Leadership

Dr. Achneck joined Pliant Therapeutics in July 2022 as Senior Vice President, Head of Clinical Development. Prior to joining Pliant, Dr. Achneck held the position of Vice President of Early-Stage Clinical Development and Clinical Research at the Novo Nordisk Dicerna Transformational Research Unit following Novo Nordisk’s 2021 acquisition of Dicerna Pharmaceuticals. In this role, he oversaw early-stage research and development initiatives. At Dicerna, Dr. Achneck held several leadership roles within the clinical development group, served on Joint Research and Joint Steering Committees for the Roche and Alnylam partnered programs and played a key role in the successful acquisition by Novo Nordisk. Prior to this, Dr. Achneck was Director of Medical Affairs and Clinical Development, at Haemonetics Corporation, a global healthcare company, and served as Chief Medical Officer at Hemostemix, a clinical-stage cell therapy company. Before this Dr. Achneck held assistant professorships of surgery and in pathology at Duke University School of Medicine and in cardiovascular and metabolic disorders at Duke-National University of Singapore Graduate Medical School. At these institutions, he served as principal investigator on preclinical and clinical research studies in cardiovascular medicine and was responsible for identifying clinical research opportunities for Duke University Medical Center.

Dr. Achneck received his B.S. in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University and his M.D. from the Yale University School of Medicine.