Merdad Parsey, MD, PhD

Merdad joined the Ardelyx board of directors in 2025. Most recently, Merdad served as the Chief Medical Officer at Gilead Sciences, Inc. from 2019 until his retirement in 2025. Prior to Gilead, from 2015 to 2019, Merdad served as senior vice president of early clinical development at Genentech, Inc. From 2010 to 2015, Merdad served as the Chief Executive Officer of 3-V Biosciences (now Sagimet Biosciences). Earlier in his career, Merdad held roles of increasing responsibility in the field of clinical development at companies including Sepracor, Regeneron and Merck.

Merdad currently serves on the board of directors of Sagimet Biosciences and Arrivent Biopharma, Inc. He previously served on the board of directors of Arcus Biosciences, Inc., a public biopharmaceutical company, from 2020 until 2025, and the Gilead Foundation.

Merdad received his B.S. in microbiology and biochemistry at the University of Maryland, his M.D. and Ph.D. in immunology at the University of Maryland at Baltimore. He completed his internal medicine residency at Stanford University and his pulmonary and critical care fellowship at the University of Colorado. He was Assistant Professor of Medicine and Director of Critical Care Medicine at the NYU School of Medicine.