Set forth below is biographical information for the nominees and each person whose term of office as a director will continue after the Annual Meeting. The following includes certain information regarding our directors’ individual experience, qualifications, attributes and skills that led the board of directors to conclude that they should serve as directors.
Nominees for Election to a Three-Year Term Expiring at the 2023 Annual Meeting of Stockholders
Richard Heyman, Ph.D. has served as a member of our board of directors since November 2015. Dr. Heyman is executive chairman of the board of directors and co-founder of Metacrine, Inc., a biotechnology company developing new therapeutics for the treatment of liver and gastrointestinal diseases. He also is the co-founder and chairman of the board of directors of ORIC Pharmaceuticals, which is developing drugs to overcome resistance in cancer. Previously, Dr. Heyman served as president and chief executive officer of Seragon Pharmaceuticals Inc., or Seragon, a privately-held biotechnology company, which was acquired by Genentech in 2014. Prior to Seragon, he co-founded and served as president and chief executive officer of Aragon Pharmaceuticals, Inc., or Aragon, until it was purchased by Johnson & Johnson in 2013. He has been involved in the discovery and development of multiple therapeutic agents approved by the FDA, including the recently approved prostate cancer drug, Erleada. Dr. Heyman is a venture partner for Arch Ventures and also serves on the boards of directors for private life sciences companies Yumanity Therapeutics, Vividion Therapeutics and Amunix Inc. He is Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees at the Salk Institute, on the Board Foundation for the American Association for Cancer Research, or AACR, and on the executive committee at the University of California at San Diego Moores Cancer Center. He has won numerous awards including Ernst and Young San Diego Regional Entrepreneur of the Year and the Endocrine Society Outstanding Innovation Award. Dr. Heyman received a B.S. in chemistry from the University of Connecticut and a Ph.D. in pharmacology from the University of Minnesota. He was an NIH post-doctoral fellow and staff scientist at the Salk Institute. We believe that Dr. Heyman is qualified to serve on our board of directors due to his educational background and his experience as a board member and senior executive of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies.
Nicholas Simon has served as a member of our board of directors since September 2015. Mr. Simon is a Senior Managing Director in the Blackstone Life Sciences group, having joined Blackstone as part of its acquisition of Clarus Ventures, LLC, or Clarus, in December of 2018. Prior to joining Blackstone, Mr. Simon was co-founder and Managing Director of Clarus, a venture capital firm focused on life sciences companies, since the firm’s inception in 2005. Prior to Clarus, Mr. Simon was a general partner at MPM Capital, Inc., a healthcare venture capital firm. He has more than 20 years of operating and investment experience in the biopharmaceutical industry including serving as vice president of business and corporate development at Genentech from 1989 to 2000. In addition to Gritstone, Mr. Simon is currently a member of the board of directors of Nuvelution Pharma, Inc., a private pharmaceutical company, and of Lycera Corp., a private pharmaceutical company. He has also been a member of the board of directors of numerous private and public life sciences companies including Achillion Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Avanir Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Barrier Therapeutics, Inc., Biovitrum AB, CoTherix, Inc., InterMune, Inc., Pearl Therapeutics Inc., QuatRx Pharmaceuticals Co., Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and Sangstat Medical Corporation. Mr. Simon is also a trustee at the Gladstone Institute, a private not-for-profit research institute affiliated with the University of California, San Francisco. Mr. Simon received a B.S. in microbiology from the University of Maryland and an M.B.A. from Loyola University. We believe that Mr. Simon is qualified to serve on our board of directors due to his experience as a board member of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, and his experience as an investor in new life sciences companies.
Thomas Woiwode, Ph.D. has served as a member of our board of directors since September 2015. Dr. Woiwode has been with Versant Venture Management, LLC, or Versant Ventures, a healthcare investment firm, since 2002 in various capacities, serving as a managing director since July 2014 and previously as a venture partner from June 2011 to July 2014. He has also served in a number of operating roles over this time, most recently as the chief operating officer of Okairos AG, or Okairos, a biopharmaceutical company developing genetic vaccines for major infectious diseases, from April 2011 until May 2013. Prior to Okairos, Dr. Woiwode co-founded EuroVentures, a wholly owned biotechnology incubator within Versant Ventures, and in this role, served as the founding chief business officer for three biotechnology companies created within Versant Ventures. Before joining Versant Ventures, Dr. Woiwode also served as a research scientist at XenoPort, Inc. Dr. Woiwode currently serves on the boards of directors of Adverum Biotechnologies, Inc. and Passage BIO, Inc., each a publicly traded biotechnology company, as well as multiple other privately-held companies. Dr. Woiwode previously served on the boards of directors of publicly traded biopharmaceutical companies CRISPR