Andrew Perlman

Andy has had a notable career in drug development, most significantly at Genentech from 1988 to 1993, where as Senior Director of Clinical Research he played a key role in the development, FDA approval and marketing of human growth hormone (hGH, Nutropin). He was also responsible for the development of Genentech's entire portfolio of endocrine drugs and drug candidates. In addition, he also maintained a research lab at Genentech and was a member of the team responsible for evaluation and selection of new therapeutic drug candidates.

After Genentech, Andy was one of the first hires at Tularik, a new drug discovery company, where he served as Vice President and then Executive Vice President until 2004, except for a 9-month period in 2002 when he served as CEO of Affymax. While at Tularik, Andy's responsibilities included participating in the selection of promising targets for new drugs and compounds for further development. In addition, he was responsible for clinical trial design and implementation, filing Tularik's first IND and initiating the relevant clinical trials. Later he played an active role in Tularik's business development, investor relations and financing activities, culminating with Tularik's acquisition by Amgen in 2004 for $1.3 billion.

Following the acquisition of Tularik, Andy was founder and CEO of Innate Immune Inc., an early stage biotech company focusing on therapies for asthma and autoimmune diseases. He also worked with a team at The Palo Alto Research Center to determine the clinical value of a new technique for the identification and enumeration of rare tumor cells in peripheral circulation. Andy has a B.S. from MIT, an M.D. and a Ph.D. in physiology from New York University (NYU). He did his Ph.D. research in the laboratory of Nobel laureate Professor Eric Kandel. He received postgraduate clinical training at Stanford School of Medicine and NYU. He worked as a staff scientist at the Medical Research Council in London from 1983 to 1984, continuing his medical research on steroid hormone nuclear receptors. From 1984 to 1987 he was an assistant professor at Stanford University where he did clinical work, teaching and research on hypertension. He is also on the board of Ecumenical Hunger Project of East Palo Alto, CA.