Cidara Therapeutics, Inc. announced the appointments of Preetam Shah, Ph.D., MBA, as chief financial officer and chief business officer, and Shane Ward as chief legal officer and corporate secretary. Prior to joining Cidara, Dr. Shah served as the executive vice president, chief financial officer and treasurer for Brainstorm Cell Therapeutics, Inc., a publicly traded biotechnology company, where he led the development and implementation of key financial and capital raising strategies and contributed to its corporate initiatives. Prior to Brainstorm, Dr. Shah spent over six years as an investment banker advising healthcare companies on equity, debt and M&A transactions, holding senior roles at leading banks, including Barclays Capital PLC., and Canaccord Genuity Inc. Dr. Shah also founded Saisarva LLC, a healthcare consulting firm, where he executed and negotiated numerous licensing deals with pharmaceutical companies and was also responsible for the alliance management of those deals. During this period, he also acted as a consultant for healthcare-focused private equity firms and hedge funds. Prior to his role in consulting, Dr. Shah served as vice president, U.S. operations and investments at Reliance Capital USA Ventures LLC, an affiliate of Reliance ADA Group Companies, where he was responsible for making early-stage venture investments in healthcare companies and other fund of funds. Mr. Ward previously served as general counsel and chief legal and strategy officer at Bellicum Pharmaceuticals Inc., a publicly traded cell therapy company discovering and developing controllable CAR-T and CAR-NK candidates. While at Bellicum, he managed project and alliance management, healthcare compliance and all other legal areas. Prior to Bellicum, Mr. Ward served as general counsel for the development-stage biotechnology company, Versartis Inc., where he managed and prepared the company's legal teams for the potential commercialization of fusion protein therapeutics. Mr. Ward also held leadership roles at Human Genome Sciences, Inc., Gilead Sciences, Inc. and Abbott Laboratories, where he managed teams and provided legal support for multiple commercial products in a variety of therapeutic areas.