About Us
We are decoding human tissue biology to create revolutionary therapeutics.
Our Vision
We believe breakthrough therapeutics for patients with inflammatory diseases are within reach. By targeting the underlying dysregulation that drives disease, our team is identifying and advancing a pipeline of medicines that have the potential to transform how we treat debilitating inflammatory conditions.
Scientific Focus
We know that the immune system plays a significant role in the development of disease, but in-depth studies of immune processes in human tissue have historically been limited.
Until now.
With the advancement of functional genomics and sequencing technologies, and the increasing ability to process and interpret large quantities of high-dimensional data, we now have the tools to interrogate human tissue processes at unprecedented resolution.
TRexBio is at the forefront of these efforts, combining multidisciplinary expertise across immunobiology, drug discovery, functional genomics, computational and translational biology to uncover ‘deep biology’ in human tissues.
Our powerful discovery platform maps tissue regulatory T-cell (Treg) behavior to disease processes and identifies novel biology for therapeutic intervention.
Our Team
We are a team of experienced and passionate scientists, drug development experts, and industry leaders. We are committed to decoding the human tissue immune system and believe we are uniquely positioned to usher in breakthrough medicines with this approach.
Johnston Erwin
Chief Executive Officer
Board Member
Johnston Erwin joined TRexBio in May 2021 as Chief Executive Officer. Most recently, he was Vice President, Corporate Business Development – Lilly New Ventures at Eli Lilly and Company. Mr. Erwin spent 36 years at Lilly. Between 2002 and 2014, he led the clinical team which made global regulatory submissions for the brands of Evista and Forteo. Under his leadership, both brands were approved in more than 80 countries and reached “blockbuster” status of greater than $1 Billion in worldwide sales each.
Starting in 2014 and until his retirement in 2021, he led Lilly New Ventures – Lilly’s internal venture capital investment team. During his tenure, the invested capital grew more than five times and was cash-on-cash positive for seven consecutive years. Given the strategic nature of Lilly’s investments, they acquired >10 companies and established collaborations with >20 companies where Mr. Erwin was part of the founding investment team, investor or board member. Upon his retirement, Lilly had >45 direct investments.
Melanie Kleinschek, DVM, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer
Dr. Melanie Kleinschek is Chief Scientific Officer of TRexBio and brings 20 years of drug discovery experience in translational immunology spanning target identification through early clinical development. She has a proven track record for developing research insights into innovative therapeutic approaches for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.
Prior to joining TRexBio, Dr. Kleinschek was VP of Science and Innovation Strategy at Theravance, where she led disease area and indication strategy across the inflammation and fibrosis franchises. Before that, as VP of Biology & Pharmacology, she led a large research team to support all preclinical and translational biology activities for Theravance’s respiratory, GI, skin and ocular inflammation programs helping to bring multiple drug candidates to the clinic. Earlier in her career, Dr. Kleinschek held roles of increasing responsibility in the respiratory & immunology franchise at Merck and Schering-Plough with a target identification and drug discovery focus on mucosal immunology and immunoregulation.
Dr. Kleinschek received her PhD in immunology at Leipzig University and her DVM at the Justus Liebig University, Giessen in Germany. Her postdoctoral research at DNAX in the field of cytokine biology in inflammatory diseases founded her career in drug discovery.
Laura Berner, JD, MBA
Chief Operating Officer
Laura Berner brings extensive experience in corporate development, corporate and strategic transactions, investor relations, strategy and operations to her role as Chief Operating Officer of TRexBio. Most recently, she was VP, Head of Business Development & Investor Relations at Myovant Sciences, where she led the execution of global partnering transactions for the commercialization of the company’s lead product (relugolix) and supported the company through multiple follow-on financings. Earlier in her career, she was a member of the Transactions team with Roche Pharma Partnering, where she was responsible for leading transactions across the fields of oncology, immunology, neuroscience, infectious and rare diseases. She began her career as a corporate attorney first at Ropes & Gray LLP, and later in the Office of the General Counsel at Harvard University, advising on general corporate, business development and strategic partnering transactions. Laura serves as an independent director on the Board of Directors of Bolt Biotherapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: BOLT).
Laura obtained her BA in biology from Bryn Mawr College, her JD from Stanford Law School, and her MBA from Gies College of Business, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Matt Chrysler, MBA
Head of Portfolio & Alliance Management
Matt Chrysler joined TRexBio in 2019 with 15 years of portfolio and commercial experience in both emerging and large biotechnology companies. Most recently, he led New Product Planning at Ultragenyx, driving early-stage pipeline strategy decisions for potential gene therapy, biologic and small molecule therapeutics. Previously at Ultragenyx he was Global Commercial Lead for multiple late-stage programs, including overseeing launch preparations for Crysvita in collaboration with a global pharmaceutical partner. Earlier in his career, he held a variety of portfolio management, corporate strategy and brand management roles at Genentech. He started his career as a Management Consultant at ZS Associates.
He earned an MBA and MS in biochemistry from Georgetown University, and a BS in microbiology from the University of Washington.
Michael Townsend, PhD
Head of Translational Biology
Michael Townsend, Ph.D., is Vice President, Head of Translational Biology at TRexBio.
Prior to joining TRexBio, he held positions of increasing responsibility over 18 years at Genentech working across a broad range of therapeutic areas and indications while leading a translational research department focused on disease mechanisms, biomarker discovery, and reverse translation. He has supported biomarker discovery, biomarker strategy development, and clinical implementation across all phases of drug development. Dr. Townsend has contributed to multiple IND filings, has co-authored over 50 primary research papers and review articles, and is an inventor on five patents.
Dr. Townsend received his B.Sc. in Biochemistry from Imperial College London and his Ph.D. in Immunology and Molecular Biology from the University of Cambridge. He carried out postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Laurie Glimcher, M.D., at the Harvard School of Public Health.
Ali Zarrin, PhD
Head of Discovery
Ali Zarrin serves as Senior Vice President of Drug Discovery at TRex Bio, leading a team of scientists with the overall responsibility for target discovery, validation, and preclinical therapeutic development in different disease areas.
Dr. Zarrin joined Genentech Early Research and Development where he was instrumental in leading several transformational initiatives to advance multiple therapeutic programs from early discovery research covering diverse mechanistic pathways for cancer, inflammatory and autoimmune indications. He also led various disease area research strategies with the focus in autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. Dr. Zarrin has over 41 scientific publications (and 5 patents) on diverse topics in journals including Nature, Nature Immunology, Nature reviews Drug Discovery, Nature Reviews Immunology, Science, Science Signaling and PNAS.
Dr. Zarrin obtained his BS in University of Minnesota and his PhD in Immunology from University of Toronto. He then carried out postdoctoral study in the lab of pioneering geneticist and molecular immunologist, Fred Alt, at HHMI/Harvard.
Houman Ashrafian, MD, PhD
Managing Director, SV Health Investors
Head, Experimental Therapeutics and Clinical Pharmacology, Oxford University
Houman Ashrafian, MD, PhD, is a Managing Partner at SV Health Investors and co-founded TRexBio in 2018.
Alongside TRexBio, he has founded five other SV companies: Alchemab, Catamaran Bio, Enara Bio, Mestag and Sitryx. Dr. Ashrafian serves on the Dementia Discovery Fund (DDF) Investment Committee and on the boards of Therini and Imbria.
Previously, Dr. Ashrafian co-founded the services company Cardiac Report in 2003, as well as Heart Metabolics in 2008. He went on to become Vice President and head of the Clinical Science Group at UCB Pharma.
Outside of SV, following completion of his cardiology training, Dr. Ashrafian was appointed as an Honorary Consultant Cardiologist in 2011 at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. He is Visiting Professor and head of Experimental Therapeutics at the University of Oxford. Additionally, he is Co-founder and Chairman of Weatherden, a boutique clinical development company.
Michael Rosenblum, MD, PhD
Professor of Dermatology and Vice Chair of Research in the Department of Dermatology, UCSF
Michael Rosenblum, MD, PhD, is a Professor of Dermatology and Vice Chair of Research in the Department of Dermatology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and is one of the world’s leading skin immunologists. Dr. Rosenblum’s research focuses on understanding the fundamental mechanisms of how immune responses are regulated in tissues, and how this knowledge can be exploited to treat human disease. He recently helped to generate and validate a novel therapeutic molecule that selectively activates human regulatory T cells, taken into clinical trials in patients with autoimmune diseases.
Dr. Rosenblum is a recipient of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award for Medical Scientists, the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, the Dermatology Foundation’s Charles & Daneen Stiefel Scholar Award in Autoimmune & Connective Tissue Diseases, as well as multiple NIH R01 & R21 awards. Most recently, he was named the William Montagna Lecturer by the Society for Investigative Dermatology. He has authored over 85 basic science research papers. He is a co-founder of TRex Bio and Sitryx Bio as well as a Scientific Co-founder of Delinia Bio, which was sold to Celgene in 2017.
He received his medical degree and PhD in immunology from the Medical College of Wisconsin. He completed his dermatology residency training at UCSF in the prestigious Physician-Scientist Training Pathway before joining the UCSF faculty in 2012.
Adil Daud, MD
HS Clinical Professor, Department of Medicine (Hematology/Oncology), UCSF
Director, Melanoma Clinical Research at the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center
Adil Daud, MD, is an HS Clinical Professor, Department of Medicine (Hematology/Oncology) at UCSF and Director, Melanoma Clinical Research at the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. In addition to caring for patients, he directs research to better understand the biology of melanoma and to develop new treatments. He has developed and led many clinical trials that have expanded the use of gene therapy for melanoma. At UCSF, he co-directs the melanoma program and is the Principal Investigator of several early-phase and melanoma-specific clinical trials. He is particularly interested in investigating immunotherapy used in combination with PD-1 antibodies, as well as in understanding resistance to PD-1 – notably site-specific immunity.
Dr. Daud earned a medical degree at the Government Medical College, Nagpur. He completed both an internship and a residency in internal medicine at Indiana University School of Medicine, followed by a fellowship in hematology-oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Prior to joining UCSF Medical Center, he was a researcher at the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida, for seven years.
Dr. Daud has won numerous awards, including a Young Investigator Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology and selection as a Castle Connolly Top Doctor.
Jim Wells, PhD
Professor, Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, UCSF
Professor in the UCSF School of Medicine’s Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology
Jim Wells, PhD, is a Professor in his home Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and holds a joint appointment as Professor in the UCSF School of Medicine’s Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology. At UCSF, Dr. Wells’ research group focuses on the discovery and design of small molecules that trigger or modulate cellular processes in inflammation and cancer. Dr. Wells’ research spans the multiple disciplines of biophysics, cell biology, molecular biology, biochemistry and chemistry. Dr. Wells also directs the Small Molecule Discovery Center (SMDC), which he founded. The SMDC is located at UCSF’s Mission Bay campus in the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3), where Wells is a faculty affiliate.
Before joining UCSF, Dr. Wells was a founding scientist in Genentech’s Protein Engineering Department. He then founded Sunesis Pharmaceuticals, where he served as President and Chief Scientific oOfficer and co-invented a novel drug discovery process, called Tethering, to efficiently screen molecules in search of the most potent compounds to block specific protein action.
In addition to his membership in the National Academy of Sciences, Dr. Wells is a recipient of many honors, including the Hans Neurath Award by the Protein Society, the Pfizer Award given by the American Chemical Society, the du Vigneaud Award given by the American Peptide Society and the 2006 Hartwell Individual Biomedical Research Award. He earned a PhD degree in biochemistry from Washington State University and completed postdoctoral work at Stanford University School of Medicine.
Drew Pardoll, MD, PhD
Abeloff Professor of Oncology, Medicine, Pathology and Molecular Biology and Genetics at the Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine
Director of the Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy
Co-Director of the Cancer Immunology Program at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
Drew Pardoll, MD, PhD, is the Abeloff Professor of Oncology, Medicine, Pathology and Molecular Biology and Genetics at the Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine. He is the Director of the Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy and Co-Director of the Cancer Immunology Program at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins.
Dr. Pardoll attended Johns Hopkins University, where he earned his MD, PhD, in 1982 and completed his Medical Residency and Oncology Fellowship in 1985. He then worked for three years at the National Institutes of Health as a Medical Staff Fellow. Dr. Pardoll joined the departments of oncology and medicine in 1988. Dr. Pardoll has published over 300 papers as well as over 20 book chapters on the subject of T-cell immunology and cancer vaccines. He has served on the editorial board of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute and Cancer Cell, and has served as a member of scientific advisory boards for the Cancer Research Institute, the University of Pennsylvania Human Gene Therapy Gene Institute, Biologic Resources Branch of the National Cancer Institute, Harvard-Dana Farber Cancer Center, Cerus Corporation, Global Medical Products Corporation, Genecor Corporation, CellGenesys Corporation, Mojave Therapeutics, the American Association of Clinical Oncology and the American Association of Cancer Research.
His more than 300 articles cover cancer vaccines, gene therapies, cancer prevention technologies, recombinant immune modulatory agents for specific pathways that regulate immunity to cancer and infectious diseases.
Alison Simmons, MD, PhD
Director of the MRC Human Immunology Unit, UK
Professor of Gastroenterology at the University
Alison Simmons, MD, PhD, is Director of the MRC Human Immunology Unit, UK; Professor of Gastroenterology at the University of Oxford and Consultant Gastroenterologist at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. She received her MB BS from Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, University of London and trained in medicine and gastroenterology in London and Cambridge. She undertook a PhD in Oxford before forming a research group at the MRC Human Immunology Unit, Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, Oxford. Professor Simmons’ group focuses on immunology of intestinal disease and has provided new insights into inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) pathogenesis. She redefined the cellular map of the intestine, discovering unexpected heterogeneity and charting the basis of mucosal remodeling that fuels inflammation in colitis defining populations of disease associated cells. She has made key contributions to deciphering the function of the strongest IBD susceptibility genes and host pathogen interactions.
She received a National Institutes of Health Research Professorship 2013, a US Harrington Scholar-Innovator award 2014 and is a Wellcome Trust Investigator. Professor Simmons was elected member of Association of Physicians, UK in 2009, Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 2011 and Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, 2019. Professor Simmons sits on a range of advisory panels for public and private sector bodies responsible for biomedical research in the US and Europe.
Diane Mathis, PhD
Morton Grove-Rasmussen Professor of Immunohematology at Harvard Medical School
Principal Faculty Member at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute
Associate Faculty Member of the Broad Institute
Diane Mathis, PhD, is currently the Morton Grove-Rasmussen Professor of Immunohematology at Harvard Medical School, Principal Faculty Member at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and Associate Faculty Member of the Broad Institute. Her lab focuses on the fields of T-cell differentiation, autoimmunity and inflammation. Throughout her career, she has trained more than 175 students and postdoctoral fellows.
Previously, Dr. Mathis was a Professor of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and Associate Research Director and Head of the section on Immunology and Immunogenetics at Joslin Diabetes Center through 2008.
Diane currently serves on the advisory boards of Rockefeller University, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Genentech, Pfizer, Amgen and several research institutes worldwide. She was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2003, the German Academy in 2007 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012. In 2016, she received the FASEB Excellence in Science Award.
Dr. Mathis holds a PhD from the University of Rochester and performed postdoctoral studies at the Laboratoire de Génétique Moléculaire des Eucaryotes in Strasbourg, France and at Stanford University Medical Center. She returned to Strasbourg at the end of 1983, establishing a laboratory at the LGME (later the Institut de Genetique et de Biologie Moleculare et Cellulaire) in conjunction with Dr. Christophe Benoist. The lab moved to the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston in 1999.
Wilson Liao, MD
Professor of Dermatology and Vice Chair of Research, Dermatology;
Director of Psoriasis and Skin Treatment Center, UCSF
Dr. Liao is Professor and Vice Chair of Research in the UCSF Department of Dermatology. He serves as Director of the UCSF Psoriasis and Skin Treatment Center and is deeply engaged in patient care, clinical trials, and basic science research. The Liao laboratory studies the genetics and environmental triggers of psoriasis, atopic dermatitis, and hidradenitis suppurativa.
Dr. Liao directs the UCSF Psoriasis Research Initiative and Biobank with over 1,500 subjects, which is used for genetic and translational research studies. The Liao lab has contributed to the identification over 30 risk variants in psoriasis, including a deletion of the late cornified envelope genes, common variants in UBE2L3 and SH2B3, copy number changes in KIR2DL2, KIR3DS1, and NKG2C, and rare variants in IFIH1 and CARD14. Current projects include the identification of psoriasis and hidradenitis causal variants through genetic mapping and functional genomics, elucidation of inflammatory disease pathways through single cell transcriptional and immunoprofiling technologies, and development of precision medicine approaches.
Michael Baran, PhD, MBA
Board Member
Mike Baran, PhD, has responsibility for growing venture investment transactions and managing equity investments aligned with future directions of Pfizer. He currently has responsibility for Pfizer’s investments in Anjarium Biosciences, Autobahn Therapeutics, ImCheck Therapeutics, ImmunOs Therapeutics, Interius Biotherapeutics, Magnolia Neurosciences, Mediar Therapeutics, Parthenon Therapeutics, and TRex Bio.
From 2017-2018 Mike served as Senior Director of Portfolio Strategy, critically assessing the R&D portfolio from a volume, value, quality, risk and productivity perspective with the ultimate objective of maximizing R&D productivity and value generation. From 2011-2017 Mike was Senior Director, Scientific Affairs for the R&D President’s Office, enabling and communicating the R&D strategic agenda as well as leading colleague development capabilities. Mike joined Pfizer in 2008 in the market access space providing strategic and analytical support around marketing and managed care contracting with commercial and government payers.
Previously, Mike worked within the NIH Protein Structure Initiative’s Northeast Structural Genomics Consortium coordinating protein structure production efforts, including bioinformatics, protein expression/purification and 3D structure determination. Mike is also a co-founder of Nexomics Biosciences, a NJ-based biotechnology company focused on providing gene-2-structure services as well as early-stage drug target validation.
Mike earned his PhD from Robert Wood Johnson Medical School/Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey in biochemistry. He holds a MBA from Rutgers Business School and received his BS in Biochemistry/Information Technology from Syracuse University.
Alexandra Cantley, PhD
Board Member
Alexandra joined Polaris Partners in 2019 and serves as a partner in the New York office. She is primarily focused on early stage biotech and healthcare investments. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of Podimetrics and as a Board Observer to Auron Therapeutics, Engine Bio, and SunBird Bio. Prior to joining Polaris, Alexandra was part of the initial research team at Inzen Therapeutics, where she helped develop their platform technologies. She moved to Inzen from Vertex Pharmaceuticals, where she held a research fellowship.
Alexandra received a PhD in Chemical Biology from Harvard University, where she studied natural product discovery. Alexandra performed her undergraduate studies at New York University.
Carol G. Gallagher, PharmD
Board Chair
Carol Gallagher, Pharm.D., is an experienced board director currently serving as a director in both public and private companies. As a board director, she has been involved in advising on drug development, commercial strategy, public and private financings, licensing, and mergers and acquisitions.
From 2014 through 2023, Dr. Gallagher held Partner and advisor roles in biopharma venture investing at New Enterprise Associates. She also served as a Venture Partner at Frazier Healthcare from 2013-2014. Prior to her work in venture capital, she had a successful and varied career in both large and small biopharmaceutical companies including being the President and CEO of Calistoga Pharmaceuticals, which was acquired by Gilead in 2011. During her biopharma career, Dr. Gallagher has led commercial, drug development, and business development activities.
Dr. Gallagher studied chemistry at Vanderbilt University and received B.S. and Doctor of Pharmacy degrees from the University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy.
Julie Gilmore, PhD
Board Member
Julie Gilmore is the Vice President and Global Head of Lilly Gateway Labs, a shared innovation lab with locations in the US, Asia and Europe, designed to speed the discovery of innovative medicines through collaboration with local biotech companies. She joined Eli Lilly after receiving her Doctorate in Membrane Biophysics from Purdue University and her Postdoctoral Fellowship in Drug Transport from Indiana University School of Medicine. During her 20-year plus career at Lilly, Julie has held several leadership and scientific positions across research and drug development. Julie is on the Board of Directors of Mozart Therapeutics, IgGenix, and the Board of Trustees of Franklin College. She serves as a mentor and advisor to several university graduate school programs including locally at UCSF.
Peter Hirth, PhD
Board Member
K. Peter Hirth, PhD, Co-founder and formerly Chief Executive Officer of Plexxikon, Inc., has over 30 years of biotechnology and pharmaceutical discovery and development experience and currently serves as a board of Aligos Therapeutics, Escient Pharmaceuticals, Iconic Therapeutics, IO-Biotech and Vaxcyte.
From 2001 to 2013 at Plexxikon, Dr. Hirth built a novel, structure-guided drug discovery platform, which brought several new chemical entities into the clinic, including Zelboraf®, an FDA-approved therapy for metastatic melanoma together with a companion diagnostic. From 1991-2000, as Sugen Inc.’s President and Founder, Dr. Hirth was instrumental in building the company from its inception and in advancing several kinase inhibitors through clinical trials in oncology. Prior to Sugen, he was Vice President of Research at Boehringer Mannheim where he successfully led the company’s erythropoietin program to approval in 1989. Dr. Hirth was also a research scientist with the Max Planck Institute.
He completed his post-doctoral work at the University of California, San Diego and received his PhD in Molecular Genetics from Heidelberg University, Germany.
Eric Huang, PhD
Board Member
Eric Huang is currently a Partner at Delos Capital. Prior to Delos, Eric held various leadership roles at Moderna Therapeutics, including as founding CSO of Moderna’s New Venture Labs, an industry-leading effort to explore novel applications of mRNA technology across immunology, neurology, tissue repair & regeneration, and cancer. In this role, he conceived of Moderna’s mRNA vaccine platform, which later led to the development of the COVID-19 vaccine. Eric was recognized for this work with the prestigious Warren Alpert Foundation Prize. Additionally, Eric oversaw the invention of Moderna’s personalized cancer vaccine, now in late-stage clinical development with Merck, and the company’s first autoimmune program from inception through IND. Most recently, Eric served as General Manager and Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) at Moderna Genomics.
Eric’s earlier career included roles of increasing responsibility in corporate and business development at venture-backed biotechnology companies, including Seaside Therapeutics, Stromedix, and Domantis.
Eric holds a Ph.D. in Molecular and Medical Parasitology from New York University and an MBA from Boston University. He also earned a B.S. from Emory University and an A.A. from Bard College at Simon’s Rock.
Joel S. Marcus, JD, CPA
Board Member
Joel S. Marcus is Executive Chairman and Founder of Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. (NYSE: ARE), a REIT that pioneered life science real estate and transformed it from a specialty niche to a mainstream asset class. Alexandria is the preeminent, largest, and longest-tenured owner, operator, and developer uniquely focused on collaborative mega campuses in AAA life science innovation clusters.
Since co-founding Alexandria in 1994 as a garage startup with $19 million in Series A capital, Mr. Marcus has led its remarkable growth into an S&P 500 company that has become the leading REIT focused on the life science industry, with a total market capitalization of $33.1 billion and an operating asset base of 42 million square feet as of September 30, 2024. Alexandria, which celebrated its 25th anniversary on the NYSE in May 2022, has a total stockholder return of 1,459% from its IPO in May 1997 through September 30, 2024.
In 1996, Mr. Marcus founded Alexandria Venture Investments, the company’s strategic venture capital platform, and he continues to lead its investments. With approximately $1.5 billion under management as of September 30, 2024, Alexandria Venture Investments actively invests in disruptive life science companies. He introduced Alexandria’s thought leadership vertical in 2011 when he co-founded the renowned Alexandria Summit®.
He also leads Alexandria’s corporate responsibility initiatives, which aim to address some of the nation’s most urgent challenges, including mental health and addiction. To reverse the trajectory of the opioid epidemic, Alexandria partnered with Verily, an Alphabet company, to pioneer OneFifteen, an evidence-based full continuum of care model to treat addiction.
Prior to co-founding Alexandria, Mr. Marcus had an extensive legal career specializing in corporate finance and capital markets, venture capital, and mergers and acquisitions. During that time, he acquired expertise in the biopharmaceutical industry and was one of the principal architects of Kirin-Amgen, Inc., the trailblazing joint venture established in 1984. Mr. Marcus serves on the boards of Applied Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: APLT) and Intra-Cellular Therapies, Inc. (NASDAQ: ITCI) as well as several private biotechnology companies and non-profits, including the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, Emily Krzyzewski Center, National Medal of Honor Museum, Navy SEAL Foundation, Office of Strategic Services Society, and TOPGUN Association. He received his BA and JD from UCLA.
Sanjay Mistry, PhD
Board Member
Sanjay is Vice President, Venture Investments, New Company Creation for Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC Inc. He focuses on investments that create companies based on internal or externally derived innovations that can deliver transformational healthcare solutions based on new growth platforms. He is currently on the Boards of Rapport Therapeutics (Director), TRexBio (Director) and Manifest Technologies (Observer). Other past company creations include Provention Bio (acquired by Sanofi), Fusion Pharmaceuticals (public – FUSN) and Aro Therapeutics (private).
Sanjay also spent 5 years as an investor with healthcare venture capital firm Quaker Partners, where he focused on biopharmaceuticals and diagnostic/tools investing. Key investments included Durata Therapeutics (acquired by Actavis), RainDance Technologies (acquired by BioRad) and Rapid Micro Biosystems (public – RPID).
Prior to joining JJDC he held several roles across J&J including being the Head of JLABS at San Diego, Senior Finance Director, Business Operations for Janssen R&D and a Co-founder of an internal venture at Centocor which developed a Phase 2b ready cell therapy for age related macular degeneration. Prior to this he was an entrepreneur at Morphogen Pharmaceuticals, where he led pre-clinical development of cell therapies for cardiovascular and neurological indications.
Sanjay attained a PhD in Pharmacology & MSc. in Clinical Pharmacology from the University of Aberdeen and a BSc. in Biomedical Sciences/Pharmacology from Nottingham Trent University.
Eric Pham, PhD
Board Member
Eric Pham joined Avego BioScience Capital in 2024 and is a Managing Director. Previously, he was a Vice President at Blue Owl Healthcare Opportunities (formerly known as Cowen Healthcare Investments), where he was an investor in mid-to-late stage private and public biotechnology companies developing novel therapies for patients with high unmet need. His key investments while at Blue Owl included Escient Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Incyte), Prometheus Biosciences (acquired by Merck), and Akouos (acquired by Lilly).
Prior to Blue Owl, he was a Senior Analyst on the Investments Team at Roivant Sciences, where he focused on identifying, evaluating, and acquiring promising therapeutic programs for further development.
Eric received his Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from University of Houston and B.A. in Molecular and Cell Biology from University of California, Berkeley.
Mike Ross, PhD
Board Member
Mike Ross, PhD, has had a career that spans 21 years in venture capital, which followed 21 years in senior operating executive roles for leading biotechnology companies. He joined SV Health Investors as a Venture Partner in 2001 and became a Managing Partner in 2002. Mike was the tenth employee at Genentech, where he worked for 13 years. He served as Genentech team leader for the Humulin® Roferon®, Protropin® programs and was Vice President of Development during the development of Activase®, Nutropin® and Pulmozyme®. He then started Genentech’s antibody engineering, protein engineering and small molecule discovery effort as Vice President of Medicinal and Biomolecular Chemistry. Dr. Ross was the founding CEO of Arris Pharmaceutical, MetaXen, ExSAR and CyThera (now Viacyte).
He received his PhD in Chemistry from Caltech and went on to do his post-doctoral work at Harvard. He serves on the Board of the Thayer School of Engineering (Dartmouth College). Dr. Ross has served on numerous venture and public biotech boards.
Nikola Trbovic, PhD
Board Member
Nikola joined SV Health Investors in 2022 and is a Managing Partner in the Biotech team. Nikola currently serves as a Director on the Boards of Artios, Catamaran Bio, Prilenia, Sitryx and TRexBio. Previously, Nikola was a Partner at Pfizer Ventures, Pfizer’s corporate venture capital group. There he was responsible for investments in emerging companies developing transformative medicines spanning all therapeutic areas and modalities aligned with the future directions of Pfizer. In prior roles at Pfizer, Nikola held responsibilities for R&D technology investments, R&D strategy and early clinical portfolio management within the R&D organization. Nikola joined Pfizer from McKinsey & Co., where he served as an Associate Principal and senior member of the Pharmaceuticals Practice, advising top pharmaceutical, biotech, and healthcare companies on a range of strategy, corporate finance and commercial topics across geographies and therapeutic areas.
Nikola received his PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics from Columbia University, and holds a Diplom in Biochemistry from Goethe University Frankfurt.
Johnston Erwin
Chief Executive Officer
Board Member
Johnston Erwin joined TRexBio in May 2021 as Chief Executive Officer. Most recently, he was Vice President, Corporate Business Development – Lilly New Ventures at Eli Lilly and Company. Mr. Erwin spent 36 years at Lilly. Between 2002 and 2014, he led the clinical team which made global regulatory submissions for the brands of Evista and Forteo. Under his leadership, both brands were approved in more than 80 countries and reached “blockbuster” status of greater than $1 Billion in worldwide sales each.
Starting in 2014 and until his retirement in 2021, he led Lilly New Ventures – Lilly’s internal venture capital investment team. During his tenure, the invested capital grew more than five times and was cash-on-cash positive for seven consecutive years. Given the strategic nature of Lilly’s investments, they acquired >10 companies and established collaborations with >20 companies where Mr. Erwin was part of the founding investment team, investor or board member. Upon his retirement, Lilly had >45 direct investments.
Investors
