Dr. Javanbakht received his Ph.D. from McGill University and completed his post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School. He then moved to Roche Palo Alto LLC where he worked on developing antivirals to treat HIV infection. He was part of the team that advanced Elipida® (RO4970335), a potent and highly selective NNRTI, into clinical development. He then transferred to Hoffman La-Roche where he began his work on Hepatitis B (HBV) and Influenza. His group there focused on developing novel direct-acting antivirals and immunomodulatory therapies to treat chronic HBV. a first-in-class small-molecule viral expression inhibitor (RG7834), a liver-targeted anti-HBV locked nucleic acid (RG6004), and an immunomodulator, all of which advanced to Phase 1 clinical evaluation. His work also led to the discovery of PAPD5/7 as host factors for HBV expression. He then moved to Gilead Sciences, leading a research team dedicated to curing HBV and developing novel therapeutics poised for clinical studies. Following his tenure at Gilead, he served as the head of infectious diseases at SQZ Biotechnologies, overseeing the development of cell-based vaccines for persistent viral infections.
Currently, Dr. Javanbakht is the Chief Scientific Officer at Bluejay Therapeutics. In this role, he leads a team advancing potential antiviral and immunomodulatory therapies into clinical studies for chronic hepatitis D and exploring a potential cure for chronic HBV.
