Artal Moreno Fortuny

Artal Moreno Fortuny, PhD, is Executive Director, Business Development and Strategy at Alesta Therapeutics, where he leads Alesta’s BD efforts. Artal’s experience spans search, evaluation, due diligence, and partnering strategy across rare disease, cardiovascular, renal, and oncology.

In his most recent role, Artal was part of Novo Nordisk’s Global BD&L organisation in Zurich, leading global search and evaluation of early-stage research and clinical assets in rare endocrine and bone disorders. He led teams to build business cases and valuation models to support collaboration and licensing decisions, and led cross-functional diligence efforts spanning toxicology, CMC, regulatory, and commercial functions. He regularly engages with biotech, academic, and investor communities through leading partnering forums such as BIO and BioEurope, using these channels to source translational opportunities and build partnership pathways.

Prior to Novo Nordisk, Artal was Search and Evaluation Lead within BD&L at Novartis in Basel, supporting cardiovascular, metabolic and renal priorities. In parallel, he gained hands-on global regulatory experience in oncology, including programme-level regulatory strategy, labelling considerations, and cross-regional coordination for established products.

Artal trained as a scientist, completing a PhD in Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at the University of Manchester and UCL, followed by postdoctoral research in Basel. This foundation shapes his translational approach to diligence and partnering, focusing on what data reduces uncertainty, what milestones create value, and how to communicate risk and upside in a way that accelerates decision-making without compromising quality.