofu joins ACELYRIN after nearly 20 years at Novartis AG, where he most recently served as Chief Medical Officer for its Gene Therapy Franchise.

Prior to this role, he held positions of increasing responsibility in the immunology, rheumatology, and dermatology franchise, which culminated with global leadership of clinical development for canakinumab and secukinumab. Dr Mpofu is a United Kingdom General Medical Council Board-certified rheumatologist, who previously practiced at several institutions in the United Kingdom (UK) prior to joining industry. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians UK, and he obtained his MBChB (Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery degrees) from the Godfrey Huggins School of Medicine at the University of Zimbabwe.