VARIANT BIO - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Member of the Ethics Advisory Board
- Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Northwestern University
Job Titles:
- Chief Executive Officer
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Member of the Leadership Team
- CEO of Variant
Andrew Farnum is the CEO of Variant Bio. Previously, he was the Director of the Gates Foundation's Strategic Investment Fund, where he led the foundation's $2 billion investment program and chaired the foundation's investment committee. The fund invests around the world in the foundation's priority sectors, including biotech, healthcare delivery, financial services for the poor, agriculture and education. While at Gates, Andrew and his team led the foundation's early, private round investments in many companies that later IPO'd or were acquired, such as BioNTech, CureVac, Butterfly and Vir. Earlier, Andrew was an investor and investment banker at TPG and Goldman Sachs. Andrew has a master's degree in international development from the Harvard Kennedy School and an AB in molecular biology from Princeton University.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Managing Director, Alta Partners
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- President, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Job Titles:
- Partnership Implementation
Job Titles:
- Chief Scientific Officer
- Member of the Leadership Team
David brings over 20 years of experience leading R&D efforts in both large pharmaceutical companies and in biotech - most notably Eli Lilly and Merck. At Variant Bio, he will be responsible for leading scientific-related activities with a focus on the discovery and development of novel therapeutics. Dr. Moller is an expertly trained physician-scientist with a demonstrated ability to turn genetic insights into therapeutic programs, and to oversee both research and clinical development. His accomplishments included the advent of several successful medicines such as Januvia (sitagliptin), Trulicity (dulaglutide), and Mounjaro (tirzepatide) injection.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Scientific Advisory Board
- Professor of Genome Sciences, HHMI Investigator, University of Washington
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- Assistant Professor, University of Copenhagen
Job Titles:
- Member of the Scientific Advisory Board
- Group Leader, Wellcome Sanger Institute, Experimental Science Director, Open Targets
Holly Vance - Chief Legal Officer, COO
Job Titles:
- Chief Legal Officer
- Chief Operating Officer
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Chief Operating Officer and Chief Legal Officer of Variant
Holly Vance is the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Legal Officer of Variant Bio. Previously, she served as General Counsel of Neoleukin Therapeutics, a publicly traded biopharmaceutical company creating next generation immunotherapies for cancer and autoimmune conditions. Holly also previously served as Associate General Counsel at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where she provided legal and strategic guidance on investments, transactions, and operational matters to the foundation's Strategic Investment Fund. Prior to her role at the Gates Foundation, Holly was a partner in the Seattle office of the law firm K&L Gates, where she advised companies on a broad range of commercial and business matters. Holly received a J.D. from the University of Washington School of Law, a Pharm.D. from the University of Washington School of Pharmacy, and a B.S. degree in Cell and Molecular Biology from the University of Washington.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Ethics Advisory Board
- Chairman of Genomics Aotearoa 's Variome Project, Deputy Chair of Ngāti Porou Hauora
Job Titles:
- Partnership Implementation
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Vice President, SoftBank
Job Titles:
- Member of the Scientific Advisory Board
- CSO and Head of R & D, Sonoma Biotherapeutics
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Co - Founder and Managing Partner, Lux Capital
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Co - Founder and Managing Director, Biomatics Capital
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- Co - Founder, Variant Bio and Gencove
Job Titles:
- Member of the Scientific Advisory Board
- Executive Vice President, Chief Biomedical Scientist, Head of Discovery R & D, Schrödinger
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- Assistant Professor, University of California, San Diego
Job Titles:
- Member of the Ethics Advisory Board
- Director of Research, Human Genetics, Sarah Lawrence College
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- SVP, Computational Genetics
- VP, Computational Genetics
Laura Yerges-Armstrong is a statistical geneticist with specialized training and experience in genetic epidemiology and related statistical methodologies. She is Vice President of Computational Genetics at Variant Bio where she manages a team responsible for statistical genetics, population genetics and functional genomics analysis to support genomic discoveries. Previously at GSK, Laura was Senior Director of Statistical Genetics and Genomic Data Sciences where she led several multi-disciplinary teams supporting early target identification and validation campaigns and lead capability development projects supporting key genomic data resources. In her previous academic role as a faculty member at University of Maryland School of Medicine, she studied the pharmacogenomics of clopidogrel response, worked with international genomics consortia for non-alcoholic liver disease, osteoporosis and sarcopenia and was the principal investigator for an NIH award evaluating the role of exonic variant architecture in the Old Order Amish.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- VP, Operations
Leslie is responsible for the day to day operations at Variant Bio. Prior to joining the team she was a Portfolio Manager for a small biotech VC firm in Seattle where she managed portfolio reporting, pipeline development and financial operations. Leslie was formerly a Project Coordinator at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation where she coordinated the investment process for the Strategic Investment Fund, the strategic investment arm of the foundation. Leslie also spent time with the Enterprise Partner Group (EPG) at Microsoft providing sales support and industry analysis for clients across the world. She holds a BS in Business from Southern Oregon University and an MBA with a focus on International Business from Seattle University.
Job Titles:
- Partnership Implementation
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- Associate Professor, Johns Hopkins University
Job Titles:
- Member of the Ethics Advisory Board
- Associate Professor of the Practice at Social Science Research Institute, Duke University
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- VP, Partnerships & Business Development
Prathap joins the Variant Bio team from the world of International Development. For the past 13 years, Prathap has worked with world-class economists and led teams that developed and implemented 100+ randomized controlled trials of social programs in Asia and South America. Prathap also comes to Variant Bio with extensive partnership management experience ranging from local governments to international organizations, small and medium-sized non-profits to large corporate conglomerates, etc. He holds a master's degree in Public Policy from the University of Michigan and a bachelor's degree in Engineering from The Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee. He is originally from Kakinada, a coastal town in Andhra Pradesh, India.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Member of the Scientific Advisory Board
Job Titles:
- Member of the Scientific Advisory Board
- Professor of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, UC San Francisco
Job Titles:
- Member of the Scientific Advisory Board
- Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology, Chief of Nephrology, UT Southwestern
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- VP, Head of Biology
Stacey Drabic is the VP, Head of Biology within the R&D organization at Variant Bio. Stacey has over 24+ years in biopharma and leadership positions where she has held positions of increasing responsibility in various pharma and biotech companies. She has extensive leadership in immune-oncology and autoimmune/inflammation drug discovery, with multiple programs supporting the development of small molecules and biologics from target validation and candidate nomination to clinical development. Stacey has extensive experience in IND writing and submission requirements. Stacey's teams have generated pharmacology packages for many INDs with a focus on translatability to the clinic. She has also led teams that resulted in the approval of Imfinzi (durvalumab), Fasenra (benralizumab), Saphelo (anifrilomab-fnia), and Uplinza (inebilizumab).
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Co - Founder, Chief Technology Officer & Chief Genomics Officer
Stephane has expertise analyzing the genome to understand how genetic variation contributes to disease. His work has been published in Nature, Nature Genetics, Science, and Cell. Before co-founding Variant Bio, he was a postdoctoral Research Fellow at Columbia University and the New York Genome Center, advised by Dr. Tuuli Lappalainen. As a postdoc, he was a lead analyst on the GTEx Project, the largest study of human regulatory variation. He also co-founded Fiix Software, which develops cloud-based asset management software and was acquired by Rockwell Automation in 2020. Stephane completed his PhD studying genetics at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory advised by Dr. Robert Martienssen.
Job Titles:
- Chief Business Officer
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Industry Leader
Steve is a recognized industry leader in business development and partnering strategy, and will be responsible for leading this area at Variant Bio, including structuring, negotiation, and oversight of industry collaborations. Dr. Bryant trained as a geneticist and bioinformatics scientist before embarking on a long career in business development. Most recently, he served as Head of Global Business Development at Genmab, where he led the deal team that put together numerous high-value licensing deals that resulted in successful drugs and many drugs now in clinical development. Several of these launched products are now blockbusters and have collectively resulted in several billion dollars in licensing revenue.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Scientific Advisory Board
- Professor of Medicine, Rheumatology Division Head, University of Washington
Job Titles:
- Member of the Scientific Advisory Board
- Professor, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Senior Associate Member, New York Genome Center
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Director, Discovery Research
Yvette is Sr. Director of Research and Discovery at Variant Bio. She has extensive experience in fundamental immunology and immune-related diseases, including immuno-oncology, inflammation, vaccines, autoimmunity, and drug discovery. Her recent role was at Silverback Therapeutics where she was responsible for biology oversight for several immune-oncology preclinical programs concentrating on antibody drug conjugate technologies. At ImmunityBio, formerly Etubics, she designed and implemented pre-clinical in vivo immunology studies in mice on new vaccines based on the company's advanced viral vector platform. Prior to this, she was an Assistant Member at BloodWorks and Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Washington. Her lab focused on the PD-1 and innate cells in tumor immunity. She received her PhD in Immunology from University College, London researching the role of IgE complexes and the low affinity IgE receptor in atopic eczema. After completing postdoctoral research, she received a Wellcome Trust fellowship to research the role of PD-1 pathway in T cell activation and autoimmunity at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital.