Franz Hefti is the Chief Executive Officer at Prevail Therapeutics and Proclara Biosciences. He has more than 15 years of experience in the biotech industry as an executive, board member, co-founder, and scientific advisor of many early-stage neurology companies.

He previously served as Chief Development Officer at Prevail, Chief Operations Officer at Proclara Biosciences, President and Chief Executive Officer of Acumen Pharmaceuticals, Chief Scientific Officer at Avid Radiopharmaceuticals (acquired by Eli Lilly and Company), and Executive Vice President of Drug Development at Rinat Neuroscience (acquired by Pfizer). Earlier in his career, Franz was Senior Vice President of Neuroscience Research at Merck & Co. and Head of Neuroscience Research at Genentech. He also held several positions in academia as a Professor at the University of Southern California and Associate Professor at the University of Miami, where he carried out discovery research on therapeutic approaches to neurodegenerative diseases. He has published more than 250 papers on neurotrophic factors and topics in neuropharmacology. He has been a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Alzheimer’s Disease Imaging Initiative since 2013.

Franz holds a Ph.D. from the University of Zurich and completed his postdoctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.