Theresa Heah enters the bat cave at Paratus; Eli Lilly exec takes CFO job at Jazz Pharmaceuticals

“I wish I was a bat,” There­sa Heah says.

The two-decade in­dus­try vet­er­an has glid­ed in­to a new CEO post at Para­tus Sci­ences, a Po­laris Part­ners– and ARCH-backed start­up work­ing to turn find­ings from the bi­ol­o­gy of bats in­to new med­i­cines. The on­ly mam­mal to fly, bats could give clues to treat­ing meta­bol­ic dis­eases, in­flam­ma­to­ry and im­munol­o­gy con­di­tions, among oth­er ar­eas.

“[A bat] can man­age in­flam­ma­tion, it can process all this high-sug­ar di­et. There’s al­so been da­ta that showed us that bats can have a longer health span,” Heah said in an in­ter­view a few weeks in­to her new post at the New York City-based biotech, which em­ploys about two dozen peo­ple, in­clud­ing a few in a Sin­ga­pore lab.

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