taking big strides

Dr. Benkovic is the Evan Pugh Professor and Eberly Chair in Chemistry at the Pennsylvania State University. He is a Founder and Head of the Scientific Advisory Board for Anacor Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Anacor was formed in 2001, went through several successful VC funding rounds and an IPO, and was sold to Pfizer for over $5 billion. Dr. Benkovic was awarded the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) Fellow (2015), the National Academy of Science Award in Chemical Sciences (2011), the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Science (2009), and the National Medal of Science by President Obama (2009).

Kristina is a Managing Director with ARCH Venture Partners and is focused on the creation and development of biotechnology, pharmaceutical and agbiotechnology companies. Since joining ARCH in 2002, Ms. Burow has played a significant role in the creation and development of several companies. Ms. Burow is a Director of Vividion Therapeutics, Lycera, BlackThorn Therapeutics, Sienna Biopharmaceuticals, Metacrine, Scholar Rock, Unity Biotechnology, AgBiome, AgTech Accelerator and Vir Biotechnology. She previously was a co-founder and Director of Receptos (RCPT – acquired by Celgene). Ms. Burow has participated in several other ARCH portfolio companies including Siluria Technologies, Kythera (KYTH – acquired by Allergan), Ikaria (acquired by Madison Dearborn) and was a co-founder and board member of Sapphire Energy. Prior to joining ARCH Ms. Burow was an Associate with the Novartis BioVenture Fund in San Diego. As an early employee at the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF), she directed Chemistry Operations and was active in Business Development where she helped create numerous companies as spin-outs from GNF. Ms. Burow holds a M.B.A. from the University of Chicago, a M.A. in Chemistry from Columbia University and a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley.

Raj has completed about 200 transactions of different types during his career, ranging from licensing transactions, joint ventures, research agreements, partnerships, acquisitions and divestments. The single largest transaction was the acquisition of Aventis CropScience by Bayer CropScience for € 7.25 billion and the subsequent divestments, which needed to be, and were completed, in a period of 6 months. He recently retired as member of the Group Leadership Circle of Bayer AG and Senior Vice President of Bayer CropScience AG. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Gowan, USA, PI Industries, India and Sajjan Ind., India. Raj continues as an advisor to Bayer CropScience AG and is a member of an expert panel of a leading European private equity fund. He is also a managing partner of RK Associates, a business and advisory consulting company.

Joel S. Marcus is the Executive Chairman and Founder of Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. (NYSE:ARE), an urban office REIT and the first and longest-tenured owner, operator, and developer uniquely focused on collaborative life science, technology, and agtech campuses in AAA innovation cluster locations. Mr. Marcus co-founded Alexandria in 1994 as a garage startup with $19 million in Series A capital and, as Chief Executive Officer from March 1997 to April 2018, he led its growth into an S&P 500 company with an approximately $18 billion total market capitalization and a total shareholder return of approximately 1,300% since the company’s IPO in 1997. Alexandria, which reached its 20th anniversary as an NYSE listed REIT in May 2017, is the only publicly traded pure-play office/laboratory REIT. As of June 30, 2019, Alexandria has an approximately $22 billion total market capitalization and a total shareholder return of more than 1,500% . Alexandria is a four-time Nareit Gold Investor CARE (Communications & Reporting Excellence) Award winner and was selected as the NAIOP 2019 Developer of the Year.

Mr. Marcus serves on the boards of Applied Therapeutics Inc., Atara Biotherapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATRA), Intra-Cellular Therapies, Inc. (NASDAQ:ITCI), MeiraGTx Holdings (NASDAQ:MGTX), Boragen Inc., Frequency Therapeutics, Inc., Yumanity Therapeutics, the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH), MassBio, Scripps Research; the Emily Krzyzewski Center, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, the Navy SEAL Foundation, the Partnership for New York City, and Robin Hood Foundation. Additionally, he is a member of the MIT Corporation’s Visiting Committee for the Department of Biology.

Prior to co-founding Alexandria, Mr. Marcus had an extensive legal career specializing in corporate finance and capital markets, venture capital, and mergers and acquisitions. During that time, he acquired an expertise in the biopharmaceutical industry and was one of the principal architects of the Kirin-Amgen EPO joint venture in 1984. He was also a practicing certified public accountant and tax manager with Arthur Young & Co., where he focused on the financing and taxation of REITs.

He was named one of Real Estate Forum’s 2017 Best Bosses in commercial real estate and was previously a recipient of the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year Award (Los Angeles — Real Estate). Mr. Marcus earned his undergraduate and Juris Doctor degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Dr. Schimmel is a Professor of Cell and Molecular Biology at the Scripps Research Institute. He has been a cofounder in multiple biotech companies that have gone to successful exits including: RepliGen Corporation, Alkermes, Cubist Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Sirtris, a GSK Company, and aTyr Pharma. He was a founding scientific advisory board member for Illumina, Inc. For his achievements and discoveries in scientific research in the biological sciences, Schimmel has been elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the Institute of Medicine.

Dr. Hertl earned his PhD in analytical organic electrochemistry and quantum mechanics from Eberhard-Karls University, Tübingen, Germany and has enjoyed 30+ years of international experience in technical leadership directed towards agricultural innovation. Dr. Hertl led diverse teams comprised of up to 900 professionals representing more than 30 nationalities in the complex development of environmental and human safety data for global registrations.  In addition to his technical leadership, he led and sponsored major functional and corporate transformation programs that re-engineered the discovery and development pipeline, outsourcing strategies, and holistic corporate governance. Dr. Hertl is recognized for his inspirational people leadership and has been a sought-after senior mentor for talent management. Dr. Hertl retired from Syngenta in early 2018 and has completed several consulting projects with global management-strategy consulting firms, focusing on regulatory and product development opportunities in agrochemicals and biologicals.

Dr. Kemble served a number of leadership roles for Syngenta including President of Syngenta Biotechnology Inc., Global Head of Crop Genetics Research, and Global Head of Technology Strategy & Integration from 2002 until retiring in 2012. Prior to that, he held management positions at Pioneer Hi-Bred International, a DuPont company (1991-2002), Allelix Crop Technologies, and Allelix Inc. (1983-1991). In parallel to his industrial career, he had an academic career as a professor at the University of Toronto with an adjunct professorship at the University of Waterloo, following work as an Assistant Professor at Kansas State University. Post-doctoral research was performed at the University of Florida and the Plant Breeding Institute, Cambridge, UK following a PhD from King’s College, London. Roger currently serves on the Board of Directors of AgriMetis LLC.

Dr. Plattner served as Anacor's Senior Vice President of Research beginning in February 2004. From 1998 to 2004, Dr. Plattner was Vice President of Small Molecule Discovery Research at Chiron, a biopharmaceutical company. Prior to joining Chiron, Dr. Plattner held managerial and research positions in chemistry and pharmaceutical research with Abbott Laboratories, a pharmaceutical company, from 1977 to 1998. Dr. Plattner earned a B.S. from the University of Illinois and a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Steffens served a number of leadership roles for Bayer including V.P., Product Development North America, Crop Science and V.P., Agronomic Development. With more than 30 years of experience, Dr. Steffens holds exceptionally broad international and domestic experience in research, development, and technical market support within the biological sciences industry. He has a proven record of identifying opportunities, developing strategies, successfully implementing action plans, and accomplishing bottom-line results. Dr. Steffens earned his B.S. in Biology and M.S. in Genetics from the University of Mainz, Germany, and his PhD in Applied Entomology from the University of Giessen, Germany.

Over the course of Dr. Zettler’s career, he has held global leadership positions in New Business Development for Dow Chemical, Dow AgroSciences, and AgroFresh Solutions. In these roles, he has overseen the discovery, development, regulatory approval and launch of new active ingredients and formulated products across the global pre-harvest and post-harvest food and agriculture sectors. These solutions spanned agronomic and horticultural crops, from grower to retailer. Dr. Zettler received a B.A. in Chemistry from Wittenberg University and a PhD in Organic Chemistry from Case Western Reserve University.