Dr. Keith Gottesdiener is currently working as the CEO of a new stealth company in the metabolic field, since October 2025.Previously, Dr. Gottesdiener was President and Chief Executive Officer of Prime Medicine, and a member of Prime’s Board of Directors, from July 2020 to May 2025. Prime Medicine is a NASDAQ-listed, Boston-based biotechnology company committed to delivering a new class of differentiated one-time curative gene-editing therapies, Prime Editors, to address a very wide spectrum of diseases.
Prior to Prime, Dr. Gottesdiener served for ~9 years as the Chief Executive Officer and a director of Rhythm Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company that develops therapeutics in rare genetic obesity. During that time, Rhythm submitted a New Drug Application for setmelanotide in two indications, for which setmelanotide was subsequently approved.Dr. Gottesdiener joined Rhythm after 16 years at Merck Research Laboratories, where he held positions of increasing responsibility, including leading Merck’s early clinical development across all therapeutic areas, then serving as a leader of Merck’s late clinical development organization.
Dr. Gottesdiener received his B.A. from Harvard College and his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He completed his residency and fellowship at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital-Beth Israel Medical Center-Dana Farber Cancer Institute Children’s Hospital programs. After his fellowship, he joined the faculty at Columbia University, ending his academic career as an associate professor of medicine at the time he left to join Merck.
