Board
Eli Casdin
Eli Casdin, our Chief Executive Officer, is founder and Chief Investment Officer of Casdin Capital. Mr. Casdin founded Casdin Capital in 2011. For the last 17 years he has analyzed and invested in disruptive technologies and business models in life sciences and healthcare. Prior to founding Casdin Capital, Mr. Casdin was a vice president at Alliance Bernstein’s “thematic” based investment group where he researched and invested in the implications of new technologies for the life sciences and healthcare sectors. The black book, “The Dawn of Molecular Medicine,” co-authored by Mr. Casdin, details the early, yet already accelerating, wave of innovations in life sciences, and the next wave of investment opportunities. Mr. Casdin’s prior experience includes time at Bear Stearns and Cooper Hill Partners, a healthcare focused investment firm. Mr. Casdin earned a B.S. from Columbia University and an MBA from Columbia Business School. Mr. Casdin serves on the board of directors for Exact Sciences Corporation (Nasdaq: EXAS), and also serves as a director or observer on the boards of a number of privately held life sciences companies, including Thrive Earlier Detection Corp. He has previously served as a director or observer on other, now public, boards, including Invitae Corporation (NYSE: NVTA), Relay Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: RLAY), and Magenta Therapeutics (Nasdaq: MGTA). Mr. Casdin is currently a member of the New York Genome Center Board and a member of The Columbia University School of General Studies Board of Visitors.
Keith Meister
Keith A. Meister, our Chairman of the Board, is Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer of Corvex Management, which he founded in December 2010. Prior to founding Corvex Management, Mr. Meister served as Chief Executive Officer and then Principal Executive Officer and Vice Chairman of the Board of Icahn Enterprises L.P. (NYSE: IEP) from August 2003 to August 2010. From their launch in November 2004 to August 2010, Mr. Meister also served as Senior Managing Director of the General Partners of Icahn Partners LP and affiliated funds. Mr. Meister currently serves on the board of directors for MGM Resorts International (NYSE: MGM) and has previously served as a director on numerous other public boards including: Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE: YUM), The Williams Companies, Inc. (NYSE: WMB), ADT, Inc. (NYSE: ADT), Ralcorp Holdings, Inc. and Motorola, Inc. (now Motorola Solutions, Inc., NYSE: MSI/Motorola Mobility, Inc.), among others. He is a director for Roar Digital, LLC, chairman of the board of directors for Harlem Children’s Zone and a member of the board of trustees for the American Museum of Natural History. Mr. Meister received an A.B. in government, cum laude, from Harvard College in 1995.
Sean George, PhD
Sean George, who will serve as a Director following completion of this offering, is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Invitae Corporation (NYSE: NVTA), where he leads the team on its mission to bring genetic information into mainstream medicine to help improve healthcare for billions of people. He has also served as Invitae’s President and Chief Operating Officer, as part of the team that has propelled Invitae from early stage startup to a leader transforming the industry. Dr. George has long advanced the transformation of the genetics industry to increase access to help improve patient care. Before Invitae, he served as COO at Navigenics, Inc., an early pioneer in personalized genetics. Prior to that he served in a variety of product, operating and commercial roles at Affymetrix, Inc., Invitrogen Corporation and Molecular Probes, Inc. Dr. George holds a B.S. in Molecular Genetics from UCLA, an M.S. in Molecular Biology from UC Santa Barbara, and a Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics from UC Santa Cruz.
Munib Islam
Munib Islam, who will serve as a Director following completion of this offering, served as Co-Chief Investment Officer and a Partner at Third Point LLC, an investment management firm from mid-2019 through 2020. Mr. Islam was integrally involved in the operations of Third Point, including investing, risk management, marketing, hiring, and talent development. Prior to becoming co-Chief Investment Officer, he served as Head of Equities at Third Point, and in such role, Mr. Islam spearheaded research on Third Point’s strategic block investments globally, including investments in Sony Corporation (NYSE: SNE), Campbell’s Soup Corporation (NYSE: CPB), Nestlé S.A. (OTCMKTS: NSRGY) and DowDuPont Inc. Mr. Islam also served on the board of directors and executive selection and audit committees of Baxter International, Inc. (NYSE: BAX), currently an approximately $45 billion health care company, from 2015 through 2019. From 2008 to 2011, he worked at Highbridge Capital, where he was a Managing Director and Portfolio Manager of Highbridge’s European Value Equities fund. Mr. Islam first joined Third Point in 2004, after working at Oak Hill Capital and at Lazard LLC. He received a B.A. in Economics, magna cum laude, from Dartmouth College and an MBA from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. He currently sits on the Boards of the Stanford Business School Trust and the Brearley School in New York City.
Emily Leproust, PhD
Emily Leproust, who will serve as a Director following completion of this offering, is President and Chief Executive Officer of Twist Bioscience Corp. (Nasdaq: TWST), roles she has held since co-founding Twist in 2013. Since October 2018, she has also served as Chair of the board of directors for Twist. Prior to co-founding Twist, Dr. Leproust served in various positions at Agilent Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: A), most recently as its Director, Applications and Chemistry R&D from February 2009 to April 2013. Dr. Leproust holds a M.Sc. in Industrial Chemistry from the Lyon School of Industrial Chemistry and a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Houston.
Nat Turner
Nat Turner, who will serve as a Director following completion of this offering, is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Flatiron Health, Inc., a healthcare technology company focusing on accelerating oncology research and improving patient care acquired by Roche Holding AG in 2018, a role he has held since June 2012. Previously, Mr. Turner co-founded and served as Chief Executive Officer of Invite Media, Inc., an advertising technology company that built the industry’s first enterprise advertising platform for buying and optimizing online media in real time, from March 2007 until it was acquired by Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOGL) in June 2010, after which he remained at Google until June 2012. Mr. Turner has served on the Board of Directors of Clover Health, a privately-held healthcare insurance company aimed at improving patient care through data analytics, since May 2015. An active angel investor, Mr. Turner has invested in over 300 startups throughout the country, including Cedar Cares, Inc., Clover Health Inc., Color Genomics, Inc., Gravie, Inc., Imagen Technologies, Inc., Immuta, Inc., Klara Technologies, Inc., Oscar Insurance Corporation, Plaid, Inc., Ribbon Health, Inc., RigUp, Inc. and Quartet Health, Inc.. Mr. Turner received a B.S., cum laude, in Economics with concentrations in entrepreneurship and marketing from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. We believe our management team is well positioned to take advantage of the growing set of investment opportunities focused on the healthcare industry, and that our extensive existing relationships with portfolio companies along with our ongoing efforts to identify investment opportunities will allow us to generate an attractive transaction for our stockholders.