Wendy Young

Wendy Young, Ph.D. is a biotechnology, pharma and life science executive with more than 30 years of experience in the discovery and development of innovative drug discovery platforms and new medicines. She recently moved into venture capital and is the CEO of a new biotech company in stealth mode, an advisor at GV (Google Ventures) and is on the scientific advisory board of several biotechs. Previously, she was the Senior Vice President at Genentech where she actively built and led the small molecule drug discovery organization. Under her leadership, more than 25 clinical candidates, in the areas of oncology, immunology, neurology, and anti-infectives, progressed into development. Additionally, Wendy led the BTK discovery program and is co-inventor of fenebrutinib which is currently in Phase 3 trials for multiple sclerosis.

Wendy received her Ph.D. from Princeton University, where she worked on folate analogs in collaboration with Eli Lilly, and Alimtawas an outcome of this collaboration. Thereafter, she was a postdoctoral fellow at Sloan-Kettering in Samuel Danishefsky’s lab having contributed to the total synthesis of taxol.

Wendy is an inventor and/or author on more than 70 published patents and manuscripts. She has won numerous awards including the National ACS. Earle B. Barnes Award for Leadership, ACS Fellow Inductee, and has been highlighted as “One of the Top 20 Women in Biopharma” by Endpoint News and “Most Influential Women in SF Bay Area” San Francisco Times.