- Xaira is an integrated biotechnology company built to deliver on the promise of AI to help transform the drug discovery and development process
- Debbie Law joins from Bristol Myers Squibb, where she served as senior vice president, nonclinical research and discovery biotherapeutics
- Julia Tran was most recently chief people officer at Graphite Bio
SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Xaira Therapeutics today announced the appointment of Dr. Debbie Law and Julia Tran to its C-suite. Law will serve as chief scientific officer, and Tran will lead HR efforts as chief people officer. Both will report to Xaira CEO Marc Tessier-Lavigne.
Xaira Therapeutics launched in April on a mission to help re-engineer the way we discover and develop medicines through the end-to-end application of emerging AI technologies. A joint incubation by ARCH and Foresite Labs, Xaira launched with more than $1 billion of committed capital from lead investors ARCH Venture Partners and Foresite Capital, joined by F-Prime, NEA, Sequoia Capital, Lux Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures, Two Sigma Ventures, the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI), Byers Capital, Rsquared, and SV Angel, among others.
“Since our launch in April, we have made important progress towards our ambitious goals,” said Marc Tessier-Lavigne. “The hiring of Debbie and Julia as C-suite appointments is another significant step forward, and I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to work with such a high caliber team.”
Since launch, Xaira has been building AI research capabilities spanning fundamental computational methods development and their application to biological discovery, the design of drug-like matter, and clinical development. The company was co-founded by Nobel Laureate Dr. David Baker from the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington and employs a team of researchers from Dr. Baker’s lab that developed the leading models for protein and antibody design, RFdiffusion and RFantibody. Last week Dr. Baker was awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry together with Drs. Demis Hassabis and John Jumper of Google DeepMind for their breakthroughs in using AI to enable prediction of protein structure and in extending this to the design of novel proteins. The Xaira team is working to advance these models and develop new methods that can connect the world of biological targets and engineered molecules to the human experience of disease.
Law most recently served as senior vice president and head of Bristol Myers Squibb’s Non-clinical Research and Discovery Biotherapeutics organizations. Prior to BMS, she held positions of leadership at pharmaceutical companies Janssen and Merck, and served as CSO at biotech firms Jounce Therapeutics and Ablynx NV. She obtained a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) degree in immunology from the University of Oxford, and completed postdoctoral studies at UCSF.
“I couldn’t be more delighted to join Xaira,” said Law. “My background and interests dovetail perfectly with Xaira’s ambitious mission, and I am looking forward to working with this team as we develop and leverage innovative technologies to bring new therapeutics to patients.”
With more than 25 years of experience, Julia Tran has played a pivotal role in scaling high-growth biotech and tech companies from early-stage development through commercialization, IPOs and M&As, on both the East and West Coasts. She most recently served as chief people officer at Graphite Bio, and prior to that she co-founded a cyber security company. Her career spans many facets of biotech HR, including at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Amyris Biotechnologies and CV Therapeutics.
“There is no place I’d rather be,” said Tran. “We have an incredible opportunity to bring together diverse talents and capabilities from the worlds of biotech and tech to rethink how we can help patients, and it’s an immense honor to be here.”
Xaira is led by renowned scientist Dr. Marc Tessier-Lavigne, former Chief Scientific Officer of Genentech and former President of Rockefeller and Stanford Universities. Other senior executives include co-founder Dr. Hetu Kamisetty, formerly of Meta and the Institute for Protein Design; Dr. Arvind Rajpal, formerly of Genentech; and Dr. Don Kirkpatrick, formerly of Interline and Genentech.
About Xaira Therapeutics
Xaira Therapeutics is an integrated biotechnology company driving advances in artificial intelligence to learn the language of life and transform how we treat disease. The company seeks to rethink the drug discovery and development process from end-to-end by bringing together leading talent across three core areas: machine learning research to better understand biology, expansive data generation to power new models, and robust therapeutic product development to treat disease. Xaira is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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