Leadership

Kevin Johnson, Ph.D. - Chairman
Partner, Index Ventures

Kevin Johnson is a Partner at Index Ventures working out of the London office.  Prior to that he was CEO of PanGenetics, an antibody development company based in the Netherlands, and one of the Index Ventures portfolio. Kevin was one of the team at Cambridge Antibody Technology (CAT), heading up research from 1994 onwards. In 1997 he was appointed to the Board, where he held the posts of Research Director and Chief Technology Officer.  Kevin led both the development of CAT's platform technologies, and also their application to the discovery of a number of human antibodies currently in clinical development, including the first such drug, Humira™ to reach the market.  He was also part of the management team that floated CAT on the London Stock Exchange (main market).  Kevin graduated in Molecular Biology from Edinburgh University and has a PhD in Pathology from Cambridge University.

Srini Akkaraju, M.D., Ph.D.
Managing Director, New Leaf Venture Partners

Srini Akkaraju is a Managing Director of New Leaf Venture Partners and concentrates on biopharmaceuticals investments. Srini joined New Leaf in January 2009. Prior to joining New Leaf, Srini was a co-founder and Managing Director at Panorama Capital. Before forming Panorama, Srini served as Partner of J.P. Morgan Partners, where he was responsible for leading venture investing in biotech companies. Earlier, Srini held business and corporate development positions at Genentech. During his tenure at Genentech, Srini was responsible for worldwide partnering activities, in-licensing of therapeutics and out-licensing of development projects. In addition, he also was a founding member of BioStreet, an online marketplace for biotech opportunities. Srini is the author of a number of peer-reviewed articles, including ones published in Science and Nature. He received B.A. degrees in both Biochemistry and Computer Science from Rice University and M.D. and Ph.D. degrees in Immunology from Stanford University School of Medicine.

Jeffrey L. Cleland, Ph.D.
Chief Executive Officer, Versartis

Jeff has 20 years of industry experience in research and development, including more than a decade at Genentech, Inc.  He held executive management positions at BaroFold, Novacea, and Targesome, and has managed directly all aspects of pharmaceutical development and late-stage research.  His experience in start-ups includes major roles in obtaining more than $70M of Series A through C venture capital as well as an exit via IPO.  Jeff also runs his own pharmaceutical and biotechnology consulting group for numerous start-ups and venture firms.  While at Genentech, Jeff served in product development and manufacturing roles. He held important leadership roles in the successful approval of two drugs, Herceptin® and Nutropin Depot®, as well as early work on Lucentis®, Avastin®, and Omnitarg®.  He holds a BS degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Davis and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  Jeff has authored more than 100 articles and four books, and holds several issued patents.

Shahzad Malik
General Partner, Advent Ventures

Shahzad joined Advent in 1999. He came with a strong grounding in science and clinical medicine. Prior to joining Advent he spent six years practising medicine, before joining the London office of management consultants McKinsey & Company. Here he served international clients in the Healthcare and Investment Banking sectors. During his time with Advent he has been actively involved with numerous investments in Europe and the United States in the biopharmaceutical and medical device arenas. Shahzad gained an MA from Oxford University, and a MD from Cambridge University. He subsequently specialised in interventional cardiology, whilst also pursuing research interests in heart muscle disorders both in the clinic and basic science laboratory.

Willem ‘Pim’ Stemmer, Ph.D.
Chief Executive Officer, Amunix

Pim has repeatedly invented technologies that have lead to successful companies and products. Pim is currently CEO and founder of Amunix, which has pioneered microprotein technology as well as XTEN technology.  Previously, he founded Avidia after inventing it’s A-domain technology.  In 1997, he founded Maxygen to commercialize the DNA Shuffling technology, now called Molecular Breeding, which lead to the founding of both Verdia and Codexis.  Prior to Maxygen, Pim was a distinguished scientist at Affymax where he invented DNA shuffling technology.  Before that, he worked on antibody fragment engineering at Hybritech. He completed post-doctoral work on phage display of random peptide libraries and antibody fragment expression in E. coli with Prof. Fred Blattner at the University of Wisconsin. Pim obtained his Ph.D. degree from the University of Wisconsin for his work on bacterial pili/fimbriae involved in host-pathogen interaction. Pim has over 60 research publications and over 80 issued patents. His portfolio of patents from Maxygen was ranked as the #1 portfolio in pharma/biotech for 2003 by M.I.T.'s Technology Review, and #2 in a review of the 150 largest pharma and biotech companies by The Wall Street Journal in 2006.  Pim received the Doisy award, the Perlman award, the NASDAQ VCynic award and has given over 250 invited presentations.