Rajani Dinavahi, MD

Rajani has served as Ardelyx’s Chief Medical Officer (CMO) since April 2026, providing leadership and oversight across the company’s portfolio from pre-clinical to commercial stage assets. Rajani brings more than two decades of experience in healthcare and biotechnology, spanning multiple therapeutic areas. She has extensive experience across immuno-oncology, autoimmune diseases, nephrology and transplantation, with a track record of advancing programs from early development through Phase 3 and regulatory approval.

Prior to Ardelyx, Rajani served as Senior Vice President, Chief Medical Officer at Atara Biotherapeutics where her responsibilities spanned leading pre-clinical and translational sciences through global development and medical affairs of their lead T-cell directed therapy asset and allo-CART program. In addition to leading the key clinical, medical and scientific functions, Rajani also led global regulatory interactions with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and European Medical Agency. Prior to becoming CMO, Dr. Dinavahi held senior leadership positions at Atara across clinical sciences, program team leadership and medical affairs, where she built and led global teams to deliver on the first allogeneic T-cell therapy to be approved and launched globally. Earlier, she spent seven years at Amgen, contributing to multiple global development programs and regulatory filings for products approved across the U.S., Europe and Japan.

Rajani began her career in academic medicine as an Assistant Professor of Medicine (Nephrology) at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and as an NIH funded investigator in translational transplant research focused on biomarkers in solid organ transplant rejection. She is board-certified in Internal Medicine and Nephrology, a Fellow of the American Society of Nephrology, and has authored extensive scientific publications and presentations. She earned a Bachelor of Science and Doctor of Medicine from the University of Miami and completed her Internal Medicine residency and Nephrology fellowship training at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, followed by a clinical transplant and post-doctoral fellowship focusing on translational immunology at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.

"Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase."

– Martin Luther King, Jr