Jeff Leiden, M.D., Ph.D., has agreed to serve on our board of directors. Dr. Leiden has served as Executive Chairman of Vertex Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: VRTX) since April 2020. He previously served as Vertex’s Chief Executive Officer and President from 2012 through March 2020. He has been a member of Vertex’s 119 board of directors since July 2009, and has served as its Chairman since May 2012, and its lead independent director from October 2010 through December 2011. Prior to that, Dr. Leiden was a Managing Director at Clarus Ventures, a life sciences venture capital firm, from 2006 through January 2012. Dr. Leiden was President and Chief Operating Officer of Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT), Pharmaceuticals Products Group, and a member of the Board of Directors of Abbott Laboratories from 2001 to 2006. From 1987 to 2000, Dr. Leiden held several academic appointments, including the Rawson Professor of Medicine and Pathology and Chief of Cardiology and Director of the Cardiovascular Research Institute at the University of Chicago, the Elkan R. Blout Professor of Biological Sciences at the Harvard School of Public Health, and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is an elected member of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Leiden serves as a director of Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, an insurance company. Dr. Leiden was a director and the non-executive Vice Chairman of the board of Shire plc, a specialty biopharmaceutical company, from 2006 to January 2012, and a director of Quest Diagnostics, a medical diagnostics company, from December 2014 to May 2019. Dr. Leiden received his M.D., Ph.D. and B.A. degrees from the University of Chicago.
We believe that Dr. Leiden’s experience in managing biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, as well as her experience as a public company director, make him well qualified to serve as a member of our board of directors.