Some people just have it. Dr. Gaurav Shah, the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder at Rocket Pharmaceuticals, is one of those people. And neither the name of his company, nor its lofty goals, are an accident.
Dr. Shah grew up in Fort Worth, Texas, obsessed with astronomy, and devouring the works of Carl Sagan. This may seem incongruous with gene therapy, but in both cases, we – the royal we – are trying to reach the final frontier, and go where no one has gone before. Plus, when you’re looking for solutions that can change the world forever, it’s called a “moon shot.” What’s a bigger moon shot than trying to cure rare genetic illnesses? And what better company to take them on than one that’s literally named Rocket?
Dr. Shah has devoted his professional life not just to dreaming big: He acts on his aspirations. He’s a Harvard/Memorial Sloan-Kettering-trained oncologist and neuro-oncologist who has run Rocket for a decade after four years at Novartis, where he served as a Global Program Head in the Cell & Gene Therapies Unit. He is also a Grammy-winning singer who has performed at Carnegie Hall. That is not a typo. In 2022, Dr. Shah and his wife, Falu, won the Best Children’s Album statue for their album, A Colorful World.
All of this made him a perfect guest for the renowned astrophysicist and fellow polymath Neil DeGrasse Tyson, who hosted Dr. Shah on his podcast in 2024 to talk about rare diseases and gene therapy. Dr. Shah has said 80 percent of the world’s diseases are genetic, and technological advances are key to eradicating them. A case of Rocket’s work in action is treatment of Danon Disease, a metabolic disorder for which the company is running gene therapy trials.
Dr. Shah understands, too, that the scientific community never gets anywhere alone. “Our aim is to help the biotech industry as a whole move forward, even by cracking the door open just an inch more, towards creating genetic therapies across multiple disease states,” he said in a recent interview.
Dr. Shah’s life and work show us that it’s not just a colorful world: It’s an inspiring one, and with leaders like him, reaching for the stars is just a starting point.
