If you’ve been following the biotech sector lately, you’ve probably heard the name Shoshana Shendelman. She’s basically a fixture in the New York life sciences world—a scientist-entrepreneur with a PhD from Columbia who managed to build a billion-dollar company from scratch. But lately, the conversation around her has shifted from "visionary founder" to something a bit more complicated.
Honestly, the biotech world is brutal. One day you're the face of a successful IPO, and the next, you're navigating a messy exit amid shareholder lawsuits and regulatory red tape. Shoshana Shendelman founded Applied Therapeutics in 2016 with a pretty noble goal: finding treatments for rare diseases that the big pharma giants usually ignore. She took it public in 2019, but by late 2024, everything changed.
The Rise and Fall at Applied Therapeutics
Shoshana Shendelman didn't just stumble into business. She’s a heavy hitter in the lab, too. We’re talking about a woman who spent years at Columbia University researching the molecular mechanisms of Parkinson’s disease. Her doctoral thesis, completed under Asa Abeliovich, was deep-level neurobiology. That’s not exactly "light reading."
After a stint in consulting with her own firm, Clearpoint Strategy Group, she launched Applied Therapeutics. The company’s whole vibe was about speed and precision—using "validated molecular targets" to skip some of the guesswork in drug development. For a while, it worked. The stock (APLT) was a darling for investors who believed in her pipeline, specifically drugs like govorestat for Galactosemia.
But then things got rocky.
The FDA is a tough crowd. Applied Therapeutics hit a series of "procedural technical issues" and regulatory hurdles that stalled their progress. By 2024, shareholders were getting restless. In fact, a class action lawsuit was filed alleging securities fraud, claiming the company wasn't exactly upfront about its dealings with the FDA.
In December 2024, the news dropped: Shoshana Shendelman stepped down as Chair and CEO.
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It wasn't a quiet exit. She sold a massive chunk of her shares—over 777,000 of them—before leaving. Les Funtleyder, the CFO, took over as interim CEO while the company tried to steady the ship. It’s a classic "founder’s dilemma" story, where the person who has the vision to start the company isn't always the one who survives the corporate and regulatory meat grinder.
What is Shoshana Shendelman doing now?
You might think someone would just retire after a run like that. Nope.
Shendelman is already back in the game. In 2025, she founded Cyana Therapeutics, a new outfit focused on precision immuno-oncology. Basically, she’s trying to use her science background to tackle solid tumors. It’s a bit of a "watch this space" situation because she’s also still very active at Columbia University.
- She’s a Trustee of Columbia University.
- She serves as Vice Chair of the Board of Advisors for the Medical Center.
- She’s still advising various AI and oncology startups.
Some people see her as a victim of a "broken" FDA system that favors big bureaucracy over small-scale innovation. Others see the lawsuits and wonder if the "move fast and break things" mentality of tech startups just doesn't work when people’s health and millions of investment dollars are on the line.
Shoshana Shendelman: A Quick Reality Check
When you look at her track record, it’s a mix of high-level academic success and high-stakes business drama. She holds numerous patents and has been published in big-name journals like PLoS Biology. But she’s also a reminder that in the world of biotech, the science is only half the battle. The other half is politics, regulation, and keeping investors happy—which is where things usually get messy.
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Whether you're an investor looking at her new ventures or just curious about the woman who shook up the rare disease space, it's clear she isn't going away. She's a "builder," as she put it in a recent podcast, even if the buildings she creates sometimes end up in the middle of a legal storm.
Next Steps for Research:
If you're following the APLT saga, you should keep a close eye on the FDA’s final decision on govorestat. That’s the real litmus test for whether her original vision at Applied Therapeutics was actually solid. Also, check out the early filings for Cyana Therapeutics if you want to see if she’s changed her "precision" approach for her new venture.