- Scientific Advisory Board
Biography
Rob joined Frazier Healthcare Partners' Life Sciences team as a Senior Advisor in 2015 and rejoined the team as a Venture Partner in 2020.
Rob has been working with Frazier and its portfolio companies as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence, Senior Advisor, and executive for 14 years. He was formerly President and Chief Executive Officer of VentiRx Pharmaceuticals, a Frazier-founded company developing a small molecule therapeutic to activate the immune system against solid tumors. Rob co-founded VentiRx while at Frazier and led the company through its transformational partnership with Celgene. He joined Celgene in 2014 to lead their efforts in Immuno-Oncology, was promoted to Executive Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer in 2016, and was subsequently Executive Vice President and Head of Business Development & Global Alliances and served as a member of the Executive Committee until the acquisition of Celgene by Bristol- Myers Squibb in 2019.
Prior to VentiRx, Rob served as Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of Dendreon Corporation and led clinical development of Provenge, which was approved for metastatic prostate cancer. Before Dendreon, he was Vice President of Medical Genetics at Corixa, a Frazier portfolio company which was acquired by GlaxoSmithKline. Earlier, Rob was an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School and an Associate Physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA.
Rob completed his undergraduate and medical degrees at the University of California, Los Angeles and received his Ph.D. at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.
