Management

Board of Directors >

K. Alice Leung (Director)

Alice Leung’s biography appears with those of other company management.

Ed Mathers (Director)

Ed Mathers joined NEA as a partner in August 2008 and is focused on biotechnology and specialty pharmaceuticals investments. Prior to joining NEA, Ed most recently served as Executive Vice President, Corporate Development and Venture, at MedImmune, Inc. In this role, he was responsible for the company’s licensing and business development activities and led the company’s venture capital subsidiary, MedImmune Ventures, Inc. Before joining MedImmune in 2002, he was Vice President, Marketing and Corporate icensing and Acquisitions at Inhale Therapeutic Systems. Ed spent 15 years at Glaxo Wellcome, Inc. (GlaxoSmithKline), where he held sales and marketing positions of increasing responsibility. He started his career at Ortho Pharmaceuticals Corporation, a division of Johnson & Johnson, as a researcher. Ed currently serves on the boards of several companies including Kémia, Inc., Satori and Plexxikon Inc. He earned his bachelor's degree in chemistry from North Carolina State University.

James Niedel M.D. Ph.D. (Director)

James Niedel is a Managing Director of New Leaf Venture Partners, a life science venture fund.  Prior to joining the venture industry in May, 2002, Dr. Niedel was Chief Science and Technology Officer for GlaxoSmithKline and from 1995 to 2001 he was a member of the board of directors of Glaxo Wellcome plc with responsibility for Global Research and Development, Information Technology and Product Strategy. From 1988 to 1995 he was VP Research and SVP R&D for the US subsidiary of Glaxo. Before joining the pharmaceutical industry, Jim was Professor of Medicine and Chief of the division of Clinical Pharmacology at Duke Medical School, where he had completed an InternalMedicine residency and a Hematology-Oncology fellowship. He received the M.D. and Ph.D. (Biochemistry) degrees from the University of Miami, was selected a Searle Scholar, and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (London).

Bryan Roberts, Ph.D. (Director)

Bryan joined Venrock as a Kauffman Fellow in 1997. Previously, he earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry & Chemical Biology at Harvard University and, prior to his doctoral program, held corporate finance positions at Kidder, Peabody and Co. Bryan was named a Henry Crown Fellow by the Aspen Institute in 2006, he was named to healthspottr's 2009 Future Health 100 list and was the highest-ranking healthcare investor on Forbe's Midas List in 2008 and 2009. Bryan's previous investiments include Athenahealth, Illumina, Sirna Therapeutics, and XenoPort. He serves on the boards of Achaogen, Cerulean Pharma, CodeRyte, Fate Therapeutics, Ikaria, Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, Satiety, Surface Logix, Ventana, Vitae Pharmaceuticals, and Zeltiq Aesthetics. Bryan earned his B.A. in Chemistry from Dartmouth College.  

Glen Sato, J.D. (Director)

Glen Sato has been a partner in the Life Sciences and Companies practice group at Cooley Godward LLP since January 2006. Prior to that time, he served as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of PDL BioPharma, Inc. (PDL) from May 2003 to September 2005. He joined PDL from Exelixis, Inc., where he had served as Chief Financial Officer and General Counsel since November 1999. Previous to Exelixis, he served in various legal and strategic planning positions at PDL, most recently as Vice President, Legal and General Counsel. During his tenure at PDL and Exelixis, Mr. Sato was responsible for finance, SEC reporting and compliance, disclosure issues and internal and external business functions, including business development, intellectual property licensing and licensing strategy, general corporate counseling, insider trading compliance

and intellectual property protection. He received his Bachelor of Arts from Wesleyan University, and his J.D. and M.B.A. from UCLA.

Irwin Scher, M.D. (Director)

Irwin Scher, M.D. has served as a member of our board of directors since April 2005. Since March 2005, Dr. Scher has served as the Chief Executive Officer of Biosynexus, Incorporated, a biopharmaceutical company. From January 2002 to January 2005, Dr. Scher served as a full-time development and business consultant to the chief executive officer of Merck KgaA in Darmstadt, Germany, a global pharmaceutical products and services company, while also serving as Vice President, global clinical research and development for Merck KgaA from June 2002 to September 2003. From January 1992 to August 1999, Dr. Scher served as senior vice president, drug development and medical affairs at Astra/Merck, a joint venture of Astra AB and Merck, and AstraZeneca, a global pharmaceutical products company. Dr. Scher is a director of Clarient, Inc. Dr. Scher holds a B.S. in chemistry from the New York State University at Albany and an M.D. from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He is board certified in internal medicine and rheumatology.