Andrew Allen

MD, PhD, CEO

Andrew Allen, M.D., Ph.D. co-founded Gritstone bio, Inc. and has served as President, CEO and a board member since 2015. In 2009, Dr. Allen co-founded Clovis Oncology and served as Chief Medical Officer until 2015, driving development of Rucaparib, a PARP inhibitor. Prior he was Chief Medical Officer at Pharmion Corporation, developing Vidaza, the first approved DNA methylation inhibitor, until acquisition by Celgene in 2008. Dr. Allen also served in clinical development leadership roles at Chiron Corporation and Abbott Laboratories, and worked at McKinsey & Company. He currently serves on the board of directors of TCR2 Therapeutics and Sierra Oncology (both public biopharma companies) and Revitope Oncology and Verge Genomics (both private biopharma companies). He previously served on the board of directors of Epizyme (developers of the first approved histone methylation transferase inhibitor) and Cell Design Labs (acquired by Gilead Sciences in 2017). Dr. Allen qualified in medicine at Oxford University and received a Ph.D. in immunology from Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine in London.

Steve Kanes

MD, PhD, CEO

Dr. Kanes is responsible for Sage’s clinical-stage programs and is the company’s primary liaison with the investigator community. His experiences as both a practicing psychiatrist and neuroscience investigator have helped him advance through increasing positions of responsibility at AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals, culminating in his role as the Executive Director/Therapeutic Area Clinical Director for the inflammation, neuroscience and respiratory GMED division at the company. He has authored or co-authored more than 50 peer-reviewed publications in behavioral neuroscience, behavioral pharmacology, genetics, clinical trial, and health economics and serves as an ad hoc reviewer for the journals Neuropsychopharmacology and American Journal of Medical Genetics and Biological Psychiatry. Steve received his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and both his Ph.D. and M.D. from State University of New York, Stony Brook. He completed his psychiatry residency at Yale-New Haven Medical Center and postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania.

Emily Melton

MBA

Emily is a co-founder of Threshold. She is looking for entrepreneurs who are genuinely excited about being agents of change and have an almost irrational drive to make things better. Her portfolio includes BetterUp, Brightline, Calibrate, Clearing, Elation Health, HumanFirst, Imagen, Livongo (NASDAQ: LVGO), Ooda Health (acquired by Cedar), Redfin (NASDAQ: RDFN), Shift (NASDAQ: SFT), Tia, Transcarent, Verge Genomics, Vineti, Vital, Viz, and Wellframe (acquired by HealthEdge).

In 2019, Forbes recognized Emily on the Midas Brink List as an investor destined for success based on her reputation and momentum in the industry. Emily is an active founding member of All Raise, a non-profit dedicated to improving access for women and others to start and invest in companies. She also serves on the board of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA).

Al Sandrock

MD, PhD, CEO

Dr. Sandrock joined the Voyager Board in 2022, following a prolific career in biopharmaceutical drug development. Dr. Sandrock spent 23 years at Biogen where he identified and developed novel therapies for a variety of serious diseases. While at Biogen, Dr. Sandrock served in positions of increasing responsibility, culminating in his service as Executive Vice President, Research and Development. He also served as Chief Medical Officer and held a seat on the Biogen Executive Committee. Over the course of his tenure, he led the discovery and development, and regulatory approval of numerous medicines including: ADUHELM™, PLEGRIDY®, SPINRAZA®, TECFIDERA®, and TYSABRI®. Dr. Sandrock earned a B.A. in human biology from Stanford University, an M.D. from Harvard Medical School, and a Ph.D. in neurobiology from Harvard University. He completed an internship in medicine, a residency and chief residency in neurology, and a clinical fellowship in Neuromuscular Disease and Clinical Neurophysiology (electromyography) at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Lauren McNamer

Sr. Director

Lauren is a Senior Director of Corporate Business Development at Eli Lilly and Company, contributing to Lilly’s external innovation through technology licensing agreements and strategic investments. She has nearly a decade of commercial experience in the pharmaceutical industry across a variety of finance, operations, strategy, and market access roles. Lauren holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a B.S. in Finance from Butler University.

Melanie Leitner

PhD, CSO

Dr. Melanie Leitner is the Founder of Accelerating NeuroVentures, LLC, a solo consulting practice providing strategic, programmatic, and business development services to investors, industry, and non-profit clients interested in funding, initiating, or advancing programs within the neuroscience translational space.

Prior to launching Accelerating NeuroVentures, Melanie served as Associate Director for Clinical Research in Biogen’s ALS Innovation Hub (ALS iHub), a newly created ALS team dedicated to developing new paradigms for testing ALS therapies, incorporating the latest advances in science, technology, and clinical trial design. At Biogen she was the lead architect of the company’s ALS Communications Strategy, and study director for the ALS Methodology Study, a longitudinal clinical study designed to validate novel outcome measures for future ALS clinical trials. Prior to Biogen, Dr. Leitner spent 7 years as Chief Scientific Officer at the ALS non-profit Prize4Life, founded to accelerate the discovery of treatments and cures for ALS through the use of the incentive prize model. Dr. Leitner has also held Program Director positions at the non-profits FasterCures and the Society for Neuroscience, and was a member of US Senator Dick Durbin’s Health staff. Melanie was awarded a Howard Hughes Predoctoral Fellowship and a Lucille P. Markey Fellowship for her Ph.D. work at Washington University, and graduated Magna Cum Laude with an Sc.B. from Brown University; all in the field of Neuroscience.

Dave Madge

PhD, VO, Discovery Services

Dr. Dave Madge is Vice President of the WuXi Discovery Services in WuXi AppTec. In this role Dave leads business development in Europe and Israel, alongside a portfolio of strategic initiatives across multiple therapeutic areas and modalities. Prior to joining WuXi AppTec, in 2014, Dave was VP, Research, for the ion channel drug discovery company Xention Ltd, in Cambridge, UK, developing new molecules for cardiovascular and respiratory disorders. Before Xention Dave was based at University College London, as part of an integrated biomedical research group, and was responsible for developing new therapeutic discovery projects into funded biotech companies. Dave has a PhD in Medicinal Chemistry from Imperial College, London, and started his career at The Wellcome Foundation in the medicinal chemistry team.