Our Operating Partners & Advisors
PI Health Sciences Scientific Team
Dr. Anthony D. Piscopio
Operating Partner
Magid Abou-Gharbia, Ph.D., FRSC
Operating Partner
Dr. Albert J Robichaud
Operating Advisor
Dr. Anthony D. Piscopio
Operating Partner
Dr. Anthony D. Piscopio is a biotech entrepreneur and executive with over 35 years of leadership in life sciences. After earning his Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and completing an NIH-funded postdoctoral fellowship at The Scripps Research Institute, he launched his career as a Medicinal Chemist at Pfizer, specializing in small-molecule drug discovery. He played a key role in establishing Amgen’s small-molecule platform before co-founding Array BioPharma, where he spent over a decade as VP of Chemistry, shaping it into an industry leader. He later co-founded and led Chemizon, guiding it to a successful acquisition. Dr. Piscopio then co-founded OnKure, a precision medicine oncology company, serving as President and CEO for 13 years and advancing transformative cancer therapies. Today, he is Co-founder, President, and Board Chairman of BoCo Bio, an oncology-focused biotech company dedicated to breakthrough cancer treatments.
Magid Abou-Gharbia, Ph.D., FRSC
Operating Partner
Dr. Magid Abou-Gharbia, Ph.D., FAAPS, FRSC is the Laura H. Carnell Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Temple University’s School of Pharmacy. He joined Temple in 2008 after a 26-year career in the pharmaceutical industry, rising to Senior Vice President for Chemical and Screening Sciences at Wyeth Research (now Pfizer). A renowned medicinal chemist, he led teams that developed multiple first-in-class and blockbuster drugs, including Effexor® and Pristiq® (SNRI antidepressants), Mylotarg® (the first FDA-approved antibody-drug conjugate for cancer), and Tygacil® (an innovative antibiotic for resistant bacterial infections). In 2008, he founded the Moulder Center for Drug Discovery Research, an academic medicinal chemistry hub focused on developing novel drugs, guiding academic researchers, and training drug discovery scientists. Read More
Under his leadership, the center identified drug candidates for addiction, metabolic disorders, cancer, and lysosomal storage diseases, leading to four spin-off companies through licensing its intellectual property. Dr. Abou-Gharbia held key leadership roles at Temple, serving as Associate Dean for Research (2008-2019) and Director of the Moulder Center (2008-2020). He was named Laura H. Carnell Professor (2013) and received the Temple University Outstanding Service Award (2022). His extensive research has resulted in 139+ peer-reviewed publications, 5 book chapters, 235+ invited lectures worldwide, 130+ U.S. patents, and over 350 international patents. Recognized for his contributions, he has received numerous prestigious awards, including two ACS Heroes of Chemistry Awards (for Effexor® and Torisel®), induction into the NJ Inventors Hall of Fame, ACS Medicinal Chemistry Hall of Fame, Proctor Medal, Chemical Pioneer Award, Pennsylvania Bio Award, Educator of the Year Award, and the Grand Hamdan Award for Excellence in Drug Discovery. He is also a Fellow of the American Chemical Society (ACS) and the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). Read Less
Dr. Albert J Robichaud
Operating Advisor
Dr. Robichaud, is currently a partner at Cure Ventures, a venture capital firm focusing on company formation around groundbreaking curative technologies. Most recently, he was the founding scientist and Chief Scientific Officer at Sage Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel medicines to treat life-threatening, rare CNS disorders, where he led the discovery and development of two commercially approved drugs, Zulresso (2019) and Zurzuvae (2023) as well as 9 additional development candidates at Sage. Dr. Robichaud is also the primary discovery scientist, and principal inventor of Caplyta (2109), an approved drug for the treatment of bipolar I and bipolar II depression (developed at DuPont, BMS, and Intracellular Therapeutics). shad a brilliant and successful career . Dr. Robichaud had a brilliant and successful career in senior executive leadership roles at Lundbeck USA, and Wyeth Research, Merck, DuPont and BMS. Dr. Robichaud earned a B.S. in Chemistry from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of California, Irvine with Prof Larry E. Overman and was an American Chemical Society Postdoctoral Fellow at Colorado State University in the labs of Professor Albert I. Meyers. Dr. Robichaud has coauthored more than 200 manuscripts and abstracts and is a co-inventor on >100 patents and patent applications.