AIT Therapeutics Inc., a clinical-stage biopharma company developing inhaled Nitric Oxide (NO) for the treatment of serious lung infections and pulmonary hypertension, has appointed two new executive team members. Mark Rimkus was appointed vice president of Clinical Affairs and will assist in clinical trial management, quality systems development, device design and device testing. Dr. Abdi Ghaffari was named vice president of Research and will provide preclinical and scientific expertise to develop the NO therapeutics platform.  

Mark Rimkus is a biomedical engineer and registered respiratory therapist with more than 20 years of experience with inhaled NO systems at various companies and hospitals. He joins the company from Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton, Alberta, where since 2016, he served as senior engineer evaluating and advising the respiratory therapy department on new respiratory devices. Mr. Rimkus also served as director and teasurer on the Council of the College and Association of Respiratory Therapists of Alberta in 2016 and 2017. From 2012 to 2016 he was Respiratory Therapy Support Lead at the University of Alberta Hospital.

Dr. Ghaffari joins the company from Queen’s University in Kingston, ON, where he most recently was assistant professor in the Department of Pathology & Molecular Medicine. He was previously a Post-Doctoral Fellow (2011-16) at Queen’s Cancer Research Institute, where he developed live imaging models to study the interactions between cancer and host immune cells. He also served as the Preclinical Development Lead at Novateur Ventures and R&D Lead at PulmoNOx Medical Inc.  

“These appointments announced today mark another significant step in AIT’s transformation into a company with approved therapies to help patients,” said Steve Lisi, chairman and chief executive officer of AIT. “We are pleased to add both Mark and Abdi to the AIT team, both of whom bring a wealth of experience working with NO in both hospital and commercial environments.  I am confident that they will bolster and advance our efforts in making the AIT NO delivery system available to patients.”