Our Leadership

Rupal Kalapanda is the Founder and President of Xcellence Advisory, where she leverages 20+ years of biotech leadership to provide fractional executive support, program strategy, and clinical operations guidance. She is passionate about advising companies and investors on trial design, study execution, portfolio management, vendor management, regulatory readiness, and corporate development—drawing on her experience leading global trials, IND/NDA/BLA/MAA submissions, and multi-million-dollar portfolios at small biotech to large pharma to deliver pragmatic solutions with precision and excellence. She holds B.S. in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and an MBA from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP). 

Innovation alone isn’t enough. Early-stage biotech companies also need clear development roadmaps that inspire investor confidence. Over Rupal's long career in biotech, she's been the person called when programs hit critical inflection points: stalled recruitment, regulatory uncertainty, investor hesitation. She learned how to step back, analyze what was missing, and rebuild programs and teams for success. After seeing how often small teams face these same hurdles, she launched Xcellence Advisory to give emerging biotech companies and their VC investors an experienced partner — someone who’s navigated high-stakes drug development and can help avoid costly detours while preserving quality and compliance, so that groundbreaking therapies can reach patients sooner. Rupal bridges deep clinical expertise with the business realities of building value. Her approach stress-tests trial designs, optimizes quality systems, and prepares companies for fundraising and partnerships. The result is a leaner path to clinical proof and a stronger, de-risked story for the capital markets. 

• 20+ years of leadership in global clinical development and program management  
• Deep therapeutic area expertise spanning oncology, gene therapy/neurology, immune-mediated diseases, cardiovascular, renal, women’s health, diagnostics, and much more
• Successful INDs, IDEs, NDA and PMA submissions, resulting in FDA approval of new therapeutics, biologics, devices, and diagnostics
• Management of global trial portfolios worth $500M+, consistently delivering on time and under budget
• Design and execution of integrated clinical development plans that align nonclinical, CMC, regulatory, and clinical workstreams — accelerating program readiness and de-risking critical milestones.
• Building, scaling and transforming global teams across the U.S., Latin America, Europe, and Asia
• Development and implementation of infrastructure and systems for clinical trial operational excellence including enrollment forecasting, cost modeling, QMS optimization, technology platform selection and deployment and centralization of data
• Pioneering of operational transformations, introducing risk-based quality systems, decentralized trials, and data visualization tools to accelerate decision-making
• Proven track record in vendor negotiation, cost optimization, and ROI maximization
• Clinical workstream and corporate governance integrations during the company mergers 
• Advisory services to VCs and their portfolio companies on clinical program planning using benchmark data and analytics