Scientists and company- builders, creating the medicines of the 21st century

James Peyer is the Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Cambrian Bio. He also holds multiple board and executive roles across Cambrian’s pipeline. He has spent his entire life dedicated to the mission of finding ways of preventing people from getting diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s instead of waiting for people to get sick. James was previously Founder and Managing Partner at Apollo Ventures, the first global longevity-focused venture capital firm, investing across the US and Europe. Prior to Apollo, James was a biotech R&D specialist at the New York office of McKinsey & Company, serving major pharmaceutical clients. He earned his PhD in stem cell biology at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center as a National Science Foundation Fellow and received his B.A. with special honors from the University of Chicago.

Juliette Han is the Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer at Cambrian Bio, building a portfolio of innovative drug development programs. She is also an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School. Han was previously the Chief of Staff at Two Sigma Private Investments Group, the Private Investments division of the Two Sigma. Prior to Two Sigma, Han was a Chief Operating Officer of People - Human Resources Operations at Citadel, where she led strategic thinking behind performance and teams. Prior to Citadel, Han was Chief of Staff for McKinsey New Ventures at McKinsey & Company and a strategy consultant in the New York office’s healthcare practice. Han holds a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Harvard University, as well as an M.S. in Physiological Sciences and B.S. in Neuroscience and Physiological Science, both from UCLA. She serves on the alumni advisory council of Harvard Medical School, Division of Medical Sciences, and is a CNBC contributor and Forbes Leadership Strategy contributor.

Mark Nuttall is the Executive Vice President of Business Development at Cambrian Bio. He was previously Chief Business Officer for Kintai Therapeutics/Senda Biosciences, a Flagship Pioneering company, and Kymera Therapeutics (KYMR). Before moving to biotech, Mark held increasingly senior roles in business development functions at several large pharmaceutical companies. He was Vice President and Head of Business Development & Licensing for core therapeutic franchises at Sanofi Genzyme: immunology, inflammation and multiple sclerosis; at Johnson & Johnson, he led neuroscience business development and was responsible for leading a team that transformed J&J’s CNS portfolio. Mark began his career in the healthcare industry in R&D at GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca. He has a B.Sc. in biochemistry from the University College of Wales in Cardiff and a Ph.D. in molecular and cell biology from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland.

Ruth Thieroff-Ekerdt, MD, serves as Executive Vice President Clinical Development at Cambrian Bio. Prior to joining Cambrian, she was Chief Medical Officer at Sojournix, and Acting CMO/Scientific Advisor at Organon. She also served as Chief Medical Officer at Aptalis, Strongbridge, Kaleido and held R&D positions of increasing responsibility at Bayer. She graduated as MD and Dr. med. from the Free University Berlin and specialized in Pharmacology and Clinical Pharmacology. She has over 30 years of experience in pharmaceutical R&D at all stages of discovery, development, and commercialization, with a successful track record of leading translational and development programs, submissions, and product launches in EU and US in various therapeutic areas and technologies. She also served as expert in the European Innovative Medicine Initiative and on the Scientific Advisory Board for Chr. Hansen. Ruth has published 28 scientific articles and conference contributions and is inventor/co-inventor of 31 patents.

Christian Angermayer is the Chairman and Co-Founder of Cambrian Bio. A serial entrepreneur and investor, Christian has raised over $1.6B for his portfolio companies. He was co-founder of Ribopharma, a German biotech company pioneering RNAi (today Alnylam, $9B market cap). Via his family office Apeiron Investment Group, he has invested in many companies in the life sciences and fintech sectors and has been party to over 40 successful M&As and IPOs. He is a founder and investor in another biotech holding company, ATAI Life Sciences, focused on neuropharmacology. In 2017, the Swiss-German business magazine BILANZ ranked Christian in the top 10 most important German tech investors. Christian has produced 14 feature films and was named an emerging global leader by the World Economic Forum and the Milken Institute.

Maryanna Saenko currently serves as Co-Founder and Partner at Future Ventures, a firm she launched with Steve Jurvetson focused on disruptive technology such as commercial space exploration, deep learning, quantum computing, robotics, AI, blockchain, sustainable transportation, synthetic biology and clean meat. Previously she was a Principal at Khosla Ventures, and prior to that a Senior Associate at DFJ, where she worked with Steve to focus on frontier technology investments. She was also an investment partner at Airbus Ventures, the early-stage investment group of Airbus, where she led a series of venture investments strategically aligned with Airbus’ future-of-aerospace initiatives. She started her career as a research engineer at Cabot Corporation. Maryanna is a frequent industry speaker on the future of automation and has appeared at Robobusiness, Unmanned Systems Institute, and CES. Maryanna graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a BS in Biomedical Engineering and a BS and MS in Materials Science and Engineering.

Brenton L. Saunders is currently the Executive Chairman of The Beauty Health Company. Before joining The Beauty Health Company, he was Chairman, President and CEO of Allergan, having previously served as CEO and President, and Director of Forest Laboratories (prior to its acquisition by Allergan). Prior to that, he served as CEO of Bausch + Lomb, a leading global eye health company. Brent also held a number of leadership positions at Schering-Plough, including President of Global Consumer Health Care, and was named Head of Integration for the company’s merger with Merck & Co. and its acquisition of Organon BioSciences. Before joining Schering-Plough, he was a Partner and Head of Compliance Business Advisory at PwC, as well as Chief Risk Officer at Coventry Health Care and Senior Vice President of Compliance, Legal and Regulatory at Home Care Corporation of America. He  began his career as Chief Compliance Officer for the Thomas Jefferson University Health System. Brent also  serves on the Board of Directors of Cisco Systems and BridgeBio and is a member of the Business Council.

Paul Farr co-founded and co-leads Anthos Capital, a Santa Monica based private equity firm. Before Anthos, he was an investor with Summit Partners and an investment banker with Goldman Sachs & Co. Paul received his B.Com. from McGill University and his M.B.A. from Stanford University. Paul serves on numerous corporate and charitable boards.

R. Martin Chavez is a Partner and Vice Chairman of Sixth Street Partners, where he works on research and development; diversity, equity, and inclusion; the sourcing engine; and the More Than Capital business, driving deeper engagement with the portfolio companies. Before joining Sixth Street, he served in a variety of senior roles at Goldman Sachs, including Chief Information Officer, Chief Financial Officer, and Global Co-Head of the Securities (now Global Markets) Division. He was also a partner and member of the Goldman Sachs management committee. Chavez co-founded San Francisco start-up Quorum Software Systems, and was later CEO of Kiodex, a risk management systems company that was later acquired by SunGard Data Systems. He holds an A.B. magna cum laude in Biochemical Sciences and a S.M. in Computer Science from Harvard, as well as a Ph.D. in Medical Information Sciences from Stanford.

Steve Jurvetson is an early-stage venture capitalist with a focus on founder-led, mission-driven companies at the cutting edge of disruptive technology and new industry formation. Steve was an early VC investor in SpaceX, Tesla, Planet, Memphis Meats, Hotmail, and the deep learning companies Mythic and Nervana. He also led founding investments in five companies that went public in successful IPOs and several others that became billion-dollar acquisitions. His board seats include SpaceX and Tesla. Before co-founding Future Ventures and Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Steve was an R&D Engineer at Hewlett-Packard. He also worked in product marketing at Apple and NeXT and management consulting with Bain & Company. He completed his undergraduate Electrical Engineering degree at Stanford in 2.5 years, graduating #1 in his class, and went on to earn a MSEE and MBA from Stanford. In 2017, Steve received the Visionary Award from SV Forum. In 2016, President Barack Obama appointed Steve as a Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship.

Jessica Ainscough is the Senior Director of Clinical Operations for Cambrian Bio. Jessica brings over 17 years of experience in the industry as a dedicated clinical operations and quality management leader. Jessica has held leadership roles in clinical operations at Epizyme, Kadmon Holdings and ICON and in compliance management at Tesaro and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in which she developed risk management programs. Jessica has been at the forefront of clinical operations design and development and strategically bringing early stage clinical assets through to FDA approval.

Diana is a scientist and R&D cross-functional, global program leader with strategic and tactical experience in both research and clinical development programs, preclinical to phase 3. She has experience with strategic and operational planning, project tracking, risk identification, cost oversight, budget forecasting, and resource management. Experience facilitating cross-functional teams to develop project development scenarios and to manage conflict resolution, and issue escalation. She has held strategic and operational responsibilities for senior leader stakeholder and external partner/vendor oversight at Sanofi and Takeda. Diana started her career at Schering-Plough in BioTechnology Development following an industrial post-doc.  She has a PhD in Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Cell Biology from Northwestern University and a AB in Biochemistry from Mount Holyoke College.

Catherine Chung is the Executive Assistant to the CEO at Cambrian Bio. Catherine joined Cambrian with nearly a decade of experience supporting CEOs and other C-level executives. Before joining Cambrian, she served as a Business Development Manager at PaperChef and an Operations Manager at Quentin Road Ventures Management, where she drove organizational change through process development and implementation across departments while simultaneously providing coordination and logistical support to the CEO. Catherine received her bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Baruch College, Zicklin School of Business.

Adrienne Hallett is the Vice President for Global Policy at Cambrian Bio. She has 25 years of health policy experience at the highest levels of the US government. Hallett previously served as the Associate Director for Legislative Policy & Analysis for the National Institutes of Health, the world’s largest funder of biomedical research. She briefly served as an advisor to the Biden White House on the establishment of ARPA-H and the launch of a national initiative to eliminate Hepatitis C. Prior to that, she served on the Appropriations Committee of the US Senate as a lead negotiator for funding of public health and research programs. She drafted dozens of US health laws, including portions of the Affordable Care Act relating to prevention policies and programs. She holds a Master’s in Theological Studies from Vanderbilt Divinity School with a concentration in Ethics.

Zhen Huang Cao serves as Director of Business Development at Cambrian Bio. Prior to joining Cambrian, she was Associate Director of Business Development at Otsuka Pharmaceuticals. She has also worked as a Consultant at Alacrita Consulting, was a Helmsley Postdoctoral Fellow at Rockefeller University, and worked at The Rockefeller University’s Office of Technology Transfer. Huang Cao earned her PhD in Pharmacology from University of Cambridge, and her Bachelors of Arts in Biology and Psychology from University of Chicago.

Vrej Jubian is a Director, API Manufacturing and Drug Product, CMC. With over 25 years experience in pharmaceutical, biotech and chemical industries, he brings expertise in chemical development of small organic molecules from the discovery stage to the clinic.  Prior to joining Cambrian, He served in the Business Management group at Thermo Fisher’s API drug substance division providing technical assessments and solutions for clients looking to develop their clinical candidates.  Before Thermo Fisher, he worked as the CMC Manager for Synaptic Pharmaceuticals and subsequently as a Principal Scientist for Lundbeck.  He managed outsourcing activities for development programs and internal medchem projects. He also headed a scale-up lab and provided leadership in drug discovery projects where his group identified several drug development candidates targeting novel GPCRs for CNS therapeutics.  Vrej received his PhD in organic chemistry from McGill University (Montreal, Canada) and completed his postdoctoral training at University of Pittsburgh.

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Margaret Kurtz is the Senior Director of People and Culture at Cambrian Bio. Prior to joining Cambrian, Margaret served as the Director of Talent and Recruitment for the Rutgers University Foundation, the Foundation created to inspire philanthropic support enabling Rutgers, the state university of New Jersey, to transform lives. In her role, Margaret oversaw recruitment and DE&I, while also supporting all areas of talent management and organizational growth strategy. Prior to her time at Rutgers, Margaret worked at DRG Executive Search and the United Nations Foundation in their recruiting functions. Margaret holds a B.A. in Psychology from the George Washington University.

Wenjie Luo serves as Director of Business Operations at Cambrian Bio. Prior to joining Cambrian, she was the Senior Business Development Associate at Cresilon, a biotechnology startup, where she led numerous initiatives to better the company's business development and operations, including securing a $3M non-dilutive capital grant to expand the company's regional footprint. She has also served as a researcher at academic laboratories at Columbia and Cornell Universities. Luo earned her Master of Science in Biomedical Engineering from Columbia University and Bachelor of Science in Biological Engineering from Cornell University.

Jasmine Malshe is a Sr. Business Operations Manager at Cambrian Bio. She has over 12 years of operations experience in the Pharma/biotech and medical device industry. Jasmine is experienced in processes improvements, continuous improvement, establishing new processes related to different aspects of operations. Prior to joining Cambrian, Jasmine was Sr. Advance Operations Manager at Hologic Inc, a medical device company focusing and leading in women’s health. There, she led a team of Engineers and Project managers to establish framework and process to ensure successful launch of New Products into manufacturing and market. In one of her prior roles at Stryker Orthopedics she established a new department from scratch for end-to-end manufacturing of custom Implants for cancer patients. Jasmine holds a M.S. in Biotechnology from University at Buffalo and B.S. in Pharmacy from University of Pune, India. ​

Brendan Murphy is a former patent litigator from Fish & Richardson. He also has experience as a contracts attorney at Dynatrace, Inc. and most recently managing negotiations for a breadth of agreements as Associate Director within the Office of Clinical Research at University of Massachusetts Medical School.

Claire O’Brien is Vice President of Research & Development Project Management at Cambrian Bio. She has 30 years of experience in developing medicines at Ipsen, GlaxoSmithKline (including Glaxo Wellcome and Glaxo Group Research), and in biotech, an in-depth knowledge of medicine development, and a track record in leading global, matrixed teams to advance programs through discovery, development, and launch. After earning a degree in chemistry at Kingston University London, she spent ten years in formulation and analytical development, then moved into cross-functional project leadership, working in multiple disease areas and with teams across US, EU, China, and Japan. Her deep interest in the development and growth of talent has been a theme throughout her career, and she has been coaching for 15 years with a particular interest in coaching scientists to lead.

Claudia Pareja serves as Digital and Social Media Associate at Cambrian Bio. Prior to joining Cambrian, she was a Social Media Coordinator at Capstone Production. She has also worked similar roles in marketing where she modernized brands’ content and developed an effective multi-channel strategy to capture, engage and retain new audiences. Pareja earned her a BA in Writing and Web Design from Trinity Christian College.

Mary Phelan is the Controller at Cambrian Bio. She is a senior-level CPA with over 20 years of hand-on accounting and financial reporting experience, including Controller positions at multiple growing biotechs where she helped to build and manage all accounting operations as well as set up financial reporting for IPO readiness, due diligence, GAAP and SEC filings, corporate governance, budget to actual analysis, equity and debt financings with complicated financial instruments. Phelan earned her BBA from Pace University's Lubin School of Business.‌

Daisy Robinton is the Director of Women's Health at Cambrian Bio and Co-founder & CEO of Oviva Therapeutics. She was a William Randolph Hearst Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University focused on neuroimmunology. Dr. Robinton earned her PhD in Human Biology and Translational Medicine from Harvard University in 2016. Her discoveries elucidating the genetic intersection of stem cell identity and cancer landed her on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in 2017. She completed her B.S. in Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology at UCLA in 2010. Her passion for the effective translation of science has fueled her years of teaching, speaking, and consulting on numerous projects in the US and abroad. Her writing has been published in both academic journals and periodicals, including articles in Developmental Cell Nature.

Ethan Sarnoski serves as Senior Venture Director at Cambrian Bio. Prior to joining Cambrian, he was an Engagement Manager in McKinsey & Company’s Pharmaceutical Practice. He has also worked as an Associate in Yale University’s Office of Cooperative Research. Ethan earned his PhD in Molecular Biology from Yale University, and his bachelor’s degree in Pathobiology from the University of Connecticut.

Erik Schneider is a Senior Director of Business Development at Cambrian Bio. Previously, Erik was on the Business Development and Licensing team at Novartis, evaluating deal and portfolio strategy across cardiovascular, immunology, and neuroscience franchises. Prior to joining Novartis, Erik was a consultant at CBPartners (now Trinity Life Sciences), with a focus on commercial and pricing strategy for new products. Erik graduated from the College of the Holy Cross with a degree in Biochemistry.

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Cameron Terry is the Assistant Controller at Cambrian Bio. He is a senior-level CPA with over 20 years of hand-on accounting and financial reporting experience, including positions at multiple growing tech companies. Terry also has 15 years of experience in public accounting performing audits, reviews and compilations for public and private companies where he helped to ensure accuracy and quality during the financial statement reporting processes. This included IPO filings, GAAP and SEC filings, budget to actual analysis, equity and debt financings with complicated financial instruments. Terry earned his Bachelors of Science and Masters degrees in accounting from Louisiana Tech University.‌

Ryan White serves as Senior Manager of Information Technology at Cambrian Bio. White has spent the past 13 years in various IT roles. For the past eight years, he has worked at two biopharma companies. Prior to joining Cambrian, White led the IT Service Management Program at bluebird bio, Inc. and oversaw the ServiceNow platform as part of the IT Operations team. At bluebird bio, he directed IT service management and ServiceNow platform strategy — championing high trust, secure, and compliant IT systems deployed with user functionality in mind while ensuring system alignment with business processes and people. He also supported and coached the Global End User Services team at bluebird. Before bluebird bio, White was the lead desktop support engineer at Forum Pharmaceuticals. White studied Social Thought and Political Economy at University of Massachusetts, Amherst.