Best Startup
At Best Startup US we track over 1,000,000 US startups and over 3 million people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top California based President operating in the Biotechnology space. If you think a President is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.us.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Emily Reuter
Vice President of Strategy and Operations of Color
Emily Reuter is the Vice President of Strategy and Operations at Color.
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About Color: Color is a population health technology company that enables the delivery of advanced healthcare through clinical genetics.
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Joyce Tung
Vice President, Research of 23andMe
Joyce Tung joined 23andMe in 2007. She has contributed to several of 23andMe’s research publications, and currently develops and manages research projects. she was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow in the lab of Dr. Renee Reijo Pera. At the University of California, San Francisco she focused on the genetics of egg and sperm development and human fertility. Joyce Tung returned to Stanford University for postdoctoral research in the lab of Dr. Gregory Barsh, where she studied the genetics of human and mouse pigmentation.
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About 23andMe: 23andMe is a DNA testing technology company that enables its users to access their ancestry, genealogy, and inherited traits.
Sean Bohen
Executive Vice-President, Global Medicines Development and Chief Medical Officer of AstraZeneca
Sean was appointed Executive Vice-President, GMD in September 2015 and leads our global late-stage development organisation for both small molecules and biologics. He is also the Company’s Chief Medical Officer and is responsible for patient safety across the entire AstraZeneca and MedImmune portfolio. He joined AstraZeneca from Genentech, where he held a number of senior leadership roles across various therapy areas and was most recently Senior Vice President of Early Development. Before joining Genentech, Sean was a Clinical Instructor in Oncology at Stanford University School of Medicine, a research associate at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and a postdoctoral fellow at the National Cancer Institute. He is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin and later earned his doctorate in biochemistry and his medical degree at the University of California, San Francisco.
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About AstraZeneca: AstraZeneca is a global pharmaceutical company that discovers, develops, manufactures, and markets prescription medicines.
Raymond H. Diradoorian
Executive Vice President of Allergan
Mr. Diradoorian has been Executive Vice President, Global Technical Operations since February 2006. From April 2005 to February 2006, Mr. Diradoorian served as Senior Vice President, Global Technical Operations. Since February 2001, Mr. Diradoorian served as Vice President, Global Engineering and Technology. Mr. Diradoorian joined Allergan in July 1981. Prior to joining Allergan, Mr. Diradoorian held positions at American Hospital Supply and with the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team. Mr. Diradoorian received a Bachelor of Science degree in Biological Sciences from the University of California, Irvine and a Master of Science degree in Technology Management from Pepperdine University.
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About Allergan: Allergan is a global pharmaceutical company.
Ronald Hutton
Vice President, Treasurer of Bio-Rad Laboratories
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About Bio-Rad Laboratories: Bio-Rad Laboratories has played a leading role in the advancement of scientific discovery for over 50 years by providing a broad range of
James Stark
Vice President, Corporate Controller of Bio-Rad Laboratories
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About Bio-Rad Laboratories: Bio-Rad Laboratories has played a leading role in the advancement of scientific discovery for over 50 years by providing a broad range of
Mike Crowley
Executive Vice President, Global Commercial Operations of Bio-Rad Laboratories
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About Bio-Rad Laboratories: Bio-Rad Laboratories has played a leading role in the advancement of scientific discovery for over 50 years by providing a broad range of
Timothy Ernst
Executive Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary of Bio-Rad Laboratories
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About Bio-Rad Laboratories: Bio-Rad Laboratories has played a leading role in the advancement of scientific discovery for over 50 years by providing a broad range of
John Melo
Director, President & Chief Executive Officer of Amyris
John Melo has 30 years of combined experience as an entrepreneur and thought leader in developing and growing technology companies and as a senior executive in the Oil & Gas industry. As President and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Melo has led Amyris through successful technology development, industrial start up, product development and commercialization and a series of funding rounds, including the initial public offering. Before joining Amyris in 2007, Mr. Melo served in various senior executive positions at BP Plc (formerly British Petroleum) most recently as President of U.S. fuels operations where he successfully led a business transformation and significantly improved the financial performance. During his tenure at BP, Mr. Melo also served as Chief Information Officer of the refining and marketing segment; Senior Advisor for e-business strategy to Lord Browne, BP group chief executive; and Director of global brand development. In this last role, he helped develop the “Helios” re-branding effort. Before joining BP, Mr. Melo was with Ernst & Young. Mr. Melo currently serves on the board of directors of Renmatix Inc., serves on the board of directors of BayBio, serves on the Bio Industrial and Environmental section governing board, is a member of the Council for the Portuguese Diaspora and is a member of Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO). He was formerly an appointed member to the U.S. section of the U.S.-Brazil CEO Forum. When not working on the mission of making sustainable chemistry mainstream or championing the eradication of malaria, John enjoys skiing, reading and time with his family on the island of Pico in the Azores, his childhood home.
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About Amyris: Amyris Biotechnologies specializes in creating renewable products focusing on fuels and chemicals.
Chris Fuller
Vice President of Informatics of Caribou Biosciences
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About Caribou Biosciences: Caribou Biosciences is a biotechnology company that develops CRISPR technologies and allogenic cell therapies for oncology.
Alex Aravanis
Chief Technology Officer & Senior Vice President of Illumina
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About Illumina: Illumina is an innovative technology and revolutionary assays aiming the analyze genetic variation and function.
Craig Ciesla
Vice President Advanced Engineering of Illumina
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About Illumina: Illumina is an innovative technology and revolutionary assays aiming the analyze genetic variation and function.
Richard Klausner
Senior Vice President & Chief Medical Officer of Illumina
Richard Klausner joined Illumina in September 2013 as Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer. Richard is responsible for Illumina’s strategies for advancing genomics into clinical medicine and public health. He is also part of Illumina’s executive management team, which is responsible for directing all aspects of company strategy, planning and operations. Richard is a Scientific Advisor at Cyterix Pharmaceuticals Inc. He co-founded Pathwork Diagnostics, Inc. (Alternative name is Predicant Biosciences Inc.) in 2002. He serves as the Managing Partner at The Column Group LLC. He served as the Chairman of the Strategic Development and Scientific Advisory Council at Sanofi from March 1, 2011 to January 2013. Richard serves as the Chairman of the National Science Education Standards Projects of the National Academy of Science, overseeing the first comprehensive process to provide a vision of scientific literacy in the American educational system and the criteria required to achieve it. He served as Co-Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board and Scientific Advisor at Aragon Pharmaceuticals, Inc. He served as an Executive Director for Global Health at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Richard served as the President at the American Society of Clinical Investigation. He served as an Advisor to the President of the Academies for counter-terrorism, and a Liaison to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. From 1979 to 1981, he worked at NIH in National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Laboratory of Mathematical Biology. He served as a Director of Pathwork Diagnostics, Inc. and Immune Design Corp. He served as Director of 3-V Biosciences, Inc. He served as a Director of NCI from August 1, 1995 to 2001. He serves as a Member of Scientific Advisory Board at NGM Biopharmaceuticals, Inc., Immune Design Corp., Constellation Pharmaceuticals and Audax Health Solutions. Richard served as a Distinguished Scientific and Strategic Advisor of Aveo Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Richard currently sits on the board of Juno Therapeutics. He is also the Chief Strategy Advisor for USAID. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He served as a Member of Scientific Advisory Board at Infinity Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Igenica, Inc. and T2 Biosystems, Inc. Rick holds an M.D. from Duke Medical School.
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About Audax Health Solutions, Illumina, Pathwork Diagnostics: Illumina is an innovative technology and revolutionary assays aiming the analyze genetic variation and function.
Jay Flatley
President & CEO of Illumina
Jay was appointed President and CEO of Illumina in 1999 and oversaw the company’s expansion into the whole genome sequencing area with the acquisition of Solexa in 2006, and more recently into diagnostics and consumer sequencing. Under his leadership, Illumina has been named multiple times to the Deloitte & Touche Fast 50 and Fast 500 lists, as well as to the Forbes 25 Fastest-Growing Tech Companies (2007, 2009 and 2010), the Fortune 100 Fastest-Growing Companies (2010 and 2011) lists, and recognition by MIT Technology Review as the World’s Smartest Company in 2014. Previously, Jay served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Molecular Dynamics. As a co-founder and member of the board of directors for Molecular Dynamics he led the company to its initial public offering in 1993. He helped Molecular Dynamics develop and launch over 15 major instrumentation systems, including the first capillary-based DNA sequencer. Currently, he is an Advisory Board member for UC San Diego’s Moores Cancer Center, and a member of the Board of Directors at Coherent, Denali, and Illumina, Inc. Jay received a B.A. in economics from Claremont McKenna College and a B.S. and M.S. (summa cum laude) in industrial engineering from Stanford University.
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About Illumina: Illumina is an innovative technology and revolutionary assays aiming the analyze genetic variation and function.
Erik Holmlin
President, CEO of Bionano Genomics
Erik Holmlin has two decades of experience in the life science and health care industries. His expertise spans technology development and commercialization, global marketing, commercial operations, venture financing, mergers & acquisitions and intellectual property. Recently, he served as president and CEO of GenVault Corporation, a life science company bring innovative solutions to biosample management. He merged GenVault with IntegenX, Inc. in January of 2011. He also served as an entrepreneur in residence (EIR) at Domain Associates, LLC, a leading dedicated life science venture-capital firm. Prior to these roles, Erik was chief commercial officer at Exiqon A/S, where he was responsible for global sales, marketing, and clinical affairs for two businesses: Oncology Services in a CLIA lab and Consumables Business in Life Sciences Research. In 2001 Mr. Holmlin led the formation of GeneOhm Sciences, Inc., for which, over a span of 5 years, he was director of chemistry, senior technology director, vice president of technology and business development, and vice president of marketing.
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About Bionano Genomics: BioNano Genomics develops nanoscale imaging and analytic platforms designed to analyze DNA and other genome-related peptides and proteins.
Zhen Li
Founder, President & CEO of ADARx Pharmaceuticals
Dr. Li is a co-founder of ADARx and a successful executive with more than two decades of diverse experience in research and development in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. Prior to ADARx, Dr. Li served as Senior VP at Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals where she led the discovery and non-clinical development of Arrowhead’s delivery platform and multiple product candidates that are now in clinical studies. Previously, Dr. Li was a director at Merck, leading a team dedicated to siRNA development. Dr. Li received her Ph.D. in Chemistry and Chemical Biology from Harvard University, and her B.S. from Peking University.
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About ADARx Pharmaceuticals: ADARx Pharmaceuticals is a genetic medicine company focusing on the base editing of mRNA transcripts.
Michael Dabrowski
President of Synthego
Founder & President at Synthego
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About Synthego: Synthego is a genome engineering company that enables access to CRISPR to accelerate life science research and development.
Jason Coloma
President, Chief Mazer; Director of Maze Therapeutics
Dr. Jason Coloma is the CEO of Maze Therapeutics. Prior to his appointment to CEO, he was Maze’s interim chief operating officer and a venture partner at Third Rock Ventures, where he was instrumental in the founding and launch of the company. As a venture partner at Third Rock, Jason focused on new company creation, and held interim chief business officer roles at portfolio companies insitro and Celsius Therapeutics. Prior to Third Rock, Jason was senior vice president and chief business officer at Corvus Pharmaceuticals. Previously, he held a number of roles at Roche, including vice president & global therapeutic area head of oncology and cancer immunotherapy partnering. Before joining Roche, Jason was a consultant in the life sciences practice at L.E.K. Consulting. He also worked in finance at Amgen and in research at the University of California, San Francisco and Cytokinetics. Jason holds a Ph.D. and M.P.H. at the University of California, Berkeley, an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and a B.S. in biology from the University of San Francisco.
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About Maze Therapeutics: Maze Therapeutics is an operator of a biotechnology firm used to focus on translating genetic insights into new medicines.
Kim D. Blickenstaff
President and Chief Executive Officer of Tandem Diabetes Care
Kim joined Tandem in August 2007, bringing more than 30 years of healthcare experience in finance, marketing management, sales and strategic planning. Prior to joining Tandem, he was Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Biosite Incorporated, a medical diagnostic company that was acquired by Inverness Medical Innovations for $1.8 billion in June 2007. Prior to founding Biosite, he held various finance, operations, research management, sales management, strategic planning and marketing positions with Hybritech Incorporated and Baxter Healthcare. Kim has been active in the medical device and diagnostics industry over the last 12 years, serving on the board of directors for innovative, young healthcare companies such as SenoRx and MediVation Incorporated. He holds a Masters of Business Administration from Loyola University Chicago’s Graduate School of Business.
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About Tandem Diabetes Care: Tandem Diabetes Care develops medical devices for the treatment of diabetes offering diabetic insulin pumps for adults and children.
Mickey Kertesz
President, CPO & Co-Founder of Karius
Kertesz co-founded Karius in 2014 to bring the pathogen detection technology he and colleagues developed at Stanford closer to the bedside. Prior to that, he was the CEO and co-founder of Moleculo, a long-reads DNA sequencing company, which was acquired by Illumina in late 2012. Dr. Kertesz earned an MS in computer science from Tel Aviv University and a PhD in computational biology from the Weizmann Institute of Science. He went on to complete his postdoctoral work in bioengineering at Stanford University, where he developed novel methods for investigating the genetic diversity of human viruses.
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About Karius: Karius provides genomic insights for infectious diseases to enable clinicians to make life-saving treatment decisions.
Martin G. Reese
Co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer & President of Fabric Genomics (formerly Omicia)
Martin Reese is an internationally recognized expert and entrepreneur in Genomics and Bioinformatics. Prior to founding Omicia, Martin Reese served as Vice President of Discovery Informatics for ValiGen. Prior to this, Martin Reese co-founded Neomorphic, where he served as President and Chief Scientific Officer. The human genome annotation software that Martin Reese developed at Neomorphic, provided the foundation for the successful commercialization of microarrays by Affymetrix. During his career Martin Reese has been actively involved in community-wide assessments of genome annotation. He organized the state-of-the-art Genome Annotation Assessment Project and was a member of the Berkeley Drosophila Genome Project, which provided the essential proof-of-concept platform for “shotgun” sequencing technology. At the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories Martin Reese developed gene-finding algorithms for the Human Genome Project. He holds a Masters degree in Medical Informatics from the University of Heidelberg and a Ph.D. in Genetics jointly from the University of Hohenheim, Germany and the University of California, Berkeley.
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About Fabric Genomics (formerly Omicia): Global healthcare platform for genomics-driven precision medicine. Fabric’ proven AI algorithms power genomic insights.
Hamid Rategh
Vice President Engineering of Genapsys
Hamid is VP Engineering at GenapSys, joining back in 2012. Hamid has had a successful career developing a wide range of products, from RFICs to adaptive equalizers for optical communication and Mixed-Signal Memory interface products. Prior to joining GenapSys, Hamid was Senior Director of Engineering at Inphi, who acquired his team and product from Scintera Networks. Hamid also cofounded and served as VP of Engineering of Tavanza which was later acquired by Celeritek in 2002 and subsequently by Anadigics in 2003. Hamid holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, and an MS in Biomedical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University. He earned his BS in Electrical Engineering from Sharif University of Technology.
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About Genapsys: Transform the human condition by building a scalable, affordable genomic sequencing ecosystem that will support research and diagnostics
Kristen Hege
Vice President, Translational Development, Hematology/Oncology of Celgene
Kristen Hege has served as a member of our board of directors since October 2018. Kristen Hege is currently a Clinical Professor of Medicine, Hematology and Oncology and an attending physician at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). She has held a clinical faculty appointment at UCSF since 1997 in the adult hematology and bone marrow transplant program. Kristen Hege has been board-certified in internal medicine, medical oncology and hematology. Kristen Hege received her B.A. summa cum laude from Dartmouth, M.D. from UCSF and completed a medical residency at Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School and a fellowship in hematology and oncology at UCSF. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer, and Mersana Therapeutics and the Strategic Advisory Group for the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. In 2015, FierceBiotech recognized her as one of the top 12 women in Biopharma. Kristen Hege currently serves as Corporate Vice President, Translational Development, Hematology and Oncology and San Francisco site head at Celgene where she is responsible for translational and early clinical development for all hematology and oncology products including small molecules, biologics and cell therapies. Prior to joining Celgene, she served as acting Chief Medical Officer at Aragon Pharmaceuticals, Theraclone Sciences and Cellerant Therapeutics. Kristen Hege began her career at Cell Genesys Inc. where she spent 14 years in various roles of increasing responsibility, ultimately leading the Clinical Research and Development organization.
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About Celgene: Celgene discovers, develops and commercializes innovative therapies to treat cancer and immune-inflammatory-related diseases.
Greg Gosch
Co-Founder, President, & CEO of ChromaCode
Greg has over 20 years of management experience in the molecular diagnostics and nucleic acids research fields. He spent 9 years at Luminex, when the company grew revenues from $30 million to over $200 million. He held multiple roles including VP of Sales and Marketing, where he was responsible for global commercial operations, and VP/GM of Biosciences, where was responsible for developing novel instrument and assay products for gene expression, microRNA, newborn screening and Alzheimer’s disease. Prior to Luminex, Greg served in various commercial leadership roles at Nanogen, Chiron Diagnostics and Bio-Rad. He has a bachelors degree in molecular, cellular and developmental biology from the University of Colorado and dual masters degrees in business and healthcare administration from the University of Minnesota.
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About ChromaCode: ChromaCode is a molecular diagnostics company focusing on bioinformatics.
Michael Scott Mann
President of Endonovo Therapeutics
Michael Scott Mann has over 30 years experience in merger and acquisitions and operational management. In 2008 Mr. Mann acquired the assets of Hanover Asset Management, now Endonovo Therapeutics, Inc,. and led the company to become listed on the OTCBB in 2012. From January 2003 to April, 2011, Mr. Mann was the Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of U.S. Debt Settlement, Inc. (USDS), a Frankfurt listed company, where he implemented a growth by acquisition strategy successfully acquiring numerous companies. From January 2002 to July 2003, Mr. Mann was the Chief Executive Officer of Shared Vision Capital, a boutique investment banking firm that assisted emerging companies with early seed capital and bridge loans. Earlier still, from October 1998 to December 2001, Mr. Mann was the Vice President of Investor Relations for JuriSearch.com, an online legal research platform. During his tenure with JuriSearch.com, Mr. Mann was directly responsible for funding the company’s growth and development. In addition, Mr. Mann founded Universal Pacific Communications, a privately owned telecommunications company. Under his leadership as President, Universal Pacific developed a fiber optic disaster recovery telecommunications network, designed for and successfully marketed to Fortune 1000 companies.
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About Endonovo Therapeutics: Endonovo Therapeutics is a biotechnology company developing off-the-shelf regenerative products.
Fred Aslan
President & CEO of Artiva Biotherapeutics
Born and raised in Brazil, Fred Aslan is the founder of Adavium Medical (previously known as ADVANCE Medical). He is also affiliated with Venrock, a leading Silicon Valley venture capital firm he joined in 2006. While a full-time investor at Venrock prior to founding Adavium, Fred Aslan was a co-founder and board member of Receptos Pharmaceuticals, a NASDAQ-listed biotech company, which was subsequently acquired by Celgene for more than $8 billion. He also led Venrock’s investment in Zeltiq, a NASDAQ-listed medical device company that was valued at more than $1 billion. Prior to Venrock, he was Director of Business Development and led Investor Relations at CuraGen, a NASDAQ-listed oncology-focused biotech company, and was a strategy consultant with Boston Consulting Group (BCG). He was named the “2014 Business Professional of the Year” by the Brazilian government, recognizing the achievements of Brazilian professionals living outside of Brazil. He is also a board member of Femasys, a US-based women’s health medical device company, and BayBrazil, a Silicon Valley-based not-for-profit organization promoting ties between Silicon Valley and Brazil. Fred Aslan received a B.S. in Biology from Duke University, an M.D. from Yale and an M.B.A. from Harvard.
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About Adavium, Artiva Biotherapeutics: Artiva Biotherapeutics is a biotech company focused on developing and commercializing allogeneic natural killer (NK) cell therapies.
Agatha Martindale
Vice President and Global Finance of Rakuten Medical
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About BUILTBYGIRLS, Rakuten Medical, Rakuten Medical: Rakuten Medical is a biotechnology company that develops therapies to treat cancer.
Hira Thapliyal
Founder, President & CEO of Aneumed
Hira Thapliyal is the founder, president & CEO of AneuMed, Inc.AneuMed is an early stage company engaged in developing devices for the treatment of various ailments affecting the human cardiovascular system. Prior to that, Dr. Thapliyal was the co-founder, president & CEO of VytronUS, Inc., a development stage company working on products for treatment of cardiac arrhythmias. Currently, VytronUS is conducting human clinical trials for its products. Before that, Hira was the co-founder, president & CEO of Tescient, Inc. Tescient was focused in developing products aimed at tissue regeneration and wound healing in human body. Tescient prototype products did not perform well in early animal tests, so Dr. Thapliyal closed Tescient and returned 60% of the invested capital back to the investors. Prior to Tescient, Dr. Thapliyal co-founded ArthroCare Corp (NASDAQ: “ARTC”) in 1993, and served its president & CEO and took the company public in 1996. ArthroCare was recently acquired by Smith & Nephew for $1.7 billion. ArthroCare markets products in the field of arthroscopy, ENT, spine, skin, and wound healing. Before ArthroCare, Hira served as the president of MicroBionics, a company developing products for continuous measurements of blood parameters in critically ill patients. Before MicroBionics, Hira co-founded and served as the president of CardioVascular Imaging Systems (NASDAQ: “CVIS”) which developed and marketed an ultrasound based imaging system, Intravascular Ultrasound (‘IVUS’), for the human blood vessels. CVIS went public and was later acquired by Boston Scientific (“BSX”). Prior to that, Hira served as the Vice President of Devices for Vascular Interventions (DVI) which developed and marketed products for removal of plaque form inside on the diseased arteries. DVI was acquired by Eli Lilly in 1989. Prior to DVI, Dr. Thapliyal held engineering and management positions at Oximetrix, Inc., Amdahl, and Corning. Dr. Thapliyal holds a BSEE degree from Washington State University, a MSEE from University of Idaho, and a PhD degree in Materials Science & Engineering from Cornell University. Hira has received numerous awards, and currently serves as an advisor to the Stanford-India Biodesign Program at Stanford University. Dr. Thapliyal also served as a judge for the Entrepreneur of the Year award at Earnst & Young. Dr. Thapliyal currently holds over 193 issued US and International patents for various medical devices.
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About Aneumed, VytronUS: Aneumed is a biotechnology company based in California, United States.
Harry Gruber
CEO, Co-Founder & President of Tocagen
Harry E. Gruber, M.D., one of the pioneers in gene therapy, co-founded Tocagen and led the company as chief executive officer before assuming the role of president, research and development in November 2016 and president, science and innovation in October 2017. He has been a member of the board of directors since August 2007. Dr. Gruber served as our chief executive officer from August 2007 to November 2016 and served as chairman of our board of directors from August 2007 to October 2014. Dr. Gruber is a co-founder of Tocagen and has been the co-founder and/or co-inventor of key technology for the following publicly held companies: Viagene Inc., a gene therapy company acquired by Novartis Pharmaceuticals; Gensia Inc., a biopharmaceutical company acquired by Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries, Ltd.; INTERVU Inc., a technology company acquired by Akamai Technologies, Inc.; Kintera, Inc., a technology company acquired by Blackbaud. He is the author of more than 100 original scientific articles and an inventor on more than 100 issued and pending patents. Dr. Gruber holds a medical degree and bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania and trained in Internal Medicine, Biochemical Genetics and Rheumatology/Immunology at the University of California, San Diego, where he subsequently joined the medical school faculty until founding Gensia Inc.
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About Tocagen: Tocagen is a biopharmaceutical company developing gene therapy products for the treatment of cancer.
Corey McCann
President and Chief Executive Officer of Pear Therapeutics
Corey M McCann M.D., Ph.D. is the President and CEO of Pear Therapeutics, a company developing prescription digital therapeutics and drug/software combinations for treatment of severe medical conditions. Previously, he was an investor with MPM Capital, where he evaluated new healthcare investment opportunities, managed relationships with strategic partners, and oversaw strategy and execution at portfolio companies. Prior to MPM, he was an Engagement Manager with McKinsey & Company, where he advised pharmaceutical, medical device, and biotechnology companies on the acquisition, development, and commercialization of life science technologies. He led McKinsey’s central nervous system (CNS) expertise group, advising clients across the healthcare value chain. Corey has previous investment experience with RiverVest Venture Partners, where he performed diligence on early stage investments, and at NeuroInsights, where he evaluated brain related technologies. Corey is also a co-founder, advisor, or Board Director at AgNovos Healthcare, Alcyone Lifesciences, Dragonfly Sciences, Edumedics, Resolute Bio, Selexys Pharmaceuticals, and Zillion Health. Dr. McCann trained as a physician-scientist via the Medical Scientist Training Program. For his PhD, he studied the molecular biology of synapses at Harvard University and at Washington University in St Louis. He was also a post-doctoral researcher at the Massachusetts General Hospital where he developed imaging techniques for the visualization of the brain. Dr. McCann received his M.D. from Washington University in St. Louis. He graduated summa cum laude from The Pennsylvania State University where he was an Evan Pugh Scholar, receiving a B.S. in Biology with minors in neuroscience, biochemistry, and molecular biology.
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About Pear Therapeutics: Pear Therapeutics is a software-based digital therapeutics platform designed to treat disease and enhance the efficacy of pharmaceuticals.
Darren Farrugia
Vice President, User Experience & Product Design of Veeva
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About Veeva: Veeva Systems is a provider of cloud-based business solutions for the global life sciences industry.
Ben Hindson
CSO, CO-Founder & President of 10X Genomics
Ben Hindson has served as Chief Scientific Officer and Director of 10x Genomics since its founding in 2012. Prior to 10x Genomics, Hindson was Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Quantalife, a privately-held life sciences company that developed and commercialized a droplet digital PCR platform, until its sale to Bio-Rad in 2011. From 2002 to 2008, he served in various positions of increasing responsibility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, in the Chemical and Biological Weapons Non-proliferation Program. He has published extensively in his field and holds many patents for assays and instrumentation. Hindson earned his BSc in Chemistry in 1998 and his PhD in Chemistry in 2001 from Deakin University, Australia.
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About 10X Genomics: 10X Genomics ELV solutions and security systems company that provides an innovative genomics platform.
Asish Xavier
Vice President, Venture Investments of Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation
Asish Xavier is the Vice President of Venture Investments at joined Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, Inc. (JJDC) in 2004. Asish is based in Silicon Valley, California. Asish previously worked in business development at BioRexis Pharmaceutical, Inc., which was acquired by Pfizer in 2007. While at BioRexis, Asish assisted the company in raising a $30 million second round of financing. Asish has worked in business development at Structural GenomiX, Inc., acquired by Eli Lilly in 2008, and was a project leader at Message Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Asish received a Ph.D. from the University of Houston and a Master of Business Administration from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated with honors. Asish received a Bachelor of Technology in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India. Asish was also a postdoctoral research Fellow in the Department of Chemistry at Johns Hopkins University.
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About Cue, ESCAPE Bio, Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation, Legend Biotech, Paige, ViaCyte, XWPharma: Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation, a venture capital subsidiary, finances technology companies focused on patient health.
Stacy Feld
Vice President, Consumer Venture Investments of Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation
Stacy received a B.A. in sociology, graduating magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania and earned her J.D. from Vanderbilt Law School.
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About Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation, Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation: Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation, a venture capital subsidiary, finances technology companies focused on patient health.
Gerald McMahon
President & CEO of Harpoon Therapeutics
Dr. McMahon joined Harpoon in December 2016 bringing more than 25 years of biotechnology leadership, scientific innovation and creative deal-making experience. Dr. McMahon was previously president and CEO of Kolltan Pharmaceuticals, an oncology biologics company acquired by Celldex in 2016, and senior vice president of R&D oncology at MedImmune, the biologics arm of AstraZeneca. He also served as a venture partner at Bay City Capital and in executive leadership roles at Poniard Pharmaceuticals and SUGEN (ultimately acquired by Pfizer), where he was a key player in the development of innovative oncology drugs Sutent® and Palladia®. Dr. McMahon holds an academic appointment at the Yale Comprehensive Cancer Center at Yale University, and held previous appointments at Tufts University School of Medicine, department of hematology & oncology at the New England Medical Center, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received his BS in biology and PhD in biochemistry from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
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About Harpoon Therapeutics: Harpoon Therapeutics is a clinical-stage immunotherapy company developing novel T cell engagers (TriTACs) for the treatment of cancer.
Mark McKenna
Founder, President and CEO of Prometheus Biosciences
Mark McKenna currently works as President and Chief Executive Officer at Prometheus Biosciences. He previously worked at Bausch + Lomb as Senior Vice President and General Manager.
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About Prometheus Biosciences: Prometheus Biosciences develops and commercializes pharmaceutical and diagnostic products to help physicians individualize patient care.
Hakan Sakul
Vice President and Head of Diagnostics of Pfizer
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About Pfizer: Pfizer provides access to safe and effective and affordable medicines and health care services.
Chris Varma
Founder, President & CEO of Frontier Medicines
Chris joined Flagship in 2007 as Partner and focuses primarily on Life Science investments. He came to Flagship with significant management experience in clinical development, regulatory strategy, business development, sales, and marketing in the pharmaceutical industry. Prior to Flagship, Chris was with Novartis Pharmaceuticals since 2004 where he served most recently as Director of the Tekturna (aliskiren) marketing team responsible for all Medical Marketing, Medical Strategy, and Professional Promotions activities in the U.S. Chris also oversaw Tekturna�s extensive clinical development programs, and played a key role in the FDA approval, CMS reimbursement coverage approval, and successful commercial launch of Tekturna in early 2007. Previously at Novartis, Chris was Director of Business Development & Licensing where he identified several in-licensing opportunities and drove key transactions. Prior to that, Chris focused on corporate strategy working directly with the Novartis Pharma CEO in Basel, Switzerland. Before Novartis, Chris was a consultant for Millennium Pharmaceuticals working on special projects in the Personalized Medicine Group. Before Millennium, Chris worked for the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the Office of Combination Products coordinating and managing reviews across the major Centers. Early in his career he co-founded Epitrope Corporation, a company that developed server-side solutions for wireless telecom carriers.
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About Frontier Medicines, Harvard Medical School, Vision Medicines: Frontier Medicines is a developer of a chemoproteomics platform intended to further accelerate the path to drug discovery.
Gene Hung
Co-founder and Senior Vice President of XinThera
Gene Hung is a Co-founder and Senior Vice President at Xinthera Inc.
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About XinThera: XinThera is a drug discovery company focused on building small molecule oncology and immunology pipeline.
Arthur Levin
Executive Vice President, Research & Development of Avidity Biosciences
Arthur A. Levin, Ph.D., is miRagen’s Executive Vice President of Research and Development. Dr. Levin is a drug development veteran having spent more than 30 years in the pharmaceutical industry, of which more than 15 years were in the area of research and development of RNA-targeting therapeutics. He is a recognized world expert on the preclinical and clinical development of oligonucleotide-based therapeutics. Prior to joining miRagen Therapeutics, Dr. Levin was Chief Development Officer of Santaris Pharma A/S, where he led the efforts on the first microRNA-targeting therapeutic in Phase 2 clinical trials, miravirsen. Before joining Santaris Pharma, Dr. Levin consulted for leading biotechnology companies, conducting research and development in RNA-based therapies such as mRNA, microRNA, and siRNA.Prior to consulting, Dr. Levin was Senior Vice President of Development at Isis Pharmaceuticals, where he was responsible for the drug development of Isis’ products across a range of therapeutic areas. His expertise was instrumental in advancing more than a dozen oligonucleotide drugs from basic research to clinical development in areas such as neuromuscular diseases, infectious diseases, metabolic disorders, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. He joined Isis from Hoffmann-La Roche Inc., where he was Research Leader. Dr. Levin holds a Ph.D. in Toxicology from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, New York, and a B.S. in Biology from Muhlenberg College.He completed his post-doctoral work at the Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology in Research Triangle, North Carolina. He was the recipient of the Scala Award for Industrial Toxicology and is the author of more than 50 papers and book chapters.
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About Avidity Biosciences, Avidity Biosciences: Avidity Biosciences is a biotech company that delivers nucleic acid therapeutics against genetic drivers of disease.
Andy Geall
Vice President of Formulations and Chemistry of Avidity Biosciences
Andy Geall is the VP of formulations and chemistry at Avidity Biosciences.
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About Avidity Biosciences: Avidity Biosciences is a biotech company that delivers nucleic acid therapeutics against genetic drivers of disease.
Kathryn E. Falberg
Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Jazz Pharmaceuticals
Kathryn Falberg was appointed our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer in March 2012. She served as our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer from 2009 to 2012. Her responsibilities include finance, strategy, corporate development and IT. From 1995 through 2001, Kathryn Falberg was with Amgen, Inc., where she served as Senior Vice President Finance, Strategy and Chief Financial Officer, and before that as Vice President, Controller and Chief Accounting Officer, and Vice President, Treasurer. From 2001 through 2008, Kathryn Falberg was President of Canyon Capital & Consulting, a private investment and consulting firm, where she worked with a number of smaller companies while also serving as a corporate director and audit committee chair for several companies. From February to November 2009, she was Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer at ARCA biopharma, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company. Kathryn Falberg received an M.B.A. and B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles and is a Certified Public Accountant (inactive). Kathryn Falberg currently serves on the boards, and is chair of the audit committees, of biopharmaceutical companies Halozyme Therapeutics, Inc. and Medivation, Inc.
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About Jazz Pharmaceuticals: Jazz Pharmaceuticals is a specialty pharmaceutical company that identifies, develops and commercializes innovative treatments.
Christopher Anzalone
President & CEO of Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals
President & CEO at Arrowhead Research.Dr. Christopher Anzalone has been President, Chief Executive Officer and Director of the Company since December 1, 2007. In 2005, Dr. Anzalone formed and served as CEO of the Benet Group LLC, a private equity firm focused on creating and building new nano-biotechnology companies from university-generated science. Prior to his tenure at the Benet Group, he was a partner at the Washington, DC-based private equity firm Galway Partners, LLC, where he was responsible for sourcing, structuring, and building new business ventures. Prior to Galway, Dr. Anzalone was an NIH-supported post doctoral fellow in Reproductive Endocrinology at the Smithsonian Institution’s Conservation and Research Center. Dr. Anzalone holds a Ph.D. in Biology from UCLA and a B.A. in Government from Lawrence University.
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About Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals, Galway Partners: Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals is a biotechnology company that focuses on the development of medicine to treat diseases with a genetic origin.
Mark McCamish
President and Chief Executive Officer of Forty Seven
Dr. McCamish is President and Chief Executive Officer of IconOVir Bio. Previously he was President and Chief Executive Officer of Forty Seven, Inc. He led Forty Seven, Inc. during critical phases of clinical development to help patients defeat their cancer. This included growing from a valuation of $169 million as a private company through a Series B offering, Initial Public Offering, two secondary fund raises and finally the acquisition of Forty Seven by Gilead for $4.9 Billion. He is an international expert in biologic and biosimilars development and manufacturing. Mark is passionate about mentoring and developing people while focusing on meeting patient needs through efficient, commercially viable efforts. He is a senior executive with extensive experience at multiple companies including Abbott, Amgen, and Novartis/Sandoz. He led pioneering efforts in filing/launching biosimilars worldwide. He has demonstrated a commercial mindset in establishing research and development strategies leading to approvals and commercial success in multiple therapeutic areas and regulatory categories including biologics, biosimilars, drugs, devices, and medical foods. He received Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from UCSB and, after completing his PhD in Human Nutrition from Penn State and MD from UCLA, he completed Residency and Fellowship Training at the University of California, Davis. He held professorships at UC Davis and The Ohio State University
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About Forty Seven, IconOVir Bio, Nemesis Bioscience: Forty Seven is a clinical-stage immuno-oncology company that is developing therapies targeting cancer immune evasion pathways.
James Healy
General Partner & President of Sofinnova Investments
Dr. Healy is a General Partner at Sofinnova Ventures. Dr. Healy has over 15 years of experience in biomedical research and development. He joined Sofinnova Ventures as a General Partner in 2000. Dr. Healy was an early investor and board member of Cellective (acquired by MedImmune), CoTherix (acquired by Actelion), Novacea (Nasdaq: NOVC), and InterMune (Nasdaq: ITMN). He also serves on the boards of directors of several private companies. In the pharmaceutical industry, he held a manufacturing position at Bayer Pharmaceuticals (Miles) and helped guide the discovery group at ISTA Pharmaceuticals prior to its initial public offering. Dr. Healy authored or co-authored numerous research articles and reviews, including three papers published in Nature. He began his private equity career at Sanderling. Dr. Healy earned B.A.s in Molecular Biology and Scandinavian Studies from the University of California at Berkeley, where he graduated with Distinction in General Scholarship, Honors, and received a Departmental Citation. Dr. Healy received his M.D. from Stanford University’s School of Medicine through the Medical Scientist Training Program, and earned his Ph.D. in Immunology from Stanford University, where he was a Beckman Scholar and received a bursary award from the Novartis Foundation. Dr. Healy teaches a course on entrepreneurship at Stanford University, and is an active member of the BIO-NVCA Working Group.
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About Auris Medical, Sofinnova Investments: Sofinnova Investments specializes in seed, startup, mid, early stage, series A, first venture round, and corporate spinouts.
Alain Azan
President and Managing Director Emeritus of Sofinnova Investments
Alain Azan is the Founding Partner of Sofinnova Ventures. He joined Sofinnova SA in France in 1983 and relaunched Sofinnova Inc. in San Francisco in 1987. During his 25 years as a venture capitalist, Alain has made over 50 investments in the information technology sector, resulting in over 25 IPOs and trade sales. Most notable are his investments in Phone.com (Nasdaq: OPWV), Premisys (acquired by Zhone Technologies), Tumbleweed (Nasdaq: TMWD), Element 14 (acquired by Broadcom), Ray Dream (acquired by Fractal Design), and DataMind (acquired by Epiphany). Prior to beginning his career in venture capital, Alain was an executive in the oil and gas exploration and machine tool industries, where he held a variety of operational roles based out of several countries. He has also received the national honor of “Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur” in 2006, as published in France’s Journal Officiel de la Republique Francaise. Alain studied Mechanical Engineering and Economics at the Marseilles-Luminy University in France, and received an M.B.A. from the INSEAD (Fontainebleau, France).
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About Sofinnova Investments: Sofinnova Investments specializes in seed, startup, mid, early stage, series A, first venture round, and corporate spinouts.
Zachary Hornby
Chief Executive Officer & President of Boundless Bio
Zachary Hornby brings a dozen years of life sciences business experience to Ignyta. Prior to joining Ignyta, Mr. Hornby was senior director of business development at Fate Therapeutics where he was responsible for pharmaceutical partnerships and non-dilutive funding. Mr. Hornby has also served in various business and commercial roles at Halozyme Therapeutics (NASDAQ: HALO), Neurocrine Biosciences (NASDAQ: NBIX) and TKT (now Shire Human Genetic Therapies), and was a life sciences consultant at L.E.K. Consulting. Mr. Hornby holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in biology from Stanford University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
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About Boundless Bio, City Hill Ventures: Boundless Bio is a precision oncology company developing therapeutics directed against extrachromosomal DNA (ecDNA) in aggressive cancers.
Thomas Alessi
Vice President, Development and Manufacturing of Intarcia Therapeutics
Dr. Alessi joined Intarcia in December 1997 as Executive Director, Regulatory Affairs and Drug Development and was promoted to Vice President, Development in February 2002 with responsibility for the areas of product development, project management, chemistry and manufacturing. Prior to joining Intarcia, Dr. Alessi served as the Senior Director, Regulatory Affairs, Quality Assurance and Project Management at Ansan Pharmaceuticals where he was responsible for successful IND filings and for managing five drug development programs with oversight of vendors for preclinical and clinical studies and manufacturing clinical supplies. Before joining Ansan, Dr. Alessi was Director of Regulatory Affairs and Quality Assurance at Glycomed, Inc. where his duties included oversight and compliance of clinical manufacturing. His previous experience includes regulatory affairs and drug discovery experience in large pharmaceutical companies. Dr. Alessi was Senior Manager of Regulatory Affairs for Schering-Plough working in the Anti-infectives, Allergy Products and Chemisty, Manufacturing, & Controls groups. While at Schering-Plough, Dr. Alessi had regulatory responsibilities for approval and launch of interferon alfa-2b for hepatitis C as well as for hepatitis B. In his CMC role, he served on separate committees for process development and production of solid oral dosage forms, inhaled products, creams and semisolid products and sterile dosage forms, in addition to regulatory review of the CMC sections of Schering-Plough INDs and NDAs. Prior to joining Schering-Plough, Dr. Alessi invented and patented several new families of antidiabetic drugs while working as a Senior Scientist in the drug discovery group at Wyeth-Ayerst. Dr. Alessi earned a B.S. degree at Allegheny College and an M.S. and a Ph.D. in organic synthetic chemistry from the University of Rochester.
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About Intarcia Therapeutics: Intarcia Therapeutics develops therapies for diseases that require long-term chronic treatment.
Gadi Maier
Chairman and President of Monterey Bay Labs
As a seasoned hi-tech executive and entrepreneur, Gadi Maier leads the business and the organization as CEO of FreeMonee. Prior to this role, Gadi served as president and CEO of FraudSciences Corporation; as a partner at Pinnacle Ventures and Benchmark Capital; co-founder and CEO of Scalent Systems; co-founder and CEO of Currenex; CEO of GetThere Inc. and CEO of Memco Inc. In addition, he held senior-level management positions at both Cisco and Oracle.
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About Monterey Bay Labs: Monterey Bay Labs InoCyte technology, is a natural, marine extracted microinjection delivery platform that accelerates.
Athena Countouriotis
President and Chief Executive Officer of Turning Point Therapeutics
Athena Countouriotis became president and chief executive officer and was named to the Turning Point Therapeutics board of directors in September 2018. She has broad oncology biotech leadership experience, guiding multiple development programs to approval. Her experience includes large and small molecule therapeutics in hematologic and solid tumor indications, with multiple regulatory approvals in the U.S. and Europe. She joined Turning Point Therapeutics in May 2018 as executive vice president and chief medical officer to advance the clinical development of repotrectinib. She previously served as senior vice president and chief medical officer for Adverum Biotechnologies, and before that as senior vice president and chief medical officer of Halozyme Therapeutics. Athena Countouriotis also served as chief medical officer of Ambit Biosciences, where she helped lead the company’s initial public offering and was responsible for the clinical development of quizartinib until the company’s acquisition by Daiichi Sankyo in November 2014. Earlier in her career, Athena Countouriotis led various clinical development organizations within Pfizer and Bristol-Myers Squibb for oncology therapeutics including Sutent®, Mylotarg™, Bosulif® and Sprycel®. Athena Countouriotis also serves on the board of directors of Trovagene and NuMedii. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, and an M.D. from Tufts University School of Medicine. She received her initial medical training in pediatrics at the University of California, Los Angeles, and additional training at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in the Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Program.
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About Turning Point Therapeutics: Turning Point Therapeutics is a structure-based drug design pharmaceutical company.
Paul Negulescu
Vice President of Vertex Pharmaceuticals
Paul Negulescu is the Senior Vice President and Site Head of San Diego Research. He’s been leading Vertex’s San Diego research location since 2003, the site that discovered Vertex’s medicines that treat the underlying cause of cystic fibrosis. Prior to joining Vertex, Dr. Negulescu was Senior Vice President of Discovery Biology and a member of the executive team at Aurora Biosciences. When Vertex acquired Aurora, he was responsible for integrating Aurora’s research into Vertex. Dr. Negulescu received both his B.S. and Ph.D. from U.C. Berkeley in Physiology and carried out post-doctoral work at U.C. Berkeley and U.C. Irvine in the areas of ion channel biophysics and immunology.
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About Vertex Pharmaceuticals: Vertex Pharmaceuticals is focused on the discovery and development of small molecule drugs for the treatment of serious diseases.
Steve James
President and Chief Executive Officer of Pionyr Immunotherapeutics
Steven James has 25 years of experience in the life sciences industry, including the creation and leadership of multiple companies. He is currently President and CEO of Pionyr Immunotherapeutics and was the President and CEO of Labrys Biologics from 2012 until it was acquired by Teva Pharmaceuticals in 2014. Prior to joining Labrys, Steven James was President and CEO of KAI Pharmaceuticals from 2004 until the company was acquired by Amgen in 2012. His previous positions have included Senior Vice President of Commercial Operations at Exelixis, Chief Business Officer at Sunesis Pharmaceuticals and VP of Business Development at Isis Pharmaceuticals (now Ionis). He began his career in new product planning at Eli Lilly. Steven James is Chairman of Antiva Biosciences, and a director of Chrono Therapeutics. He was formerly on the board of Cascadian Therapeutics (acquired by Seattle Genetics) and a past director of Ocera Therapeutics (acquired by Mallinckrodt). Steve holds a Masters in Management from the Kellogg School of Northwestern University and an undergraduate degree from Brown University.
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About Pionyr Immunotherapeutics: Pionyr Immunotherapeutics is a developer of cancer immunotherapies designed to target the tumor microenvironment.
Thomas Yuen
Chairman, President and CEO of PrimeGen Biotech
Tom Yuen is a proven serial entrepreneur who has founded several successful publicly traded companies including AST Research Inc. and SRS Labs, Inc. (NASDAQ: SRSL). Tom Yuen received his Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Irvine in 1974. Tom Yuen Has received many honors including: Director of the Year, Orange County Forum for Corporate Directors (1997), Top 25 Executives, Consumer Industry, Computer Reseller News Magazine (1991 & 1987), The UCI Medal (1990), The UCI Outstanding Engineering Alumni Award (1987), and The UCI Distinguished Alumnus Award (1986).
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About PrimeGen Biotech: PrimeGen Biotech is a privately held stem cell research company dedicated to optimizing the therapeutic potential of adult stem cells.
Tom Yuen
President & CEO of PrimeGen Biotech
Yuen is a proven serial entrepreneur who has founded several successful publicly traded companies including AST Research Inc. and SRS Labs, Inc. (NASDAQ: SRSL). Yuen received his Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Irvine in 1974. Yuen Has received many honors including: Director of the Year, Orange County Forum for Corporate Directors (1997), Top 25 Executives, Consumer Industry, Computer Reseller News Magazine (1991 & 1987), The UCI Medal (1990), The UCI Outstanding Engineering Alumni Award (1987), and The UCI Distinguished Alumnus Award (1986).
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About PrimeGen Biotech: PrimeGen Biotech is a privately held stem cell research company dedicated to optimizing the therapeutic potential of adult stem cells.
Glenn S. Boehnlein
Chief Financial Officer & Vice President of Stryker
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About Stryker: Stryker is a medical technology company that offers products and services in orthopaedics.
Shian-Jiun Shih
Vice President of Product Development of Tessa Therapeutics
Dr. Shih has over 20 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry, with strong expertise in biological drug development, including cell and gene therapy products and therapeutic proteins, with a focus on immunotherapy. Prior to joining Tessa, she was Director of Molecular Biomarkers and Site Lead of the Translational Medicine and Research Centre, Merck Sharp & Dohme. In that role, her group established non-human primate disease models and developed clinical biomarker assays to support early phase clinical trials, including those for Keytruda. Before that she was Director, Assay Development, Cell Genesys, Inc. She has also held various roles in Bayer, Aventis, and Applied Immune Sciences. Dr. Shih is Founding President of the Chinese Bioscience Association. She holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from University of Wisconsin at Madison and completed her post-doctoral training at the School of Medicine, Stanford University.
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About Tessa Therapeutics: Tessa Therapeutics is a provider of therapy designed to focus on T cell therapy for solid tumors.
Anish Bhatnagar
Chief Executive Officer, President & Chief Operating Officer of Soleno Therapeutics
Dr. Bhatnagar was appointed as our Chief Executive Officer in February 2014. Prior to that, he served as our President and Chief Operating Officer. Dr. Bhatnagar joined us in 2006, and has held positions of increasing responsibility since then. Dr. Bhatnagar is a physician with over 15 years of experience in the medical device and biopharmaceutical industries. His experience spans development of biologics, drugs, drug-device combinations and diagnostic as well as therapeutic medical devices. His prior experience includes working at Coulter Pharmaceuticals, Inc. from 1998 to 2000 and Titan Pharmaceuticals, Inc. from 2000 to 2006. He is the author of several peer-reviewed publications, abstracts and book chapters. He obtained his medical degree at SMS Medical College in Jaipur, India and completed his Residency and Fellowship training in the U.S. at various institutions, including Georgetown University Hospital and the University of Pennsylvania.
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About Soleno Therapeutics: Soleno Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company
Ivor Royston
CEO & President of Viracta Therapeutics
Ivor Royston is president & CEO, Viracta Therapeutics.
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About Viracta Therapeutics: Viracta Therapeutics is a precision oncology company focused on new treatment of virus-associated malignancies.
Heather A. Brown
Senior Vice President, Market Access & Reimbursement of HeartFlow
Dr. Brown brings 10 years of experience in advanced medical imaging product development and service. She has held leadership roles in multiple startups and drove the development of AAA stent graft and TAVR planning applications as well as novel methods of assessing cardiac wall mechanics. Dr. Brown developed the first Volumetric Medical Imaging college accredited program at Jefferson Community and Technical College in 2005. She holds six patents. She received her B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Michigan Technological University, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Biomedical Engineering from Vanderbilt University.
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About HeartFlow: HeartFlow is a medical technology company that provides new methods of diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular disease.
Juan Jaen
President & Co-Founder of Arcus Biosciences
Juan has been engaged in all aspects of drug discovery and development for more than 30 years. In 2015, he co-founded Arcus Biosciences together with Terry Rosen. Prior to that, he was co-founder and President/Head of R&D at Flexus Biosciences, until its acquisition by Bristol-Myers Squibb for $1.25 billion. Previously, he was Chief Scientific Officer and Senior Vice President of Drug Discovery at ChemoCentryx. During his tenure there of just under 7 years, Juan led the discovery and progression into the clinic of 8 novel drug candidates in the immunology space. At ChemoCentryx, Juan led the discovery efforts for the multi-year collaboration with GSK, which generated over $100M in non-dilutive milestones and fees. From 1996 to 2006, Juan held various scientific management positions at Tularik (responsible for about 100 scientists in Medicinal and Computational Chemistry, as well as Structural Biology) and then Amgen Inc. (after its acquisition of Tularik in 2004), most recently as Vice President of Chemistry. From 1983 to 1996, Juan held various scientific leadership positions at Parke-Davis/Warner-Lambert. Juan holds a Visiting Scholar appointment (ChEM-H) at Stanford University and is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board at Cleave Biosciences. Juan obtained a B.S. degree in Chemistry from Universidad Complutense in Madrid (Spain) and a Ph.D. degree in Organic Chemistry from the University of Michigan. He has co-authored over 100 scientific papers and is an inventor on 50 issued U.S. patents. Juan has been responsible for the advancement of over 20 novel molecules into clinical development for diseases including cancer, Alzheimer’s, Crohn’s, RA, diabetes and diabetic nephropathy, psoriasis, asthma, and vasculitis, among others.
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About Arcus Biosciences: Arcus Biosciences is a biopharmaceutical company that discovers, develops, and commercializes novel therapies for the treatment of cancer.
Lara Abbaschian
Vice President of Lightstone Ventures
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About Lightstone Ventures: Lightstone Ventures is a leading global venture capital firm.
Jennifer Carter
Vice President, Portfolio Development of McKesson Ventures
Jennifer Carter is the Vice President of Portfolio Development for McKesson Ventures. Jennifer works closely with portfolio companies to help identify and evaluate synergies across the McKesson ecosystem, which includes McKesson’s business units, customers and employee base. In addition, when these synergies create mutual value she helps facilitate efficient execution by acting as a liaison or project manager in order to ensure McKesson Ventures lives up to its value proposition. Jennifer brings over 15 years of experience from various roles across the McKesson enterprise. Jennifer holds a B.S. in Economics from Boston College. Although born and raised in San Francisco, Jennifer spends harvest season on the family farm cultivating pluots and disrupting the plum and apricot industries.
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About McKesson Ventures, McKesson Ventures: McKesson Ventures is a California-based venture capital that focuses on the healthcare industry.
Paul Grayson
President and CEO of Bird Rock Bio
Paul Grayson is the Partner at Versant Ventures.
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About AccessBioVentures, Bird Rock Bio, Tentarix Biotherapeutics: Bird Rock Bio is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing innovative immuno-inflammatory regulators.
Paul F. Truex
President & CEO, Director of Anthera Pharmaceuticals
Mr. Truex has served as Director, President and Chief Executive Officer since the inception of Anthera in 2004.He was responsible for negotiating Anthera’s product license for A-623, our anti-BAFF peptibody program from Amgen.Prior to founding Anthera Pharmaceuticals, Mr. Truex served as a Founder, Director, President and CEO of Peninsula Pharmaceuticals.During that time Mr. Truex raised over $81 million of institutional capital (including $21 million from a strategic partner) and negotiated both of Peninsula’s product agreements with Shionogi & Co., Ltd. (Doribax®, doripenem) and Takeda Chemical Industries (Teflaro®, ceftaroline). Peninsula was acquired by Johnson and Johnson in April of 2005 for $245 million in an all cash transaction.The remaining entity, Cerexa was subsequently acquired in 2006 for $480 million in cash.During his career, Mr. Truex has successfully raised over $150 million in venture investments and more than $500 million in various public and private equity and debt offerings including Anthera’s Initial Public Offering in 2010 and Versicor’s IPO in 2000.Mr. Truex has extensive experience in sales’ marketing and business development in several industries including pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, consumer electronics, and telecommunications.Prior to Peninsula, Mr. Truex was Vice President of Commercial Development for Versicor Incorporated (acquired by Pfizer) where he directed early commercial efforts for their infectious disease portfolio and participated in the company’s successful $55 million initial public offering.Prior to joining Versicor, Mr. Truex worked at Eli Lilly and Company where he served in various marketing and sales roles during the launch of three different products for the primary care physician market (Actos®’ Evista®’ and Humalog 75/25®). His business development experience includes the Lilly ICOS LLC joint venture’ two majorproduct divestitures and numerous small research collaborations. While there Mr. Truex also worked with several product teams on various divestiture strategies.Mr. Truex obtained his Masters of Business Administration in Marketing and Finance from Indiana University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from the University of Waterloo.Mr. Truex is a member of the Board of Directors of Trius Therapeutics, Milestone Pharmaceuticals and Waterloo Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
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About Anthera Pharmaceuticals: Anthera Pharmaceuticals is focused on developing products to treat diseases associated with inflammation and autoimmune diseases.
Curtis Scribner
Vice President, Regulatory of Eiger BioPharmaceuticals
Dr. Scribner has more than 25 years of drug development and regulatory affairs experience. He spent 11 years at the FDA in the Center for Biologics as a medical officer with wide experience reviewing non-clinical, CMC, clinical, and IND/BLA regulatory systems, including 2.5 years as the Deputy Director of the Office of Blood. He also was the Senior Regulatory Consultant for Quintiles Consulting, Chief Regulatory Office for Intarcia Therapeutics and he is now the Senior Vice President for Medical and Regulatory Affairs for RRD International. Dr. Scribner is a board certified Internist with post-doctorial training in Immunology and Rheumatology at the NIH.
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About Eiger BioPharmaceuticals, QED Therapeutics: Eiger is a biopharmaceutical company that develops new antiviral agents against novel targets in the treatment of hepatitis.
Kevin Kaster
Vice President, Patents and Licensing of Eiger BioPharmaceuticals
Kevin Kaster has 20 years of experience in biotechnology and large pharma with an established track record of developing effective patent and licensing strategies for important technologies and drug products.Kevin Kaster most recently served as Vice President Corporate Development for Threshold Pharmaceuticals, a public company focused on developing anti-cancer agents. Previously, Kaster was Vice President Intellectual Property for Kosan Biosciences, a public company acquired by BMS in 2008 with geldanamycin and epothilone anti-cancer agents. Kaster also previously managed the patent portfolios of Geron Corporation (telomerase and human embryonic stem cell technologies) and Affymax/Affymetrix (combinatorial chemistry and DNA chip technologies) as well as the PCR technology patent portfolio of Cetus Corporation. Kaster began his career at Eli Lilly and Company, first as a research scientist and then as a patent technician.Kevin Kaster is a graduate of the Indiana University School of Law and a graduate of Vanderbilt University with a BS in Chemistry and Molecular Biology.
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About Eiger BioPharmaceuticals, Lygos: Eiger is a biopharmaceutical company that develops new antiviral agents against novel targets in the treatment of hepatitis.
David Cory
President and Chief Executive Officer, Board Director of Eiger BioPharmaceuticals
David Cory is an entrepreneur and industry veteran with 25-years experience in large pharmaceuticals, emerging stage biotechnology, and specialty pharmaceutical organizations with an established track record of operational, transactional, and financial success.Mr. Cory is currently the President and CEO of Eiger BioPharmaceuticals since 2008. He is responsible for negotiating Eiger’s multiple product licenses from Merck and Astra Zeneca. Cory was previously President and Chief Operating Officer of Prestwick Pharmaceuticals, an Orphan CNS specialty pharmaceutical company, which was acquired by Biovail Pharmaceuticals for $160 million in 2008. Cory was Co-Founder and Chief Commercial Officer at CoTherix, an Orphan Pulmonary Hypertension company, which was acquired by Actelion for $425 million in 2006. Cory began his start up career as Senior Vice President of Commercial Operations at InterMune, a public biotechnology company focused on developing Orphan products for Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis. He was as a key executive in the InterMune IPO, building and managing the company’s commercial organization, in-licensing 4 products and raising over $400 million in the capital markets. Mr. Cory spent the first 12 years of his career in operating positions of increasing responsibility at The Upjohn Company, Glaxo, Glaxo Wellcome, and Glaxo Smith Kline leading teams in CNS, Critical Care, Oncology, Infectious Disease, and Respiratory therapeutic areas, where he directed 10 pharmaceutical product launches and the commercialization of 20 brands.David Cory is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati, College of Pharmacy, is board certified in Pharmacy, and holds a Masters Degree in Business Administration from the University of Maryland.
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About Eiger BioPharmaceuticals: Eiger is a biopharmaceutical company that develops new antiviral agents against novel targets in the treatment of hepatitis.
Shelly Xiong
Vice President, Regulatory Affairs of Eiger BioPharmaceuticals
Shelly Xiong has over 20 years of pharmaceutical industry experience in virology, clinical development, and regulatory affairs spanning Asia, Europe, and North America. Dr. Xiong most recently served as Director of Regulatory Affairs at InterMune where she was responsible for establishing and managing the product labeling function for European and Canadian commercialization and US labeling preparation for Esbriet NDA for Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis. Previously, she served as Director of China Operations at Covance in Shanghai, responsible for business strategy, client and goverment interactions. Dr. Xiong was at Gilead for 15 years, where she held positions in Clinical Virology and Regulatory Affairs, leading the clinical virology development program for Hepsera for HBV from Phase 2 through product approval. She was involved in multiple IND and NDA filings as well as commercial product labeling for antiviral programs in the US with FDA and in China with CFDA while at Gilead. Dr. Xiong has extensive experience in drug discovery and development in viral diseases including HBV, HCV, HIV, and CMV. She is an author on over 30 publications in scientific journals and publications. Dr. Xiong received her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from University of Wisconsin-Madison and B.S. in Chemistry from Beijing University.
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About Eiger BioPharmaceuticals: Eiger is a biopharmaceutical company that develops new antiviral agents against novel targets in the treatment of hepatitis.
Alex DePaoli
Chief Medical Officer and Vice President Translational Research of NGM Biopharmaceuticals
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About NGM Biopharmaceuticals, Sansum Diabetes Research Institute: NGM Biopharmaceuticals is a drug discovery company developing biotherapeutics for the gastrointestinal endocrine system.
William Brody
President of Salk Institute for Biological Studies
William Brody is the President of the Salk Institute.
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About National Academy of Engineering, Salk Institute for Biological Studies: Salk Institute for Biological Studies conducts research on molecular biology and genetics, neurosciences, and plant biology.
Rebecca Newman
Vice President of External Relations of Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Rebecca Newman joined the Salk Institute as the Vice President, External Relations in February 2008. Since her arrival, the Institute has enjoyed an annual net increase in event profits, a historic fundraising cycle and exciting new experiences with unique events such as Chihuly at the Salk, Step into Discovery, the Salk Science and Music Series and Symphony at Salk. In her oversight of fundraising programs, donor relations, and communications, the Institute’s visibility, awareness and community involvement have developed dramatically. In addition, Ms. Newman has led her team to increase private giving by approximately 40 percent over the last four years. She has overseen Salk’s first major fundraising campaign, with a goal of raising $300 million to support scientific research. Newman brings more than 25 years of financial endowment development and capital campaign experience from the business and nonprofit industries. She joined Salk after serving for seven years at the University of California, San Diego, as Associate Vice Chancellor, Development. In this role, she executed a historic conclusion of UCSD’s capital campaign by exceeding its $1 billion goal. She has a long history of volunteerism in the philanthropic community, serving as national president of the United Jewish Communities and National Chair for the United Jewish Appeal Women’s Campaign. Locally, she was campaign chair and president of the United Jewish Federation of San Diego, and a former board member of the Jewish Community Foundation and the San Diego National Bank Business Advisory Council. As a volunteer, she helped design, fund and implement welfare and relief programs in countries as diverse as Argentina, Cuba, Israel, and the republics of the former Soviet Union. A native of Chicago, Rebecca Newman has a bachelor’s degree in history and political science from the University of Michigan.
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About Salk Institute for Biological Studies: Salk Institute for Biological Studies conducts research on molecular biology and genetics, neurosciences, and plant biology.
Kim Witmer
Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer of Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Kim Witmer is Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of the Salk Institute. She oversees all financial activities of the Salk, including financial reporting and treasury functions, research accounting, annual budgets, procurement, grants administration and endowment/investment management. Prior to joining the Salk, Witmer worked for the international accounting firm of Deloitte & Touche. Witmer also acts as past President of AIRI, the Association of Independent Research Institutes, as well as serving on AIRI’s Board of Directors and Government Affairs Committee. AIRI brings together nearly 100 independent, not-for-profit biomedical and behavioral research institutes whose mission is to enhance the ability of its members to improve human health and advance knowledge. Additionally, Witmer served as the Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine (SCRM), and currently holds a position on SCRM’s Administrative Council as the Salk representative. She is a Certified Public Accountant and holds a B.S. in business administration from San Diego State University.
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About Salk Institute for Biological Studies: Salk Institute for Biological Studies conducts research on molecular biology and genetics, neurosciences, and plant biology.
Jennefer Collins
Vice President of Academic & Administrative Services of Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Jennefer Collins is Vice President of Academic and Administrative Services at the Salk Institute. She is responsible for the education outreach programs, human resources, academic program management including immigration and postdoctoral services, and graduate education affiliate programs, business information systems, and the Salk library. Prior to joining the Salk Institute in 2008, she served in higher education and health care administration, most recently as Assistant Vice Chancellor, Academic Affairs at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). Additional positions held include Executive Officer, Biological Sciences at UCSD, and Director of Financial Affairs at the University of Southern California (USC), School of Dentistry. Ms. Collins has received many awards and honors, including awards honoring excellence in Academic Program Management at UCSD, and the Associated Student Body Award for Outstanding Service at USC. She has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern California.
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About Salk Institute for Biological Studies, University of California, San Diego: Salk Institute for Biological Studies conducts research on molecular biology and genetics, neurosciences, and plant biology.
Susan M. Kanaya
Senior Vice President, Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Secretary of ChemoCentryx
Ms. Susan M. Kanaya has served as our Senior Vice President, Finance, and Chief Financial Officer since January 2006, and Secretary since February 2006. Prior to joining us, Ms. Kanaya served as Senior Vice President, Finance, and Chief Financial Officer at Kosan Biosciences Inc., a biotechnology company, from 1999 to 2005. Prior to this, she served in financial management positions at SUGEN, Inc., a biotechnology company, from 1994 to 1999, most recently as Vice President, Finance, and Treasurer. Ms. Kanaya also served as Controller with high technology companies and as a public accountant with KPMG. Ms. Kanaya received her B.S. in business administration from the University of California, Berkeley.
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About ChemoCentryx: ChemoCentryx develops orally administered small molecule therapeutics that target chemokine receptors and related chemo-attractants.
Ashutosh Singhal
Co-Founder and President of Benchling
Ashutosh Singhal previously worked on Twitter Ads and founded hotspots.io. Singhal studied Computer Science and Math at MIT and did research in optogenetics and functional genomics. He loves distance running and IPAs.
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About Benchling: Benchling is a cloud-based software platform for biology researchers and research and development organizations.
Sofie Qiao
President and Chief Executive Officer of Vivace Therapeutics
Dr. Qiao is the founding president and CEO of Vivace Therapeutics & Virtuoso Therapeutics.
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About Virtuoso Therapeutics, Vivace Therapeutics, WuXi Healthcare Ventures: Vivace Therapeutics is a venture-backed start-up dedicated to discovering and developing cancer therapeutics by targeting a novel pathway.
Brian Sohmers
Vice President of Products of Apeel Sciences
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About Apeel Sciences: Apeel Sciences develops plant-derived shelf life extension technology for fresh produce that improves quality and reduces food waste.
Michael Groeninger
Vice President, Corporate Finance of Apeel Sciences
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About Apeel Sciences: Apeel Sciences develops plant-derived shelf life extension technology for fresh produce that improves quality and reduces food waste.
Erich Klawuhn
Senior Vice President of Product of Apeel Sciences
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About Apeel Sciences, View: Apeel Sciences develops plant-derived shelf life extension technology for fresh produce that improves quality and reduces food waste.
C. Geoffrey Davis
President and CSO of Angiocrine Bioscience
C. Geoffrey Davis is the President and CSO of Angiocrine Bioscience, Inc.
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About Angelica Therapeutics, Angiocrine Bioscience, Moerae Matrix: Angiocrine Bioscience develops a cellular platform to amplify stem and progenitor cells in both human and mouse models.
Alan H. Auerbach
Chief Executive Officer & President of Puma Biotechnology
Auerbach is the Founder, President, and CEO of Puma Biotechnology, a company dedicated to in-licensing and developing drugs for the treatment of cancer. Previously, he founded Cougar Biotechnology and served as the company’s President and CEO until the company’s acquisition by Johnson & Johnson in 2009. Following the acquisition, Mr. Auerbach served as the Co-Chairman of the Integration Steering Committee at Cougar that provided leadership and oversight for the development and global commercialization of Cougar’s lead product candidate, abiraterone acetate, for the treatment of advanced prostate cancer. Prior to founding Cougar, Mr. Auerbach was a Vice President, Senior Research Analyst at Wells Fargo Securities, where he was responsible for research coverage of small- and middle- capitalization biotechnology companies, with a focus on oncology. He had primary responsibility for technical, scientific, and clinical due diligence as well as selection of biotechnology companies followed by the company. Prior to that, Mr. Auerbach was a Vice President, Research Analyst at the Seidler Companies, where he was responsible for research coverage of small-capitalization biotechnology companies. Previous to his work as a biotechnology analyst, Mr. Auerbach worked for Diagnostic Products Corporation, where he designed and implemented clinical trials in the field of oncology. Mr. Auerbach received a BS in Biomedical Engineering from Boston University and an MS in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Southern California.
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About Innovative Acquisitions, Puma Biotechnology: Puma Biotechnology acquires and develops innovative products for the treatment of various forms of cancer.
Charles Eyler
Senior Vice President, Finance and Administration and Treasurer of Puma Biotechnology
Mr. Eyler has served as our Senior Vice President, Finance and Administration and Treasurer since the closing of the Merger on October 4, 2011 and, prior to the Merger, served in such capacity at Puma since September 2011. Prior to joining Puma, Mr. Eyler served as Vice President of Finance at Cougar Biotechnology, Inc. from August 2004 until July 2009 when Cougar was acquired by Johnson & Johnson. He also served as the Treasurer of Cougar from April 2006 to July 2009. From July 2009 until March 2010, Mr. Eyler served on the Cougar Integration Committee and oversaw the integration of Cougar’s finance and IT functions with those of Johnson & Johnson. Prior to joining Cougar, Mr. Eyler served as Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer of Hayes Medical Inc. from March 1999 to January 2004. Mr. Eyler received his B.S. from Drexel University and his M.B.A. from Saint Francis College.
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About Puma Biotechnology: Puma Biotechnology acquires and develops innovative products for the treatment of various forms of cancer.
Marshall Fordyce
Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of Vera Therapeutics
Marshall Fordyce, MD is Co-founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of Trucode. He brings more than 10 years of experience leading teams in drug discovery, development, clinical translation, and commercialization. Prior to founding Trucode, he was an entrepreneur in residence at Kleiner Perkins. Previously, Dr. Fordyce served as Senior Director of Clinical Research at Gilead Sciences, where he contributed to seven new drug approvals and served as Project Lead for Gilead’s highly successful TAF/GENVOYA development program. With subspecialty training in infectious disease from Columbia P&S, Dr. Fordyce was previously Chief Resident at NYU Bellevue and spent two years as translational research fellow at Rockefeller University. Dr. Fordyce has been an advisor to Google X and to several private biotech companies. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation. He received his BA from Harvard University and his MD from Harvard Medical School.
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About Vera Therapeutics: Vera Therapeutics is a biotechnology company developing innovative biologic therapeutics with transformative clinical potential.
Farzad Azimpour
Vice President, Strategic Innovation, Advanced Technology of Edwards Lifesciences
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About Edwards Lifesciences, Stanford University, Stanford University School of Medicine: Edwards Lifesciences is the global leader in the science of heart valves and hemodynamic monitoring.
Rolf Ehrhardt
Co-Founder , President and Chief Executive Officer of BioCision
Dr. Rolf Ehrhardt co-founded BioCision in 2007, after more than 25 years of experience in leadership and innovation in medical research and product development. Prior to growing BioCision into the leading provider of temperature-sensitive sample and drug handling solutions, he was responsible for the early (phase 1a) clinical development of a novel HCV protease inhibitor at Intermune. Before that, Dr. Ehrhardt was the vice president of preclinical development at Corgentech. He was the founding president of BioSeek, where he raised close to $20 million in private financing. Prior to founding BioSeek, Dr. Ehrhardt led a scientific group focused on new target discovery and immuno-therapeutics development at Protein Design Labs (now PDL BioPharma Inc.). Dr. Ehrhardt was a Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG: German Research Foundation) and Fogarty Fellow at the National Institutes of Health, where his focus was on mucosal immunology and inflammatory bowel disease. He has authored more than 40 peer reviewed publications and holds multiple patents. Dr. Ehrhardt earned his M.D. and Ph.D. with distinction from the Technical University of Munich, Germany.
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About BioCision: BioCision develops laboratory tools to standardize pre-analytical sample handling, cryopreservation, and storage.
Satnam Alag
Senior Vice President Software Engineering and Chief Security Officer of Grail
Dr. Alag is a software professional with over fifteen years of commercial software development and management experience, with over twenty years of experience in machine learning and search areas. His expertise is in Big Data technologies, building large-scale multi-tenant SaaS applications, applying intelligence and personalization to Web 2.0 applications, SOA and J2EE architectures, delivering high-quality software, and building high performing engineering teams. He is currently the CTO and VP of Engineering at NextBio. NextBio is a data-driven engine, which is at the intersection of Big Data and genomics. At NextBio, he leads a team that mines billions and billions of data points using the Hadoop stack and commodity hardware. Prior to joining NextBio, he worked as a consultant with Johnson and Johnson’s BabyCenter where he helped develop their personalization engine. Prior to that, he was the Chief Software Architect and Dir. of Application Engineering at Rearden Commerce. He began his career at GE R&D and has held senior technical and management positions at Computing Technologies International and Black Pearl. Satnam is a Sun Certified Enterprise Architect (SCEA) for the Java platform. His doctoral dissertation from the University of California, Berkeley was in the area of probabilistic reasoning and machine learning. He has a number of peer-reviewed publications, holds five patents. He is the author of the book “Collective Intelligence in Action”.
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About Grail, Zenufa Laboratories: Grail develops a pan-cancer screening test designed to detect cancers at an early stage.
Poonam Taneja
Vice President, Japan, Korea, India, Global Distribution of Molecular Devices
Poonam started in her current role in July 2010. From 2006 to 2010, Poonam held the position of Director, Global Distribution and was responsible for the company’s business in India, South East Asia, Middle East, Russia, Eastern Europe and Latin America. Poonam’s previous positions include Director of International Sales at Arcturus Bioscience and Alpha Innotech Corporation. Previously, Poonam held research positions in Italy, Germany and the US in molecular and cellular biology. Poonam holds a Doctorate in Chemistry from Delhi University and an MBA from Vanderbilt University.
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About Molecular Devices: Bioanalytical Systems and Solutions
Greg Milosevich
President of Molecular Devices
Greg was appointed President of Molecular Devices in January 2015 and has been with the firm since April of 2006. From January 2013 until December 2014, Greg was the Vice President & General Manager for Global Commercial Operations and from 2010 through 2012 he served as Vice President & General Manager for Western Markets. From 2007 thru 2010, he served as Vice President of Sales and Service, Americas after joining Molecular Devices in 2006 as the Vice President of Sales and Service for Emerging Markets. Previously, Greg was Vice President of Global Sales & Service at Arcturus Bioscience, Vice President of Sales & Marketing at Alpha Innotech Corporation and US Sales Manager at Ultra Violet Products. Greg holds a BS in Physics, graduating Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Puget Sound.
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About Molecular Devices: Bioanalytical Systems and Solutions
Susan Murphy
Vice President, Western Markets of Molecular Devices
As Vice President of Sales, Western Markets, Susan is responsible for Molecular Devices business in North America, Europe and Brazil. She joined Molecular Devices in 2002 and held positions in both the Life Science and Drug Discovery Sales Organizations. She moved into Sales Management in 2007, progressing through a series of sales management roles with increasing commercial responsibility. Prior to Molecular Devices, Susan worked at PerkinElmer and Packard BioSciences. She also held multiple research positions at: Penn State Medical School, University of Chicago, Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratories, and Lake Forest College. Susan graduated with a BA in Biology from Lake Forest College, IL and completed graduate coursework at University of Illinois at Chicago in the Molecular, Cell & Developmental Biology Program.
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About Molecular Devices: Bioanalytical Systems and Solutions
Shawn Laymon
Vice President and General Manager, Global Services of Molecular Devices
Shawn started in his current role in January 2013. Shawn joined Molecular Devices in June 2011 as the Senior Director and General Manager, Americas Service. Prior to joining Molecular Devices, Shawn held a number of leadership roles at PerkinElmer, most recently as Senior Director of Corporate Strategy and Senior Director of Marketing, Strategy, and Mergers & Acquisitions for their OneSource Laboratory Services Business. Shawn holds a BS in Political Science from Framingham State University.
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About Molecular Devices: Bioanalytical Systems and Solutions
Bart Sanford
Vice President, Global Operations of Molecular Devices
Bart joined Molecular Devices as Vice President of Global Operations in October 2010. Bart began his career at Danaher in 2000 as a Materials Manager at Fluke Corporation in Everett, WA. He held several manufacturing jobs and was named Plant Manager of the Fluke site Everett in 2006. In 2009, Bart joined the corporate Danaher Business System Office as a DBS Director. Prior to joining Danaher, Bart worked in Operations at The Dow Chemical Company. He holds a BA in Supply Chain Management from Michigan State University, and an MBA from Central Michigan University.
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About Molecular Devices: Bioanalytical Systems and Solutions
Martyn Ansell
Chief Financial Officer and Vice President, Finance of Molecular Devices
Martyn joined Molecular Devices in June 2012 as Vice President, Finance. Prior to joining Molecular Devices he was Chief Financial Officer of Vistec Semiconductor Systems, a global leader in the development and manufacture of electron-beam lithography equipment for the semiconductor industry. Prior to joining Vistec, Martyn spent over 12 years at Applied Materials, a manufacturer of semiconductor equipment, where he held a number of senior financial management positions in business development and within several product divisions. In addition, he has held positions at Coopers & Lybrand, in San Jose, California and Ernst & Young in the U.K. Martyn received a BA in Accounting and Finance with Honors from the Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, England and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
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About Molecular Devices: Bioanalytical Systems and Solutions
Tao Fu
President, COO & Director of Zai Lab
Tao Fu has been our President & Chief Operating Officer since September 2018. Prior to joining Zai Lab, he worked with Portola Pharmaceuticals, where he served as Executive Vice President, Chief Commercial and Business Officer, responsible for commercial operations, marketing, sales and business development functions. Prior to joining Portola in June 2015, Tao was Vice President and Head of Mergers & Acquisitions and Alliance Management at Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS). At BMS, he was responsible for the company’s corporate development, alliance management and venture activities. Between 2003 and 2014, he held several leadership positions with increasing responsibilities at Janssen, the pharmaceuticals group of Johnson & Johnson, most recently as Vice President, Business Development, where he led global M&A activities. He also has experience in business development, commercial strategy and management consulting with McKinsey & Company, Becton Dickinson, etc. Tao holds an M.S. in biology from the University of Rochester and an M.B.A in finance and marketing from Vanderbilt University. He did his undergraduate studies in biology at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China and is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA).
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About Zai Lab: Zai Lab brings transformative medicines for cancer, autoimmune, and infectious diseases to patients in China and around the world.
Laura Hix Glickman
Vice President, Research & Cofounder of Actym Therapeutics, Inc.
Glickman, an inventor of Actym’s core technology, has over 20 years of experience working in the immuno-oncology and infectious disease fields. Dr. Glickman is a trained cancer immunologist, and was previously the lead scientist at Aduro Biotech (NASDAQ:ADRO), where she initiated studies on the STING program. Her seminal studies with STING agonists let to the development of ADU-S100, of which Dr. Glickman is a co-inventor. ADU-S100 is now in clinical development, and is being tested alone and in combination with an anti PD-1 antibody for the treatment of advanced malignancies. ADU-S100 was the subject of a $750 MM ($250 MM upfront) strategic co-development alliance between Aduro and Novartis, where Dr. Glickman served as the lead Aduro scientist on the joint development team. Dr. Glickman was co-first author on the seminal journal article describing the unprecedented potency of STING agonists in pre-clinical tumor models, as well as co-authoring several additional STING papers. Before Aduro, Dr. Glickman held scientific roles at Catalyst Biosciences (NASDAQ:CBIO), where she constructed Catalyst’s lead hemostasis compound Factor VIIa marzeptacog alfa, currently in Phase II clinical development, and developed core technology in multiple bacterial, yeast and mammalian platforms. At Hawaii Biotech, she constructed the recombinant subunit West Nile vaccine and early development of the Dengue Vaccine, now licensed to Merck. She was also co-inventor of CDX-085, a novel carotenoid derivative for treatment of cardiac disease and cancer, now in clinical development, which led to the spinning out of Cardax Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:CDXI) from Hawaii Biotech. Dr. Glickman has multiple years of academic research experience at UCSF and LBNL in infectious disease, molecular biology and genetics, including early work on utilizing transgenic mice to elucidate immune pathways, and researching poliovirus vaccine vectors for HIV and cancer. Prior to that, she performed gene mapping studies for the Human Genome Project at LLNL. Dr. Glickman has 13 patents and 20 publications, as well as having filed two successful INDs. She studied Molecular and Cell Biology (double major with Psychology) at UC Berkeley, and has a Ph.D. in Cancer Immunology from Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.
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About Actym Therapeutics, Inc.: Actym Therapeutics is a privately-held biotech focused on the discovery and development of novel immuno-oncology therapies to treat cancer.
Christopher Thanos
President, CEO, and Cofounder of Actym Therapeutics, Inc.
Christopher Thanos is an inventor of Actym’s core technology, has 18 of years of biotechnology industry experience. Previously, he was appointed Head of Biotherapeutics Discovery at Halozyme (NASDAQ: HALO), leading Immunology, Cell Biology, Protein Engineering and Production efforts to populate HALO’s oncology pipeline. Dr. Thanos is the lead inventor of PEG-ADA2 (US Patent 9,969,998), a checkpoint inhibitor that targets immuno-suppressive adenosine, currently in candidate nomination studies. Translational I/O studies from Dr. Thanos’ group on HALO’s PEG-PH20® therapeutic candidate (Phase III, pancreatic cancer) led to a broad strategic alliance between Halozyme and Genentech to study a combination between Tecentriq® (anti-PDL1) and PEG-PH20® in the clinic across 8 solid tumor types. Dr. Thanos’ group also developed an IDE-approved companion diagnostic currently being used in a global phase 3 pancreatic cancer trial. Before HALO, Dr. Thanos was Head of Protein Engineering at Sutro Biopharma (Nasdaq:STRO). Dr. Thanos is a named inventor on nine issued US patents assigned to Sutro, and is the lead inventor of core platform technology used by both Sutro Biopharma and SutroVax Inc. (US Patent 9,650,621). Prior to that, Dr. Thanos co-founded Catalyst Biosciences (NASDAQ:CBIO), where he participated in raising venture capital, and helped to establish the company’s technology platform. He is a co-inventor of Factor VIIa marzeptacog alfa, currently in Phase II/III clinical trials (purchased by Wyeth/Pfizer, garnering $41.2 million in milestones), Factor IX CB2679d/ISU304, currently in Phase I/II trials, and Factor Xa, currently in pre-clinical development. Dr. Thanos also devoted significant effort to establishing Catalyst’s directed evolution-based, protein engineering platform. Earlier in his career, Dr. Thanos was a National Cancer Institute Postdoctoral Fellow under Professor Jim Wells at UCSF and Sunesis (NASDAQ:SNSS). He earned a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from UCLA where he was an NIH Chemistry / Biology Interface Predoctoral Fellow. At UCLA, Dr. Thanos discovered the atomic structure and binding mode of SAM domains- one of the most common protein modules found in eukaryotic cells, work which was prominently featured in Science Magazine. He is a named inventor on 17 issued and multiple pending patent applications in the area of biological and cellular therapeutics and a first author of several peer-reviewed articles in top tier journals. As a recognized thought leader in the field, Dr. Thanos is frequently called upon to present as an invited speaker, workshop leader, and conference chairman at international scientific conferences focused on biological therapeutics to treat cancer.
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About Actym Therapeutics, Inc.: Actym Therapeutics is a privately-held biotech focused on the discovery and development of novel immuno-oncology therapies to treat cancer.
Andy Doraiswamy
President/CEO of Koya Medical
Andy is currently focused on advancing health and human life. He brings innovative teams together to ideate and transform healthcare. He is the founder and CEO of Koya Medical, a team dedicated to transforming chronic lymphatic and venous disease. He also serves as Chairman and board director with an eye-care and urology health venture. Previously, he led Oculeve, a first-in-class health venture funded by NEA, Kleiner Perkins, and Versant to treat ocular disorders with a revolutionary neuromodulation platform. The company was acquired by Allergan Plc. Prior to this, Andy invented sight-restoring intraocular implants, that have given sight to more than 6 million humans across the globe. This technology was acquired by Santen Pharmaceuticals and licensed to Bausch & Lomb (marketed as envista IOL). He received his Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the School of Medicine at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, M.S. in materials science and engineering from University of Arizona, and Bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from University of Madras. He has numerous patents and publications in healthcare innovation. Additionally, Andy enjoys the benefits of meditation & the thrills and agonies of high-altitude mountaineering. He is on a quest to climb the tallest mountains in the world, though this has temporarily taken a back-seat to focus on healthcare. He is actively learning to master the mridangam and enjoys restoring and riding vintage motorcycles.
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About : Koya Medical is a transformative healthcare company developing breakthrough treatments for lymphedema and venous diseases.
Scott Patterson
Vice President, Biomarker Sciences of Gilead Sciences
Scott Patterson, PhD, is Vice President, Biomarker Sciences in the R&D organization at Gilead Sciences, Inc, where he is responsible for development and implementation of biomarker and diagnostic strategies across all the company’s therapeutic areas.
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About Gilead Sciences: Gilead Sciences is a biopharmaceutical company that discovers, develops, manufactures and commercializes therapies for critical diseases.
Kevin Young
Executive Vice President, Commercial Operations of Gilead Sciences
Kevin Young joined Gilead Sciences in 2004 as Executive Vice President of Commercial Operations. Mr. Young is a 29-year veteran of the biopharmaceutical industry, with a career that spans a variety of therapeutic categories including cardiology, oncology, rheumatology, hepatitis and HIV/AIDS. He previously held positions at Amgen, Inc. and AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals (formerly ICI Pharmaceuticals). During his 12 years at Amgen, Mr. Young held a number of positions in Europe and the United States, most recently as Head of the U.S. Inflammation Business Unit leading the re-launch of Enbrel® following the acquisition of Immunex Corporation. In 2011, Mr. Young was appointed Commander of The British Empire, one of Great Britain’s highest civilian honors, in recognition of his service to the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries. Mr. Young has undergraduate and graduate degrees in Sports Science and Exercise from Liverpool John Moores University and Nottingham University in England and has completed the Executive Program at the University of Michigan.
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About Gilead Sciences: Gilead Sciences is a biopharmaceutical company that discovers, develops, manufactures and commercializes therapies for critical diseases.
Ahmed Afifi
Vice President – Region Head Latin America of Gilead Sciences
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About Gilead Sciences: Gilead Sciences is a biopharmaceutical company that discovers, develops, manufactures and commercializes therapies for critical diseases.
Joseph Payne
Founder, President & CEO of Arcturus Therapeutics
Joseph E. Payne, is Founder, President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board for Arcturus Therapeutics, Inc. He brings with him an exceptional track record of ushering novel therapeutics to the clinic including successful experience developing sophisticated targeted RNAi nanoparticle technologies. Joseph’s background includes over 20 years of successful drug discovery experience at Merck Research Labs, DuPont Pharmaceuticals, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Kalypsys, and Nitto Denko as evidenced by over 40 publications and patents, and 7 FDA-approved IND clinical candidates.
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About Arcturus Therapeutics: Arcturus Therapeutics focuses on developing novel RNA therapeutics for the treatment of various diseases aiming at Rare Diseases.
Ted W. Love
President & CEO of Global Blood Therapeutics
Ted Love is the President & CEO at Global Blood Therapeutics.
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About Global Blood Therapeutics, Global Blood Therapeutics: GBT is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing its lead product candidate, voxelotor, as a therapy for sickle cell disease.
