Leucadia Therapeutics, a US-based company that is working to find a cure for Alzheimer's disease, announced on Monday that it has named Dr Javed Siddiqi, MD, DPhil (Oxon), FRCSC, FACS, FAANS as its new global chief medical officer.

Dr Siddiqi is a board-certified neurosurgeon who completed his doctorate at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, and an MD in Canada and is an expert on the skull base. He brings over 21 years of surgical, administrative, academic, and leadership experience to Leucadia and is practiced in skull base neurosurgery needed to implant the company's revolutionary Arethusta device, which drains disease-causing toxins from the brain. He has founded the Desert Regional Medical Center's Institute of Clinical Orthopedics & Neuroscience in Palm Springs, California, where he heads the Neurosurgery programs at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center and Riverside University Health System Medical Center. He was the founding president of the Arrowhead Neuroscience Foundation. He also holds the position of a professor and chair of Surgery at the California University of Science & Medicine in Colton, California, and professor of Surgery at Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, California. He serves as founding editor-in-chief of the medical journal 'Contemporary Reviews in Neurology and Neurosurgery.' Presently, Dr Siddiqi is the president of the California Association of Neurological Surgeons and vice president of the Western Neurosurgical Society.

Dr Doug Ethell, the company's CEO, said, 'Javed's unique expertise will help Leucadia Therapeutics take its next critical steps on our journey to cure Alzheimer's disease. His first priority in coming months will be to oversee preclinical safety and efficacy studies of the Arethusta device.'