Our Company

Before joining Vera, Mr. Young was Senior Vice President of Finance at Plexxikon Inc., where he served in positions of increasing responsibility during a 14-year tenure and led the accounting and finance operations supporting the company’s sale to Daiichi Sankyo for nearly $1 billion in 2011. Post-merger, he continued to oversee accounting and finance, as well as other business functions for Plexxikon, and was a member of the management team during a period in which two of the company’s drugs were approved and launched in oncology indications. Prior to Plexxikon, Mr. Young was a member of the finance teams at Cerus Corporation (Nasdaq: CERS) and VaxGen, Inc. Mr. Young began his career as an auditor for Ernst & Young LLP.

He received an MBA from UC Berkeley, Haas School of Business, and a BA from UCLA. He is a certified public accountant (inactive status).

Dr. Ebens has 28 years of experience in the biotech industry, primarily in oncology and immunology. He has advanced programs across many modalities including small molecule therapies, antibodies, antibody-drug conjugates, T cell recruiting bispecific antibodies, and cellular therapies, and has taken 12 molecules to clinical testing with 2 approvals to date. Dr. Ebens was an early employee at Exelixis, spent a dozen years at Genentech where he led both ADC and Immune Oncology Research portfolios, and has worked at a host of other small and mid-sized companies including Juno Tx, NGM Bio, and Adanate. His formal training is in Chemistry (University of Washington) and Molecular Genetics (UCLA).

Dr. Mix is a highly experienced biopharmaceutical executive, physician-scientist and nephrologist with over 20 years in industry. He has held leadership roles in clinical development and pharmacovigilance, managing both pipeline and marketed products. Over his career, Dr. Mix has excelled in creating value via the development of new compounds, achieving critical milestones, and collaborating with scientific teams and external stakeholders. His expertise includes planning and executing clinical studies, interacting with regulatory authorities, and leading global, and regional teams. He has worked at a number of successful biotechnology companies, including Dyne Therapeutics, Agios Pharmaceuticals, Sarepta Therapeutics, Alexion Pharmaceuticals, and Amgen, where he led various clinical development programs and pharmacovigilance teams. Dr. Mix received a BA from Haverford College, and he obtained his MD from the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He then served as a medical resident and chief resident at Tufts Medical Center. Dr. Mix completed his clinical nephrology fellowship at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and a research fellowship in nephrology with an MS degree at Tufts Medical Center and the Tufts School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences.

Matt Skelton is a seasoned biotech leader with extensive experience in driving global commercialization processes from development stages to successful launches. At Seagen, he scaled the commercial organization from a team of 9 to over 100, leading three successful product launches. His expertise spans global marketing, sales operations, market research, and forecasting, with a proven ability to lead cross-functional teams and develop strategic commercial plans. Prior to Seagen, Mr. Skelton held senior roles at Amgen, overseeing marketing and sales teams, and leading major product launches. He started his career at Eli Lilly as a sales representative. Matt holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from DePauw University.

Gary Barrera has over 25 years of experience in global Commercial and Clinical Quality and Regulatory Affairs with increasing levels of responsibility at large pharma (Bayer, Genentech, Boehringer Ingelheim) and mid/small (Theravance Biopharma, Allakos, Kinevant) most recently serving as a Senior Vice President. Mr. Barrera’s professional interests are learning the biotech and pharma business and improving execution on a corporate level. He is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley and holds an MBA from Saint Mary’s College of California.

Julien E. Capers serves as Vera Therapeutics’ Senior Vice President, Legal. He brings nearly 15 years of experience in healthcare and legal services to this role, where he oversees Vera’s global legal function, including corporate governance, strategic transactions, compliance, development, and management of Vera’s intellectual property portfolio.

Prior to joining Vera Therapeutics, Mr. Capers served as Assistant General Counsel at Zogenix, Inc., where he was responsible for all of commercial and corporate legal in the United States and Japan, and actively contributed to the transaction selling Zogenix to UCB Biosciences in 2022.  Prior to his time at Zogenix, Mr. Capers served as Associate General Counsel for Establishment Labs Holdings, Inc., a multi-national medical device company. Mr. Capers began his in-house legal career as corporate counsel at CareDx. Previously, he practiced law at the international firm of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, focusing on intellectual property and technology transactions in the life sciences industry, and at Bryan Cave, focusing on commercial litigation.

Prior to law school, Mr. Capers worked at the industry-leading consulting firms, The Zitter Group (acquired by Managed Markets Insight & Technology) and Defined Health (now part of Lumanity), providing managed markets and business development strategy services to life sciences clients.

Mr. Capers received his BS from Stanford University and JD from UC Davis School of Law.

Dr. Cooper brings nearly 40 years of experience in nephrology across a variety of senior positions within industry, clinical practice and academia. He has led medical affairs strategies for drug development programs in chronic kidney disease (CKD), hyperparathyroidism, hyperkalemia and other renal conditions. Over twelve years, he served in leadership roles in medical affairs at several leading pharmaceutical companies, including AstraZeneca and Amgen, where he served as Global Medical Affairs Leader for Nephrology. He joins Vera from ProKidney, where he led the development of the medical affairs function.

Dr. Cooper received his medical degree from Yale University and completed his residency and fellowship in nephrology at Yale’s New Haven Hospital. He previously served as an Associate Professor of Medicine at Yale University earlier in his career before transitioning to clinical practice and later industry roles. He has published numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals and has presented at national and international conferences.

Mr. Doan joins Vera from Gilead Sciences, Inc., where he most recently served as Executive Director, Clinical Operations Head of the Inflammation/Respiratory Therapeutic Area providing oversight to a pipeline of eight molecules in development from proof-of-concept to pivotal trial programs.

During his 13-year tenure at Gilead, Doan worked across three therapeutic areas, assuming lead roles in clinical development programs including several that led to successful global market filings for Stribild, Complera, Sovaldi, Epclusa and filgotinib.

Before Gilead, Doan led development and post-marketing solid tumor clinical studies at Genentech for Avastin.

Early in his career, he worked at CROs where he developed a strong knowledge of the clinical trial services industry.

Dr. Pakala brings to Vera more than 20 years of experience in pharmaceutical development, strategic sourcing, global supply chain management, and regulatory submissions / negotiations leading to commercial launch of innovative medicinal products in the US and international markets.

Prior to Joining Vera, Dr. Pakala served as the VP of Product Development and Manufacturing at Aimmune Therapeutics (a Nestle Health Science Company) where he led the development of their diversified portfolio including recombinant biologics, natural biologics, and peptide-based microbiome products.  During his 7-year tenure at Aimmune, Dr. Pakala played a critical role in developing the CMC / Technical Operations team, establishing supply chains, and process scale-up / validation resulting in successful launch of Palforzia^TM in the US and European markets.

Prior to Aimmune, Dr. Pakala spent 6 years at Alexza Pharmaceuticals culminating as their Executive Director of Manufacturing and Engineering. Responsibilities at Alexza included manufacturing (internal operations and CMO sites), capacity expansions, supplier sourcing, supply chain management, regulatory submissions, and early-stage product development.  During this time, Dr. Pakala has played a substantial role in resolving supply and scale-up issues enabling US and international approval of Adasuve^TM product.

Dr. Pakala’s earlier career included process/product development roles at Nanogram, Nektar Therapeutics, Aclara Biosciences, Aradigm Corporation and Roche Diagnostic.  He received his PhD in Engineering Science from The University of Toledo, OH, and an MBA from San Jose State University, CA.

Dr. Zhong brings more than 25 years of experience as a clinical trial biostatistician. As Senior Vice President and Head of Biometrics, he builds a fully functioning biometrics team to support Vera’s drug development programs.

Prior to joining Vera, Dr. Zhong served as the Vice President and Head of Biometrics at Brii Biosciences, where he established the company’s biometrics team operating in both the US and China.

Prior to Brii, Dr. Zhong spent 20 years at Gilead Sciences, where he most recently served as an Executive Director, Biostatistics Head of the Antiviral Therapeutic Area overseeing biostatistics activities in HBV, HCV, HDV, HIV, and COVID-19 clinical trials. Dr. Zhong contributed to the commercialization of more than 20 anti-viral drugs at Gilead. Dr. Zhong holds a PhD in Biostatistics and Epidemiology from McGill University, an MBA from Golden Gate University and received a Bachelor of Medicine degree from Shanghai Fudan University.

Anup Anajpure has over two decades of experience in Commercial Operations and Strategy in the biotech industry. His recent experience was with Crinetics, where he led Commercial Operations to advance the company’s pipeline products and build capabilities for the company’s first launch. Prior to that, Mr. Anajpure worked at Zogenix (now UCB), Amgen and J&J Medical Devices across various roles within commercial. He also has an extensive background in consulting before transitioning to industry.

Anajpure has an engineering degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai and advanced degrees from Penn State University (MS) and UC Berkeley (MBA).

Debra Charlesworth is an energetic and passionate leader with more than 20 years of experience successfully building, positioning, and protecting brands. She believes that companies should communicate with heart and soul to support business objectives. She loves to share stories about patients and the breakthrough medicines that can change the course of their diseases. She has a track record of leading and building robust communications functions from the ground up during exponential company growth.

Most recently, Ms. Charlesworth was Vice President, Corporate Communications at BioMarin, when the company grew from $550 million to almost $2.5 billion in revenues. During her time there, she led successful communications for five product launches.  She oversaw executive communications, R&D and product communications, corporate brand and messaging, media relations, crisis communications, employee engagement, digital communications, community relations, and change communications.

Ms. Charlesworth has held executive roles at Genentech and Pfizer (Pharmacia before being acquired).  She previously spent almost 10 years at the global public relations firm, Burson-Marsteller, in their New York and London offices.  Ms. Charlesworth received her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Notre Dame and a Master of Arts from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

Ed DePaz has over three decades of experience in Market Access and Strategy in the biotech industry. His most recent experience was with Corium where he led Market Access in preparation for the company’s first product launch. He built the Market Access capabilities that led to a successful launch.  Prior to that, Mr. DePaz worked at Shire, Takeda, and Abbott across Market Access and Sales roles.

Mr. DePaz has a BA in Chemistry and MBA from Wayne State University.

Raffaella Faggioni, PhD, is an executive leader and scientist with extensive experience in drug discovery and development. Dr. Faggioni comes to us from a stealth bio startup where she served as VP, Clinical Pharmacology and Bioanalytics, and Interim Head of Research. Previously, Dr. Faggioni was at Exelixis in the position of VP responsible for the Clinical Translational Pharmacology and Bioanalytics groups. She had overall scientific responsibility for clinical pharmacology, DMPK, pharmacometrics, translational pharmacology and bioanalysis. Her team authored the clinical pharmacology package for the successful approvals of CABOMETYX® (cabozantinib) for Differentiated Thyroid Cancer and of CABOMETYX® in combination with OPVIDIO® (nivolumab) as first line treatment for patients with advanced Renal Cell Carcinoma.

Prior to joining Exelixis, Dr. Faggioni was the AstraZeneca Site Lead for the South San Francisco site and Senior Director responsible for AstraZeneca’s US Clinical Pharmacology and Bioanalytics (biologics) group. Her team authored the clinical pharmacology package for successful approvals by the FDA and the European regulatory agency of FASENRA® (benralizumab), IMFINZI® (durvalumab) and LUMOXITI® (moxetumomab pasudotox-tdfk). Dr. Faggioni’s team also contributed to 30+ successful IND submissions.

Earlier in her career, Dr. Faggioni was a pharmacologist in inflammation and immunology research at Amgen and Abgenix, conducting preclinical research on biologic therapeutics. She has authored more than 30 original manuscripts, ten reviews and book chapters, and is co-inventor of five patents. Dr. Faggioni earned her PhD in Pharmacology from the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research, Milano, Italy, where she studied the role of cytokines in infection and inflammation. She earned an MS in biological sciences from the University of Pisa. Dr. Faggioni completed her post-doctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco, in the Metabolism section of the VA Medical Center, where she conducted research on the role of cytokines and the immune system on regulation of leptin. Dr. Faggioni received the 2016 MedImmune Inspirational Leadership award and the 2016 Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association (HBA) Rising Star recognition.

Reginald Gay, MD, brings to Vera approximately 23 years of industry experience in Global Drug Safety, Pharmacovigilance and Risk Management, having held Strategic Senior Leadership roles in both Pharma and Biotech, and spending the majority of his career in the Oncology and Hematology space. During his career he has had the opportunity to work on various clinical development compounds, including large and small molecules. Over the past 6 years his primary interest has been in novel therapeutic modalities including immuno-therapy, CAR-T cell therapy, CAR-T/CAR-NK, antibodies, antibody/drug conjugates, developing and helping to bring safer more tolerable compounds to market that carry a much more positive benefit-risk profile. Dr. Gay has a passion for building out best Practice PV systems and teams, setting up vital PV infrastructure and sustainable processes that are robust, flexible and scalable. He joins Vera after serving as VP of Global Drug Safety and Pharmacovigilance at Invivyd Therapeutics, where he obtained accelerated EUA approval for Pemgarda. Prior to that position he served as VP of Global Patient Safety and Safety Risk Management at Fate Therapeutics. Overall, in his past career he has held key Senior leadership positions with responsibilities that included managing medical teams within Safety as well as leading the PV function on various product development teams at companies such as Genmab, Novartis Oncology, Takeda, Lundbeck and Incyte.

Emma Haywood has over 20 years of experience in Commercial Sales and Marketing in the pharmaceutical/biotech industry.  Most recently, Ms. Haywood spent 10 years at Seagen in the hematology/oncology space where she held roles in Marketing and Sales Leadership. Ms. Haywood launched five indications for the product Adcetris, resulting in significant growth for the brand over her tenure. She also led the successful launch of Tukysa, the company’s first oral drug and first product for metastatic breast cancer. Prior to Seagen, Ms. Haywood worked at Solvay Pharmaceuticals and the advertising agency FCB Health.

Ms. Haywood has an MBA and BBA from Saint Bonaventure University.

Zeeshan Khawaja, MD, FASN, is an accomplished executive leader and scientist with a wealth of experience in clinical development and translational sciences. Dr. Khawaja has over a decade of research experience in industry and academia spanning multiple therapeutic areas. He has led several cross-functional teams to successful NDA/MAA and BLA filings. He was most recently Executive Director of Clinical Development and Translational Sciences at Chinook Therapeutics. Prior to Chinook, he led clinical development programs at Alexion Pharmaceuticals and Akebia Therapeutics. A transplant nephrologist by training, Dr. Khawaja completed his fellowships at Mass General and is an alumnus of Harvard Medical School.

Mr. Lin has over 17 years of industry experience, and in his career, he has launched multiple innovative medicines and new indications into US and ex-US markets including into Europe, Japan, and China. His roles have included global lifecycle leader, new product planning & commercial assessments, marketing, market access, market research & analytics, as well as within specialty field sales.

Before Vera he was Head of Lifecycle Management and Strategic Marketing at Portola (acquired by Alexion where he re-joined Alexion for a second time) and led a similar role at Zai Lab.  He was also formerly the Head of US Leukemia Marketing for Imbruvica (ibrutinib) at Pharmacyclics (acquired by AbbVie). Prior to Pharmacyclics, he led commercialization for Soliris (eculizumab) at Alexion as PNH US marketing leader. He also held multiple commercial roles of increasing responsibility at Merck & Co within the Vaccines, Immunology, and Infectious Diseases franchise. After graduate school he started his professional career managing new biotechnology inventions and IP for the MIT Technology Licensing Office.

Mr. Lin has degrees from Cornell (MBA), MIT (SB), and the Tufts School of Medicine.

Donald Mallet, PharmD, is an accomplished senior medical affairs professional with more than 20 years in roles of increasing responsibility across multiple therapeutic areas. Most recently, he served as the Head of Field Medical Affairs at Chinook Therapeutics. Dr. Mallet has over 15 years of management experience at both regional and corporate levels. Additionally, he has supported multiple launches in the nephrology space.  He is known in the industry as a strategic thinker, skilled at developing and implementing programs to support medical affairs and corporate level objectives.

Dr. Mallet graduated from Xavier University in New Orleans, LA with his doctorate in Pharmacy. He earned his MBA from the University of North Alabama/CSU.

Noel O’Connor brings over 27 years’ experience in biotech IT. He started his career with Amgen where he worked for 15 years. Subsequently he has held IT leadership positions at several start-up biotech companies that included Kythera Biopharmaceuticals, Puma Biotechnology, Alder Biopharmaceuticals, and most recently, Arcutis Biotherapeutics, where he led the IT planning and execution of the Zoryve product launch in the US and Canada.

Throughout his tenure in IT, Noel has managed IT infrastructure, business systems and data analytics/reporting. He has lead IT through several product launches and has deep experience partnering with business functions in supporting the transition from the R&D stage through to Commercial launch.

S. Sandra Park has over 25 years of experience in the healthcare space, providing legal counsel to public and private companies across the life sciences spectrum. She most recently served as General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer at IDEOlogy Health, creating a legal and compliance department for the company, which was subsequently acquired by a global pharma services organization. Ms. Park has also previously held various legal roles at Kite Pharma and Genentech, including serving as key legal counsel for multiple drug and biologic approvals in oncology, and leading a team of attorneys in rare disease, ophthalmology, and immunology. Earlier in her career, Ms. Park served in the public sector, as Regulatory Counsel at the FDA (CDER), as well as working in the FDA/Healthcare practices of a number of global law firms in the D.C. area.

Prior to law school, Ms. Park was a licensed pharmacist in the community, and then in consulting. Ms. Park received her BS in Pharmacy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her JD from George Mason University School of Law.

Andrew Plummer comes to Vera with over 16 years of experience at Gilead Sciences, assuming roles with increasing responsibilities including HIV Clinical Operations TA Head and Head of Clinical Systems and Process. He has been directly involved in 12 successful NDA/MAA approvals. More recently, he served as VP, Development Operations at Pardes Biosciences.

Jason Smyth has extensive experience at both large and small biopharma companies. Most recently, he was the VP of Quality for IDEAYA Biosciences with prior Quality Leadership roles at Sierra Oncology, Gilead Sciences, and Nektar Therapeutics. Early in his career, he started a consulting firm supporting large and small pharma companies with Quality, Validation and Engineering projects throughout the Bay Area.

Dmitriy Ter-Martirosov brings more than 10 years of experience in healthcare and consulting. Dmitriy joins us from KPMG, where he was a leader in their Life Sciences Transaction Strategy team. During his tenure, he spearheaded multiple R&D integrations into large Pharma companies as well as managed operational due diligences for Life Sciences clients. Prior to joining KPMG, Dmitriy worked at West Monroe Partners where he led commercial analytics engagements for a Pharma company, designing interactive dashboards to aid sales and marketing teams. Previous to West Monroe Partners, he held healthcare project management roles at HealthScape Advisors, Capgemini and Sg2. Dmitriy has an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and a BA in Biological Sciences and Economics from Northwestern University.

Amy Wang, MPH, brings over 10 years of business development, strategy and investment experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. In her current role at Vera, Amy oversees business development, strategic partnering and alliance management activities.

Previously, Amy served as a key member of the Business Development team at Horizon Therapeutics (acquired by Amgen), where she was instrumental to Horizon’s BD process and governance forum development, search strategy and technical due diligence efforts in immunology and rare diseases, as well as international expansion strategy in Asia. During her tenure at Horizon, Amy was heavily involved in multiple major transactions totaling up to $6.5 billion dollars in deal value, including Horizon’s acquisition of Viela Bio ($3.1 billion), clinical and research stage license agreements with Alpine Immune Sciences, Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals, HemoShear Therapeutics, Q32 Bio and academic research partnership with Johns Hopkins University.

Prior to Horizon, Amy worked on Wall Street as a biotech equity research analyst at JMP Securities, where she managed a coverage book of 20 small to mid-cap biotech companies with a combined market cap of $80+ billion dollars. Her coverage universe spanned multiple therapeutic areas and drug modalities, including rare diseases, autoimmune, nephrology, and oncology.

Earlier in her career, Amy was as a management consultant at Deallus Consulting where she advised a wide range of biopharmaceutical companies on commercial strategy, competitive intelligence, product launch, disease landscape and market opportunity assessments.

Ms. Wang received an MPH in Healthcare Management from Yale University School of Public Health, an MS in Molecular and Cellular Biology from Weill Cornell Medicine and a BA in Biology from Sichuan University.

Michael M. Morrissey, PhD, has served as a director and as Exelixis’ President and Chief Executive Officer since July 2010. Dr. Morrissey has held positions of increasing responsibility at Exelixis since he joined the company in February 2000, including serving as President of Research and Development from January 2007 to July 2010. From 1991 to 2000, Dr. Morrissey held several positions at Berlex Biosciences, last holding the position of Vice President, Discovery Research. Earlier in his career, Dr. Morrissey served as a Senior Scientist and Project Team Leader in Medicinal Chemistry at CIBA-Geigy Corporation. Dr. Morrissey previously served as a member of the board of directors of XWPharma Ltd., a privately held, clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company from December 2020 to April 2023, and as a member of the board of directors of CERo Therapeutics, Inc., a privately held biopharmaceutical company from January 2022 to November 2022. He is the author of numerous scientific publications in medicinal chemistry and drug discovery and an inventor on 70 issued U.S. patents and 25 additional published U.S. patent applications. Dr. Morrissey holds a BS (Honors) in Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin and a PhD in Chemistry from Harvard University.

Dr. Cheng joined Akero as President and Chief Executive Officer in September 2018. Prior to joining Akero, he served as Gilead Sciences’ Senior Vice President from 2009-2015, and then became Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer. During his tenure, he was responsible for the clinical development of the HIV program resulting in 11 FDA/EMA approved products. His past responsibilities also included medical affairs and the creation of the development operations department (regulatory affairs, clinical operations, pharmacovigilance, project management, clinical pharmacology, and biometrics), which covered clinical development support in multiple therapeutic areas including oncology, inflammation, respiratory, cardiovascular, HIV, and liver diseases.

Dr. Cheng previously served on the board of directors of MorphoSys (acquired by Novartis), Arbutus Biopharma & privately held Syntimmune (acquired by Alexion). Dr. Cheng holds a BA in biology from Johns Hopkins University and an MD and PhD in cellular and molecular biology from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He completed his internal medicine residency at UCLA and was board certified in internal medicine.

Dr. Seidenberg is a founding managing director of Westlake Village BioPartners and was a general partner at Kleiner Perkins, a leading venture capital firm. A longtime life sciences investor, she has incubated-invested 25 biotech ventures.

Dr. Seidenberg has a demonstrated ability to identify and accelerate medically meaningful molecules through development. Her expertise is grounded in her significant senior level industry experience with leadership roles at Amgen, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Merck Research Laboratories. Most recently, at Amgen, Dr. Seidenberg was chief medical officer and head of global development.

Dr. Seidenberg holds a Bachelor of Science degree in biology and anthropology from Barnard College and attended medical school at the University of Miami School of Medicine. She completed her medical residency at Johns Hopkins University and the George Washington University, and Fellowship at the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Katabi is a General Partner at Sofinnova Investments. She is an experienced investor with over two decades of managing public and private biotech companies through bull and bear markets. She is focused on investing in development stage biopharmaceuticals and is currently member of the board of directors of Marea, Quanta, and Star. Most recently, Dr. Katabi was a board member of Aiolos (acquired by GSK), RayzeBio (acquired by BMS), Amplyx (acquired by Pfizer), Gyroscope (acquired by Novartis) and Northsea.

Prior to joining Sofinnova in 2019, Maha was Managing Partner of Oxalis Capital. Before founding Oxalis, she was Partner at Sectoral Asset Management, where she formed and led a dedicated investment team and advisory board to drive investments in private companies. These included Ascendis, Apellis, and Trius (acquired by Cubist), which are also Sofinnova portfolio companies. Additionally, she was a Portfolio Manager for a family of funds that invested in small cap healthcare companies. She started her career in venture as a principal investor with associate and principal roles at T²C²/Bio and Ventures West.

Maha received her BSc In Biology and PhD in Pharmacology from McGill University, where she was a Cancer Research Society fellow, and is a CFA charter holder since 2011. She currently serves as Chair of the board of Exactis Innovation, a not-for profit oncology precision medicine network. Fierce Pharma named Dr. Katabi one of 2023’s Fiercest Women in Life Sciences. She serves as an advisor to amplifyHERscience, a Yale Ventures initiative.

Mr. Enright is a Managing Director and Founder of Longitude Capital. Prior to Longitude Capital, Mr. Enright was a Managing Director of Pequot Ventures where he co-led the life sciences investment practice. Prior to Pequot, he was a Managing Member of the Delta Opportunity Fund at Diaz & Altschul Capital Management. Mr. Enright began his investment career at PaineWebber Development Corporation. Mr. Enright also has significant life sciences operations experience, including senior executive positions at Valentis, Boehringer Mannheim (acquired by Roche) and Sandoz (now known as Novartis). Mr. Enright currently serves on the board of directors of BioAge Labs, Inc., and Zenas Biopharma, Inc. as well as several private companies, including as Chair of CuraSen Therapeutics, Inc.

Selected prior public company board memberships include Aptinyx Inc., Aimmune Therapeutics, Inc., (acquired by Nestlé Health Science in October 2020), Codexis, Inc., Corcept Therapeutics, Inc., Esperion Therapeutics, Inc., Horizon Pharma plc and Threshold Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Mr. Enright holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and a BS in Biological Sciences from Stanford University.

Dr. Fordyce brings more than 15 years’ experience leading teams in drug discovery, development, clinical translation, and commercialization of new treatments.

Before founding Vera, Fordyce was the founder and CEO of gene-editing company Trucode Gene Repair, Inc., having previously served as an entrepreneur in residence at Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers.

Earlier in his career, Fordyce served as Senior Director of clinical research at Gilead Sciences, Inc., where he contributed to seven new drug approvals and served as project lead for Gilead’s TAF/GENVOYA development program.

With subspecialty training in infectious disease from Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, Fordyce was previously Chief Resident at NYU Bellevue and spent two years as a translational research fellow at Rockefeller University.

Fordyce 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.

Kimball Hall is a longtime pharmaceutical industry leader with 30 years of experience in quality, regulatory and manufacturing. Formerly holding leadership positions at Genentech and Amgen, she is currently president and chief operating officer of Abzena, a biologics-focused contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO). Prior to her role at Abzena, Kimball held several executive positions at Genentech, Inc., a member of the Roche family, most recently as senior vice president, global head of drug substance manufacturing and a member of the Genentech executive committee. Responsible for seven internal sites and 27 external manufacturing locations, she supported five commercial product launches, built a strong quality and safety culture, and established small-volume production. Prior to joining Genentech, Kimball spent 16 years at Amgen, a biotechnology company, most recently as vice president of manufacturing.

Kimball has held a variety of board and advisory board positions, including as a member of Genentech’s patient access board and as an advisor to Genentech’s global women’s professional organization. She holds a bachelor’s degree in microbiology from the University of Washington.

Ms. Oliger brings over 30 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. Ms. Oliger currently serves on multiple public company boards, including Karyopharm Therapeutics, Replimune Group, and LAVA Therapeutics. She previously served on the boards of Sierra Oncology until its acquisition by GSK in 2022, Reata Pharmaceuticals until its acquisition by Biogen in 2023, and RayzeBio until its acquisition by Bristol Myers Squibb in 2024. In her most recent operational role, Ms. Oliger served as Genentech’s Senior Vice President, Oncology Business Unit Head from 2017 to 2020. During her 20-year tenure at Genentech, she held senior commercial leadership roles across a variety of therapeutic areas, including oncology, neurology, rare disease, respiratory, dermatology, and immunology. In addition, while at Genentech Ms. Oliger held senior R&D roles, including leading the Roche global portfolio management function. Ms. Oliger holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of California at Santa Barbara.