Mona Jhaveri

Dr. Mona Jhaveri is the Founder and Executive Director of Music Beats Cancer, a nonprofit dedicated to helping life-saving cancer innovations reach patients faster by addressing the biotechnology industry’s “Valley of Death” — the critical funding gap between scientific discovery and clinical application. Trained as a biochemist with a Ph.D. from Wake Forest University School of Medicine and postdoctoral experience at the National Cancer Institute, Mona also founded Foligo Therapeutics to develop a potential ovarian cancer therapy, but after the company was forced to close due to a funding drought despite promising early data, she experienced firsthand how breakthrough science can stall before reaching patients. That experience reshaped her mission: to raise public awareness about translational funding gaps and create a transparent platform that empowers communities to directly support the development of cancer-fighting therapies, ensuring promising discoveries have a real chance to become treatments.