our advisory board

Wendy Young, Ph.D. – Chairwoman

Wendy Young, Ph.D. is a biotechnology, pharma and life science executive with more than 30 years of experience in the discovery and development of innovative drug discovery platforms and new medicines.  She recently moved into venture capital and is the CEO of a new biotech company in stealth mode, an advisor at GV (Google Ventures) and is on the scientific advisory board of several biotechs. Previously, she was the Senior Vice President at Genentech where she actively built and led the small molecule drug discovery organization. Under her leadership, more than 25 clinical candidates, in the areas of oncology, immunology, neurology, and anti-infectives, progressed into development. Additionally, Wendy led the BTK discovery program and is co-inventor of fenebrutinib which is currently in Phase 3 trials for multiple sclerosis.

Wendy received her Ph.D. from Princeton University, where she worked on folate analogs in collaboration with Eli Lilly, and Alimtawas an outcome of this collaboration.  Thereafter, she was a postdoctoral fellow at Sloan-Kettering in Samuel Danishefsky’s lab having contributed to the total synthesis of taxol. 

Wendy is an inventor and/or author on more than 70 published patents and manuscripts. She has won numerous awards including the National ACS. Earle B. Barnes Award for Leadership, ACS Fellow Inductee, and has been highlighted as “One of the Top 20 Women in Biopharma” by Endpoint News and “Most Influential Women in SF Bay Area” San Francisco Times.

Gary Yeung, CFA – Xilis

Gary Yeung, CFA is a life science executive (President, COO, CFO, and CBO), board member, advisor, and investor with extensive strategy, finance, business development, and operations experience in forming and building biotech companies and developing novel therapies.

Gary has raised over $570M ($370M as CFO and $200M as an advisor and board member) while forming and building multiple successful biotech companies: Xilis, Erasca (NASDAQ: ERAS), NiKang, Guardant Health (NASDAQ: GH), and Annexon Biosciences (NASDAQ: ANNX). He has led organizations engaged in filing 42 INDs, and led teams that launched multiple FDA-approved treatments at Genentech. Earlier in his career, he worked in management consulting at McKinsey and operations leadership at GE.

Gary holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley and an MBA from University of California, Los Angeles. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA).

Andrew Setikas, MBA – California Life Sciences

As Chief Business Officer for California Life Sciences, Andrew Setikas leads membership, marketing, business development,  partnership, programming, and organizational strategy. He brings over two decades of commercial experience across a variety of market segments and geographies. 

Andrew joined CLS from Thermo Fisher Scientific in 2019, where he had spent 12 years and most recently served as Senior Director of Business Development, leading a group focused on establishing and growing partnerships in the biotechnology, government, and academic sectors across Thermo Fisher’s entire portfolio of products and services.

Andrew brings commercial, marketing, program, product, and regulatory management experience in all areas of the life sciences and prior to Thermo Fisher spent time in both domestic and international roles at Roquette Frères, Adhesives Research Inc, and FMC Corporation where he began his professional career in analytical chemistry and toxicology.  He received his MBA from the University of San Francisco, and dual Bachelor degree’s in Chemistry and Environmental Sciences from Rutgers University.   

Matthew Sanchez – Yahoo!

Matt Sanchez is the President & GM of Yahoo’s Home Ecosystem, where he brings deep knowledge and experience in digital publishing, advertising, technology, and operations.

Prior to Yahoo, Matt served as President of Hearst Autos and of CDS Global, subsidiaries of Hearst Magazines which operate the widely circulated consumer publications, Road & Track and Car & Driver.

Matt also was Co-Founder and CEO at Say Media (formerly VideoEgg), pioneering the industry’s first ad-in-video model and developing a managed publishing platform for mid-market media companies. He operated the company from its founding in 2003 through its acquisition by TheMaven in 2018.

Matt remains interested in helping emerging technology and digital media companies achieve scale and has been a board member of technology company Thunder for over 7 years, advising the company through its acquisition by Walmart in 2021.

Troy Young – Digital Media

Troy W. Young is the former global President of Hearst Magazines, where he spent 7+ years transforming a legacy media company and one of the largest publishers in the world into a modern omni-channel media force. He has led fast-growing start ups, launched and run digital ad agencies. Troy is currently advising early stage ventures, media companies and leading private equity firms.

His accomplishments in media and advertising have been recognized widely including being named Media Executive of the year by Adweek. He was chairman of the IAB and served on the board of the United Way of New York. 

Nick Sanchez – Medallion.fm

Nick Sanchez has been building software platforms to support creators for more than 10 years. He is currently VP of Product at Medallion.fm, which is creating a Web3 platform for artists, musicians and fan communities. Previously, Nick was Sr. Director of Product, Identity and Payments at Hearst Magazines, where he led the teams which created Mylo, a customer identity platform, launched the membership business, and rebuilt the front-end payment capture service.

Earlier in his career, Nick launched VideoEgg’s display advertising network, which grew into the company’s primary business until its merger with SixApart to become Say Media. While at Say Media, Nick led technology teams across a broad range of digital media product areas, including data, ad platform, and site experience. He also ran programmatic advertising at Say Media, which grew to become the majority of company revenue. Nick received his BA from Yale University.

Amanda Yarnell – Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Amanda Yarnell is the Senior Director of the Center for Health Communication at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where she is building a hub to teach and share effective health communication practices to inform policy debates, counter misinformation, and empower smart decision-making. 

She joined Harvard in 2022 from Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), a science news outlet published by the American Chemical Society (ACS), where she led C&EN’s science coverage for 7 years and was Editorial Director for another 8 years. She also founded and led C&EN’s Product and Audience teams during her tenure at C&EN. 

Under Amanda’s leadership C&EN doubled the audience for its journalism to more than 8 million people a year, allowing ACS to communicate—to the public and to policymakers—the vital role of chemists and chemistry in addressing the world’s challenges. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry from Johns Hopkins University and a Masters of Science in Chemistry from MIT. 

Andres Ruiz Briseno – IDEAYA

Andres has over 10 years of finance and operations experience working with public and private life science companies. He currently serves as Vice President, Head of Business Operations and Investor Relations at IDEAYA Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: IDYA). Prior to joining IDEAYA, Andres was at Pharmacyclics, Inc., (NASDAQ: PCYC) where he helped lead the organization’s finance and operations efforts in support of the successful launch of blockbuster cancer drug, IMBRUVICA (ibrutinib) and played a key role in building the Company’s long-range planning and the integration activities into AbbVie, following Pharmacyclics’ $21 billion acquisition. Prior to that, Andres held roles at Theravance, Inc. (NASDAQ: THRX), and at PricewaterhouseCoopers’ audit and assurance practice where he focused on life science and venture capital clients.

Andres obtained his B.S. in Business Administration with a concentration in Corporate Financial Management from San Jose State University and is a Certified Public Accountant, licensed in the state of California.

Ben Slivka – Technology

Ben is an advisor, inventor, philanthropist, and software engineer with a passion for learning. He has active “angel” investments in 14 companies in biotechnology, hardware, software, and space launch.

Ben spent 14 years at Microsoft, where he worked on OS/2, MS-DOS 6, Windows 95, a Java VM, and MSN. He started the Internet Explorer team in 1994 and led it through the release of IE3.0 in 1996. IE 3.0 beat Netscape 3.0 in press reviews and achieved 30% market share by the time IE 4.0 released in 1997. Ben installed Microsoft’s first production LAN in 1985, proposed the FAT32 file system in 1990, led the team that wrote the Win32 API specification in 1991, and created the CAB software distribution format in 1993. His work at Microsoft and Dreambox Learning resulted in 22 issued U.S. patents. Ben also worked brief stints at Amazon and IBM.

Ben earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in Computer Science and a B.S. degree in Applied Mathematics in the early 1980’s from Northwestern University, where he served as a Trustee from 1998 to 2018.

Alexander Casdin – Epirium Bio

Alexander Casdin is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Epirium Bio. He has broad financial and operational expertise, with more than 20 years of experience as a healthcare executive and investor. Prior to joining Epirium, Mr. Casdin was founder, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and portfolio manager of Reneo Capital Management LP, a successful healthcare investment fund. He previously served as CFO of Sophiris Bio, Inc. and Vice President of Finance for Amylin Pharmaceuticals.

Mr. Casdin was a founder and senior advisor at Casdin Advisors, LLC; CEO and portfolio manager at Cooper Hill Partners, LLC, a healthcare investment fund; and portfolio manager of Pequot Capital Management’s healthcare fund. Earlier, he worked at the Dreyfus Corporation as a senior managing analyst covering pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and medical devices.

Mr. Casdin currently serves on the board of directors of Erasca, Inc., and has been on the board of directors for multiple life science companies including Dusa Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and Ignyta, Inc. Mr. Casdin received an M.B.A from Columbia Business School, Beta Gamma Sigma, and a B.A. in political science from Brown University.

Alex Schleifer – Chief Design Officer

Alex Schleifer is a designer and technologist with over two decades of experience building products for the world’s best media and consumer brands. He runs Universal Entities, an independent digital studio. He previously was Chief Design Officer at Airbnb.

Squire Servance – Founder & Managing Partner

Squire Servance is the Founder & Managing Partner of Syridex Bio, an impact driven, life sciences investment firm focused on investing in therapies that accelerate health equity.

Prior to founding Syridex Bio, Mr. Servance served as SVP, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary & Chief Compliance Officer at Repligen Corporation (NASDAQ: RGEN). At Repligen, Mr. Servance led the legal, corporate secretary, compliance and enterprise risk functions and counseled the company’s Board of Directors and sr. management. Mr. Servance joined Repligen from Baxter International, Inc. where he served as Associate General Counsel, Global Pharmaceuticals. Prior to joining Baxter, Mr. Servance worked in a variety of settings including as Director, Sr. Legal Counsel at Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, as an attorney with Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP and as a law clerk for Judge Jerome A. Holmes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

Mr. Servance received his J.D. from Duke University School of Law. He received his M.B.A. with a concentration in corporate finance and a Certificate in Health Sector Management from Duke University, Fuqua School of Business. He received his B.S., with honors, with a double major in biomedical engineering and cell biology and neuroscience from Rutgers University, School of Engineering.

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