Dr. Sukumar Nagendran, M.D.

Dr. Sukumar Nagendran, M.D.

Physician and Gene Therapy Entrepreneur

Dr. Sukumar Nagendran, M.D. is a Director of Solid Biosciences Inc, Neurogene and HSAC boards. He is also an advisor for many gene therapy and digital healthcare companies. Dr. Nagendran was the Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President of AveXis, Inc. from September 2015 until June 2018. AveXis was acquired by Novartis for $8.7 billion dollars in April, 2018. Dr. Nagendran was responsible for overseeing and driving all clinical development and medical affairs strategies and efforts for AveXis and its pipeline. He served as Vice President/Head of Global Medical Affairs at Quest Diagnostics Inc. from April 2012 until September, 2015. He has held key leadership positions across multiple medical functions to drive support for many innovative products, including clinical trials/operations, field medical, medical product team, national and regional payer efforts, publications, advocacy and genetic counseling activities/oversight. He was instrumental in building the medical affairs function at Quest Diagnostics, the largest lab/diagnostics provider in the world. Dr. Nagendran is a Mayo Alumni Laureate and founding member of the Robert Wood Johnson Legacy Society. He is also the sponsor for the Vivian Fonseca- Nagendran Scholar award at the American Diabetes Association to enhance research in minority populations and the Sukumar and Ann Nagendran International Medical Study Scholarship at Rutgers Medical School. He served as Vice President and Head of Medical Affairs at Reata Pharma. Prior to that, he was therapeutic-area head for new product development, medical affairs, clinical operations and biometrics, in which he oversaw several therapeutic areas, including oncology, cardiovascular disease and diabetes, for Daiichi Sankyo. He has held other senior positions related to clinical development and medical affairs for Pfizer and Novartis. He also has significant clinical practice experience. In his career, Dr. Nagendran practiced in a large internal-medicine physician group and was a staff physician at three hospitals in Phoenix, Arizona. In addition, he is formerly a member of the PrimeCare managed care committee for Phoenix-based Banner Health Systems, one of the largest nonprofit healthcare systems in the United States. Dr. Nagendran's research on gene therapy, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, oncology, pulmonary medicine and other areas of medicine has been published in a number of peer-reviewed publications, including NEJM, Endocrine Practice, Current Medical Research & Opinion, Neurology and Journal of Clinical Lipidology. He serves as a Member of Advisory Board of Medocity, Inc. He serves as a Member of Advisory Board of Medivo/Prognos Inc. and an Advisor of Brandix I3. He completed his internal medicine training at The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota and was inducted into the prestigious Mayo Alumni Laureate Group. He received his M.D. at Rutgers Medical School. Dr. Nagendran earned a bachelor's degree in biochemistry from Rutgers University and earned his doctorate in medicine from UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey, where he was awarded academic excellence awards in Internal Medicine, Radiology, Psychiatry and the Robert Wood Johnson Alumni award for the class of 1994.