Sunil Agarwal, M.D. has been appointed chief medical officer and senior vice president at Ultragenyx Pharmaceuticals, effective August 25, 2014. Dr. Agarwal will provide strategic leadership for clinical operations, clinical development, regulatory affairs, biometrics, pharmacovigilance, and non-clinical research. He will report to Emil D. Kakkis, M.D., Ph.D., Ultragenyx’s chief executive officer, and will serve on the senior management team.
 
Dr. Agarwal most recently served as senior vice president and global head of clinical development for immunology and infectious diseases, metabolism, neuroscience, and ophthalmology at Genentech. Dr. Agarwal also served as senior vice president for immunology and infectious diseases, and vice president for rheumatology while at Genentech. Prior to the integration with Roche, he served as vice president of Genentech Drug Safety and held positions of increasing responsibility in the immunology clinical organization. Dr. Agarwal also held positions with MedImmune, Guilford Pharmaceuticals, and Kosan Biosciences.  
 
“On behalf of the Board of Directors and the Executive team, I am pleased to announce the addition of Dr. Agarwal to the Ultragenyx team. With over 15 years in the biotechnology industry in progressive leadership roles, his clinical development expertise and proven track record make him an excellent fit to achieve our mission of developing novel treatments for rare and ultra-rare diseases,” said Dr. Kakkis. “Dr. Agarwal’s appointment reflects the strength of our clinical stage pipeline and he will join our senior team to help lead the execution of our development programs.”