John Wagner

John Wagner joined Cygnal in September 2020 as Chief Medical Officer. An experienced life sciences executive of more than twenty years, John most recently served as a Venture Partner at Foresite Capital before joining Cygnal. Prior to Foresite, he was Senior Vice President and Head of Translational Research and Early Clinical at Takeda Pharmaceuticals. He also spent a number of years at Merck in various leadership roles, and he has served as a senior consultant to the National Academy of Science at the Institute of Medicine.

Throughout his career in the life sciences, Dr. Wagner has been responsible for more than 150 introductions-to-humans and instrumental to the clinical development, clinical pharmacology, and regulatory filings of numerous drugs across multiple therapeutic areas, including Januvia (sitagliptin) and Zolinza (vorinostat).

John is on the Board of Directors of Stargazer Pharmaceuticals. He is also the editor-in-chief of Clinical and Translational Science and member of the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health Biomarkers Consortium Executive Committee.

He received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University and his M.D. from Stanford University, where he also completed both his postdoctoral work and medical residency.