biomarin
(3)
Sofie Qiao
Sofie Qiao, Ph.D. is a chemist-turned-biotech-founder who has built a career at the intersection of hard science and dealmaking. Trained in organic chemistry at Harvard and MIT, she founded LEAD Therapeutics (acquired by BioMarin in 2010, source of the PARP inhibitor Talazoparib now sold by Pfizer), ran WuXi Ventures, and then founded and led Vivace Therapeutics from 2015 to 2026, raising more than $100 million to advance first-in-class small molecules targeting the Hippo/YAP-TEAD pathway in cancer. She now leads Virtuoso Therapeutics, another company she founded.
Mendra
Mendra is an AI-native biopharmaceutical company based in San Francisco that acquires, develops, and commercializes therapies for rare and ultra-rare diseases with high unmet need. Founded in 2025 and launched publicly in January 2026 with an $82 million Series A, the company is run by veterans of BioMarin, Palantir, and other rare disease programs. Rather than discovering compounds from scratch, Mendra systematically scans, scores, and acquires shelved or under-resourced rare disease assets from academia, small biotechs, and big pharma, then uses AI to accelerate patient identification, clinical trial enrollment, and global market access.
Scott Clarke
Scott Clarke is the CEO of CatalYm GmbH, a Munich-based biotech company developing visugromab, a monoclonal antibody targeting GDF-15 to reverse cancer immunotherapy resistance. With over 20 years in biopharmaceuticals - spanning Roche's global oncology partnering, BioMarin, Tizona Therapeutics, and Ambagon Therapeutics - Clarke joined CatalYm in January 2025 to lead the company's $319M-funded push through Phase 2b clinical trials, building on visugromab's striking Phase 1/2a results published in Nature showing durable responses lasting 28-32+ months in multiple solid tumor types.