Assembly Biosciences, Inc. announced that Anuj Gaggar, MD, PhD, has joined the company as chief medical officer. Dr. Gaggar is an infectious disease specialist and seasoned executive whose experience has focused on the development of new therapies in viral diseases including chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV) and hepatitis D virus (HDV) infections. Dr. Gaggar joins from Arrive Bio, a private early-stage biotechnology company that he co-founded and served as chief executive officer.

Prior to Arrive Bio, Dr. Gaggar served for almost 10 years as a senior member of the Gilead Sciences clinical research team where he was responsible for scientific clinical development strategy and execution. As vice president, clinical research, he led the HBV cure development program, including the design and execution of global clinical trials and was the project lead for early development programs and HBV translational studies. Dr. Gaggar also contributed to the registrational studies for Vemlidy® (tenofovir alafenamide), Sovaldi® (sofosbuvir) and Veklury® (remdesivir) and served as project team lead for a portfolio of approved HCV therapeutics.

He is widely published in basic and clinical virology with more than 95 publications. Dr. Gaggar was a clinical fellow in infectious diseases at the University of California, San Francisco, where he also served as chief resident. He received his MD and PhD from the University of Washington and his BS in chemistry from Stanford University.