Our Company

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.

Dr. Brenner brings more than 25 years of experience as a respected nephrologist and a successful biotechnology executive. Dr. Brenner has previously served in executive roles in several clinical-stage biotech companies, including Chief Medical Officer at Orionis Biosciences and SVP of Medical Affairs at AMAG Pharmaceuticals, contributing to the company’s first therapeutic approval and launch for iron deficiency anemia (Feraheme).

Previously, Dr. Brenner held several positions of expanding responsibility in the nephrology franchise at Amgen. During this time, he led kidney related global development programs, and supported two product approvals (Aranesp and Sensipar) and oversaw the establishment of the nephrology medical affairs organization. Dr. Brenner received his BA from Johns Hopkins University and his MD from Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He completed his medical residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and his nephrology fellowship at Stanford University Medical Center.

Lauren Frenz, MBA, has 15 years of experience in the biotech industry. As Chief Business Officer of Vera Therapeutics, she oversees a broad range of responsibilities, including Business Development, Commercial, Public Relations, and Business Operations. Prior to her current role, Ms. Frenz was Senior Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Finance at Vera.

Previously, Ms. Frenz spent over five years at Gilead Sciences, where she served in positions of increasing responsibility across Global and US Commercial and Operations teams. Frenz led the launch and market development for several HIV medicines, all of which reached over $1B in annual sales. At Gilead, she also led the development of market insights, long-range forecasting, product positioning, payer value strategies, and global branding across multiple therapeutic areas.

Earlier in her career, Frenz worked at Leerink, a healthcare investment bank, where she advised biotech companies on corporate strategy, business development, commercial planning, and portfolio management.

She received her AB from Princeton University and MBA from Harvard Business School.

Sean Grant, MBA brings nearly 15 years of multi-disciplinary experience in healthcare and financial services. Mr. Grant joins Vera from CareDx, where he was Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Business Development. During his tenure, he led M&A, venture investments and partnerships across diagnostics, therapeutics, and digital platforms.

Prior to joining CareDx, Mr. Grant served as Vice President in the Investment Banking Healthcare Division at Citigroup. While at Citigroup, he specialized in public and private capital raising as well as M&A, and executed a broad range of transactions for many of the world’s leading life sciences companies including Gilead, Kite Pharma, and CRISPR Therapeutics. Previous to Citigroup, he held finance, strategy and business development roles at Piper Jaffray, Grant Consulting, and ESI Group.

Mr. Grant holds an MBA from the Johns Hopkins Carey School of Business and a BA in Government and International Politics from George Mason University.

Mr. Johnson brings more than 30 years of commercialization and operational experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. Prior to joining Vera, he served as the Chief Commercial Officer at Global Blood Therapeutics (GBT) until it was acquired by Pfizer in 2022, during which time he established the company’s global commercial functions and led the launch of Oxbryta.

Prior to GBT, Mr. Johnson spent 15 years at Gilead Sciences, Inc., in roles of increasing responsibility. His most recent position was as Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Gilead’s Liver Disease Business Unit, where he was responsible for building and leading the company’s liver disease franchises, including commercially launching four industry leading medicines to treat hepatitis. Prior to that position, he was Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Gilead’s Antiviral Business Unit, where he helped launch and oversee the HIV franchise.

Mr. Johnson previously had an 11-year tenure at GSK plc, where he held various positions in sales, product marketing, business development, global commercial strategy and portfolio development. Mr. Johnson currently serves on the board of directors of Caribou Biosciences, a public gene therapy company. He received a BA in business marketing from the University of Puget Sound and an MBA from the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina.

Mr. Turner has nearly 30 years of drug development and commercialization experience, leading multiple organizations through all phases of product development including the development of the final commercial drug process, method, facility, and process validations, all phases of clinical programs, numerous drug application filings and the transition and establishment of several critical commercialization processes. Prior to joining Vera, Turner served as the Chief Regulatory and Technical Operations Officer at Sierra Oncology, Inc. (acquired by GSK), overseeing regulatory affairs, quality assurance, technical operations, analytical development/quality control, and technical/medical writing. During this time, he prepared these functional areas for the expected commercial launch, as well as directed the compilation, review and filing of the U.S. New Drug Application (NDA) and European Marketing Authorization Application (MAA) for Ojjaara (momelotinib).

Prior to Sierra Oncology, Turner was Senior Vice President of Technical Operations and Regulatory Science at Aimmune Therapeutics (acquired by Nestlé) for several years culminating in the commercial launch of Palforzia, the first product approved to treat peanut allergy. Prior to his time at Aimmune, he served as Vice President of Regulatory Affairs and Global Quality at Dynavax Technologies Corporation as well as several years in a leadership position at MedImmune (now AstraZeneca). He has significant experience in both small molecule and biologic development and has led teams in multiple therapeutic areas including vaccinology, oncology, hematology, allergy and respiratory. Turner received his B.S. in Medical Microbiology with a minor in Chemistry from California State University at Long Beach.

Ms. Rauber brings more than 18 years of in-depth HR experience developing and implementing people programs in multiple HR disciplines from various industries including biotech/pharma, high-tech and financial services.

Prior to joining Vera Therapeutics, Ms. Rauber served as the Vice President, Human Resources at both CytomX Therapeutics and ORIC Pharmaceuticals, where she focused on developing and implementing people programs such as leadership development and talent management.  Responsible for optimizing talent and leading teams in rapidly growing and evolving organizations, prior to ORIC Pharmaceuticals Ms. Rauber held senior HR roles at Orchard Therapeutics, Dermira Inc. (acquired by Lilly) and Jazz Pharmaceuticals.  At Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Ms. Rauber also acted in the capacity of Chief of Staff to the EVP, Global Head of R&D, partnering with global leaders on strategy, operations, change management and employee engagement after the acquisition of Celator Pharmaceuticals.  Ms. Rauber began her HR career working at E*TRADE and eHealth, Inc.  She received her B.S. in Organizational Analysis and Management from Santa Clara University.

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.

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.

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).