CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Relay Therapeutics, a new breed of company at the intersection of computation and biotechnology, today announced the appointment of Douglas S. Ingram and Deep Nishar to its board of directors.
“Relay Therapeutics has made significant advances in integrating unprecedented computational power with leading-edge experimental approaches to overcome challenges in designing therapies against validated but previously intractable targets. Enabled by this work and our recent financing, we are focused on rapidly scaling to take our programs into the clinic, expanding the breadth of our discovery programs, and growing our team and footprint. At this pivotal point, we are pleased to welcome Doug and Deep to our board of directors,” said Sanjiv Patel, M.D., president and chief executive officer of Relay Therapeutics. “Having two board members, who are seasoned in building multiple global, high-impact, transformational companies, including Google, LinkedIn, and Allergan, will be very valuable as we scale and realize our goal of making medicines for patients.”
Douglas S. Ingram is president and chief executive officer of Sarepta Therapeutics and brings to Relay Therapeutics a wealth of experience, having spent more than 20 years in executive and operational roles across the biotech and pharma industry. He was appointed to his current role in 2017, and also serves as a member of the Sarepta Therapeutics’ board of directors. Prior to Sarepta, from December 2015 until November 2016, he served as the president, chief executive officer and director of Chase Pharmaceuticals Corporation, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company. Prior to joining Chase Pharmaceuticals, Mr. Ingram was at Allergan, Inc. from 2001 until it was acquired by Actavis in 2015 for $66 billion. He served as Allergan’s president from 2013 until Allergan’s acquisition and previously served in various roles including president, Europe, Africa and Middle East; chief administrative officer; and general counsel. Mr. Ingram holds a J.D. from the University of Arizona and a B.S. from Arizona State University.
Deep Nishar has more than 20 years of experience helping to build and grow successful companies. He is currently a senior managing partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers, where some of his representative investments include Guardant Health, Vir, Zymergen, 10X Genomics, Collective Health, and Slack. Prior to Softbank, he joined LinkedIn in 2009, and served as the senior vice president of products and user experience until 2014. Before LinkedIn, Mr. Nishar worked at Google from 2003 to 2009, where he held a number of senior executive roles, including heading the mobile products division and product strategy for the Asia-Pacific region. He holds an MBA with highest honors (Baker Scholar) from Harvard Business School, a MSEE from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and a B. Tech with honors from the Indian Institute of Technology. Mr. Nishar has co-authored fourteen patents and is also a recipient of the Google Founders Award which is given to employees who make extraordinary contributions to the company.
About Relay Therapeutics
Relay Therapeutics is committed to creating medicines that will have a transformative impact on patients by building a unique discovery platform centered on understanding how the conformation of proteins relate to function. Whereas prior approaches to imaging proteins have been limited to static pictures, Relay Therapeutics’ approach overcomes this challenge by combining unprecedented computational power with leading edge experimental techniques in structural biology, biophysics, chemistry and biology. This integration illuminates – for the first time – the full mobility of a protein and provides key insights into how the dynamic nature of a protein’s conformation regulates function. By applying these insights, Relay Therapeutics aims to modulate protein conformation to develop novel therapies for patients. The company’s initial programs are focused on developing therapeutics in oncology. Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Relay Therapeutics is a private company launched in 2016. To date the company has raised $520M from investors including SoftBank Vision Fund, Third Rock Ventures, Casdin Capital, GV, BVF Partners, EcoR1 Capital, Foresite Capital, Perceptive Advisors, Tavistock Group and an affiliate of D.E. Shaw Research.
