My name is Ross (Roshan) Chikarmane, PhD and I’m a biotech company builder, investor, and scientist.

During my time as a Healthcare Associate at RA Capital, a biotech-focused multi-stage investment fund based out of Boston, I:

• Directly led real-time valuation and investment recommendations for 100+ public and private companies in the metabolic, cardiology, liver, and kidney disease areas, resulting in 3 exits (Alpine Immune Sciences acquired by Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Cymabay acquired by Gilead Sciences. 89bio acquired by Roche) and $100M's of invested capital.

• Collaborated with Venture Partners and other thought leaders to spearhead new company creation and chart development & financing roadmaps from discovery to approval, resulting in ~$20 million aggregate Seed/pre-Seed funding for 3 stealth biotech companies in the rare disease space, one of which was undertaken in direct collaboration with a Nobel laureate.

• Evaluated 30+ drug licensing opportunities sourced from big pharma, small/mid cap biotech, and international biotechs (based out of China, Korean, Europe) for potential portfolio company pipeline expansion or new company builds.

• Provided support to Board of Director or Board Observer for four portfolio companies (Diagonal Therapeutics, Sera Medicines, Ocelot Bio, 89bio) in which I performed due diligence for pipeline strategy, engineered a strategic pivot, and supplied analysis for slide decks to be used in public-facing presentations of topline clinical trial results.

I earned my PhD in Pharmacology from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, where I studied prostate cancer genomics and combinatorial drug discovery in the lab of Dr. Vasan Yegnasubramanian. My research focused on prostate cancer, with specific projects in combinatorial drug discovery, identifying the similarities & differences between human prostate cancer & mouse models of prostate cancer, and developing a novel scRNA-Seq approach to reveal co-transcriptional networks in androgen receptor (AR) signaling. These are my peer-reviewed publications:

Liu, J., He, Q. L., Zhou, J., Vaghasia, A. M., Chikarmane, R., Hauk, G., ... & Yegnasubramanian, S. (2026). Triptolide sensitizes cancer cells to nucleoside DNA methyltransferase inhibitors through inhibition of DCTPP1-mediated cell-intrinsic resistance. Nature Communications.

Graham, M. K.1, Wang, R.1, Chikarmane, R.1, Abel, B., Vaghasia, A., Gupta, A., ... & Yegnasubramanian, S. (2024). Convergent alterations in the tumor microenvironment of MYC-driven human and murine prostate cancer. Nature Communications, 15(1), 7414.

1 co-first author

Graham, M. K.1, Chikarmane, R.1, Wang, R.1, Vaghasia, A., Gupta, A., Zheng, Q., ... & Yegnasubramanian, S. (2023). Single‐cell atlas of epithelial and stromal cell heterogeneity by lobe and strain in the mouse prostate. The Prostate, 83(3), 286-303.

1 co-first author

Brennen, W. N., Zhu, Y., Coleman, I. M., Dalrymple, S. L., Antony, L., Patel, R. A., Hanratty B., Chikarmane R., ... & Isaacs, J. T. (2021). Resistance to androgen receptor signaling inhibition does not necessitate development of neuroendocrine prostate cancer. JCI Insight, 6(8), e146827.

At Johns Hopkins, I also the opportunity to accelerate research commercialization at Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures (JHTV), where I performed diligence on 20+ reports of invention (ROI) & intellectual property (IP) originating from biomedical research undertaken at Johns Hopkins University for licensing or new company creation. For the more promising technologies, I identified best-fit licensing partners, performed growth strategies, and created go-to-market roadmaps. One project became a venture-backed biotech company, which still retains many of my original 2021 recommendations for pipeline selection.

Contact me on LinkedIn, Twitter, or by email.