Irena Melnikova

Irena Melnikova, Ph.D. is a Partner at Pfizer Ventures. She is an accomplished biopharma and finance executive with over 20 years of experience in equity financings in both public and private markets, corporate strategy, business development, and operations. Prior to Pfizer Ventures, Dr. Melnikova served as the Chief Financial Officer at Umoja Biopharma where she was a senior member of the executive team responsible for all aspects of financial strategy and operations of the company.

Prior to Umoja, Dr. Melnikova served as a Managing Director, Biopharma Investment Banking at SVB Leerink (now SVB Securities), where she provided critical advice to biopharma companies and their boards on equity financing strategies, completing over 80 transactions raising over $9 billion for clients. Earlier in her career, she held leadership positions at Sanofi and TVM Capital; the latter – a global life sciences venture capital firm.

Dr. Melnikova holds a Ph.D. in Molecular Medicine/Molecular Biology from the University of Texas.