Shelley Chu

Shelley Chu has two decades of venture investing and operating experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. Her passion is working closely with entrepreneurs to navigate scientific, clinical, regulatory, business development and commercial hurdles to bring innovative new medicines to market that address significant unmet medical needs. To date, her investments across all stages, from seed to growth, have led to seven New Drug Approvals by the FDA, nine drug candidates in ongoing clinical development, and 16 exits through mergers and acquisitions, IPOs or partnerships. During her time at Gilead, where Shelley led R&D strategy across all therapeutic areas and business development in immuno-oncology and HBV, three NDAs were approved and launched.

At Lightspeed, Shelley leads the firm’s biotech investments from seed to late stage. In addition to Seismic, she is on the board of directors at Enlaza Therapeutics, 3T Biosciences, Medikine, Hillevax, Triana Biomedicines, Protego Biopharma, as well as an independent director for Scorpion Therapeutics. Shelley previously served on the Boards of Tizona Therapeutics (acquired by Gilead), Trishula Therapeutics (partnered with Abbvie), SFJ Pharmaceuticals, Phathom (Nasdaq: PHAT), Q32 Bio, IFM (acquired by BMS), IFM Tre (acquired by Novartis), IFM Due, IFM Quattro, and Venatorx. Shelley also invested in and worked closely with the management teams of Stromedix (acquired by Biogen), Rempex (acquired by The Medicines Company), Tobira (acquired by Allergan), Anaptys, Marcadia (acquired by Roche), Calixa (acquired by Cubist) and Cerexa (acquired by Forest). Shelley serves on the scientific advisory board for BioCentury.

Shelley holds an M.D. and a Ph.D. in biochemistry and biophysics from the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) and a B.A. in molecular biology from Princeton University, where she is a co-chair for Princeton ASC.