Our Mission
Trailblazing Science
"Go-to" Medicines
Singular focus in ophthalmology
The Team
senior management
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Victor Perlroth, M.D.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer -
John Borgeson
Chief Financial Officer -
Jason Ehrlich, M.D., Ph.D.
Chief Medical Officer and Chief Development Officer
Victor Perlroth, M.D.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Victor Perlroth co-founded Kodiak Sciences in 2009 and is the company’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Together with a talented core team, Dr. Perlroth has built Kodiak on a foundation of scientific excellence with a simple mission—to design and develop important new medicines for highly prevalent diseases. Under Dr. Perlroth’s leadership, Kodiak is building a pipeline of potentially life transforming ophthalmology drug candidates with the goal to build a dominant retinal franchise for the benefit of patients globally. Previously, Dr. Perlroth served as Venture Partner and then Entrepreneur in Residence at MPM Capital, a dedicated healthcare venture capital investment firm. In 2003, Dr. Perlroth co-founded Avidia Inc., a biopharmaceuticals drug discovery and development company where he served as General Manager and Vice President of Corporate Development. In this role, at various times he had broad management responsibility across both corporate and research and development activities. Dr. Perlroth was one of two principals involved in the acquisition of the company by Amgen for $450 million. Earlier, Dr. Perlroth worked at Guzik Technical Enterprises, the industry-leading provider of test equipment to the hard disk drive industry, where he was Chief Operating Officer. Dr. Perlroth earned his M.D. and M.B.A. degrees from Stanford University and an A.B. in Molecular Biology summa cum laude from Princeton University.
John Borgeson
Chief Financial Officer
John Borgeson is our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer and has served in this position since January 2016. From January 2013 until December 2015, Mr. Borgeson led finance for a variety of private biotech companies, including Labrys Biologics, Inc., which was acquired by Teva Pharmaceuticals. Previously, Mr. Borgeson was a Vice President of Finance at Pfizer Inc. and a member of Pfizer’s Global Finance and Business Operations Leadership Team. Mr. Borgeson’s roles at Pfizer included finance head for Pfizer’s biotherapeutics and bioinnovation group and corporate tax executive with responsibility for the United States and Europe. Under Mr. Borgeson’s leadership, Pfizer completed a transformational restructuring of the global tax group that was replicated by other Fortune 50 companies. Mr. Borgeson started his career as an auditor with Ernst & Young and is a certified public accountant (inactive). He has an M.B.A. from R.I.T. and an undergraduate degree from the School of Management at the University at Buffalo (S.U.N.Y.)
Jason Ehrlich, M.D., Ph.D.
Chief Medical Officer and Chief Development Officer
Dr. Ehrlich serves as Chief Medical Officer and Chief Development Officer at Kodiak. Dr Ehrlich is internationally recognized for his leadership and expertise in ophthalmic drug development. Prior to joining Kodiak, Dr. Ehrlich served in an executive capacity as Global Head, Clinical Ophthalmology at Genentech, a member of the Roche Group. In roles of increasing responsibility at Genentech/Roche from 2008-2018, Dr. Ehrlich’s efforts as lead clinician for Lucentis in diabetic eye disease resulted in a unanimous FDA Advisory Committee vote and the first-ever FDA approval of an intraocular drug for diabetic macular edema. He then championed filing of a collaborative group study to further expand the Lucentis labeling into all forms of diabetic retinopathy, resulting in another first-ever FDA approval that provided a new option for patients: to be treated with anti-VEGF to achieve regression of their diabetic retinopathy disease. Dr. Ehrlich guided the integration of the ophthalmic drug delivery company ForSIGHT VISION4 into Genentech/Roche after its acquisition, including oversight of the successful Phase II study of the ranibizumab Port Delivery System. In his work, Dr. Ehrlich has participated in or overseen numerous sBLAs and both FDA and European health authority interactions. He led the global development of lampalizumab, including design and execution of the pivotal Phase III program that included over 1,800 patients, over 275 sites, and more than 20 countries. He also oversaw his team’s effort to secure FDA approvals for Lucentis in its Prefilled Syringe and for choroidal neovascularization due to pathologic myopia and guided the successful transition to global Phase III development of Faricimab, a novel bispecific antibody for retinal vascular disease. Dr. Ehrlich completed his Ophthalmology residency at Stanford University School of Medicine, earned his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford through the NIH-funded Medical Scientist Training Program, and received his A.B. in Molecular Biology summa cum laude from Princeton University.
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Hong Liang, Ph.D.
Senior Vice President, Discovery Medicine -
Almas Qudrat, MsC
Senior Vice President, Quality Operations
Hong Liang, Ph.D.
Senior Vice President, Discovery Medicine
Hong Liang is our Vice President of Discovery Medicine and has served in this position since December of 2015. Dr. Liang leads Kodiak’s discovery efforts with the goal to design important medicines that prevent and/or slow the progression of retinal disease in high risk patients. Most recently, Dr. Liang was Senior Director at the Rinat Laboratory of Pfizer Inc. where she led the Genomics and Computational Biology group focusing on target discovery and translational biomarker work. Previously, she was responsible for many preclinical projects in metabolic and neurological diseases at Rinat/Pfizer. In particular, Dr. Liang was the project initiator and inventor and a driving force behind Rinat/Pfizer’s Proprotein Convertase Subtilisin Kexin type 9 inhibitor (PCSK9i) bococizumab development program. Bococizumab antagonizes PCSK9-mediated degradation of low density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor, increases LDL-C clearance, and lowers blood LDL-C levels. Bococizumab’s phase 3 global clinical development program involves approximately 32,000 high-risk primary and secondary prevention patients and is being studied for its potential to lower the known cardiac risk factor LDL-C and improve cardiovascular outcomes. Earlier, Dr. Liang lead the expression profiling and knockout construct generation efforts at Deltagen Inc. Dr. Liang trained as a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University, earned a Ph.D. degree at Northwestern University, and completed requirements in Biology at the University of Science and Technology of China.
Almas Qudrat, MsC
Senior Vice President, Quality Operations
Almas Qudrat is our Vice President of Quality Operations. In this role, Ms. Qudrat is responsible for leading all quality functions at Kodiak. Ms. Qudrat joined the company in 2018 and has more than 25 years of experience in managing and directing all aspects of quality activities for biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. Her experience spans all stages of drug development from first in human to commercial products. She has been responsible for small molecules, biologics, tablets, capsules, pre-filled syringes, vials, and combination products via intravenous, subcutaneous, intravitreal, inhalable, as well as transdermal routes of administration. Ms. Qudrat’s experience spans good manufacturing practice (GMP), good clinical practice (GCP) and good laboratory practice (GLP). She has managed in-house quality functions as well as overseeing and managing external contract manufacturing and research organizations. Ms. Qudrat led the pre-approval inspections that brought Botox (Allergan), Myoblock (Elan), and Exubera (Nektar-Pfizer) to the market and supported, prepared, and contributed to multiple pre-approval activities for other products including the Lucentis pre-filled syringe (Roche/Genentech). Before joining Kodiak, Ms. Qudrat held positions of increasing responsibility at Abbott, Baxter, Elan, Allergan, Nektar, Avidia, Amgen, Jazz Pharmaceuticals and Roche/Genentech. Ms. Qudrat earned masters degrees in both microbiology and biology from Brock University in Ontario, Canada.
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Laurent Ducry
Vice President, Biologics Development and Manufacturing -
Sinette Heys
Vice President, Clinical Operations -
Joel Naor, M.D.
Vice President, Clinical Science and Development Operations -
Stephen Raillard, Ph.D.
Vice President, Chemical Development and Manufacturing -
Pablo Velazquez-Martin, M.D.
Vice President, Clinical Research and Translational Medicine
Laurent Ducry
Vice President, Biologics Development and Manufacturing
Laurent Ducry serves as Vice President, Biologics Development and Manufacturing. In this role, Dr. Ducry is responsible for the Kodiak Group’s biologic drug substance and drug product manufacturing, including the oversight and supervision of Kodiak’s contract manufacturing suppliers and global supply chain. Dr. Ducry joins Kodiak after a successful 19-year career at Lonza where he led the bioconjugate business of Lonza including the large scale commercial supply of marketed antibody-drug conjugate products. Prior to leading the bioconjugate commercial team, Dr. Ducry was Group Leader Bioconjugates R&D with a focus on the development and scale-up of bioconjugation processes. He was previously Senior Scientist, developing chemical processes and producing pharmaceutical intermediates and APIs under cGMP. Dr. Ducry studied chemistry and obtained his Ph.D. from the ETH Zürich (Switzerland). He held a Swiss National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia with Prof. A. B. Smith, III and Prof. R. Hirschmann.
Sinette Heys
Vice President, Clinical Operations
Sinette Heys serves as Kodiak’s Vice President and Head of Clinical Operations and is responsible for the overall strategic direction, growth and leadership of Kodiak’s Clinical Operations team. Sinette brings over 20 years of global experience from pharma, biotech, CRO and the medical device industries. She joined Kodiak from Proteus Digital Health, where she led the clinical operations department supporting the development of innovative Digital Medicines. Prior to her time at Proteus, Sinette held multiple positions at Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, most recently as Head of Clinical Operations for U.S. Medical Affairs. During her earlier roles at Genentech, she lead Clinical Operations and was accountable for operational strategy and execution of the clinical trial portfolio for global development teams across multiple therapeutic areas and from the early development through commercial launch stages. Prior to Genentech, Sinette held various clinical development roles at Chiron Corporation, Abgenix and Quintiles. She received her master’s degree in Psychology from the University of Johannesburg, and served on staff at the University of the North and the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa.
Joel Naor, M.D.
Vice President, Clinical Science and Development Operations
Joel Naor serves as Vice President of Clinical Science and Development Operations. Dr. Naor has contributed to retinal medicines development since the inception of the retinal pharmaceuticals market with the launch of Visudyne®. As such he brings to Kodiak a uniquely deep and broad retinal development perspective that includes commercialization. Dr. Naor has contributed to a range of products and molecule types including Ozurdex®, Trivaris TM, Opsiria TM, and HuCNS-SC®, as well as a range of indications spanning Wet and Dry AMD, Diabetic Retinopathy, Retinal Vein Occlusion and Posterior Uveitis. Prior to joining Kodiak, Dr. Naor held leadership positions with increasing responsibility at QLT Inc., Allergan Inc., Macusight Inc., Santen Inc. and Stem Cells Inc. Dr. Naor earned his M.D. from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. Upon completion of a residency in ophthalmology and obtaining an ophthalmic surgeon certification, he completed a clinical fellowship at the University of Toronto where he also obtained an M.Sc. in epidemiology with an emphasis on clinical trials. Dr. Naor holds an M.B.A. from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada.
Stephen Raillard, Ph.D.
Vice President, Chemical Development and Manufacturing
Stephen Raillard serves as Vice President, Chemical Development and Manufacturing. In this role, Dr. Raillard is responsible for chemical development activities in support of new product candidates and product platforms as well as leading chemical development and manufacturing activities in support of Kodiak’s drug substance portfolio. Dr. Raillard brings to Kodiak over twenty years of experience in building and leading global teams tasked with pharmaceutical research and development, process scale-up and commercial manufacturing. Most recently, Dr. Raillard was Executive Director of Chemical Development at XenoPort, Inc. In this role, he was responsible for developing the commercial manufacturing process for Gabapentin enacarbil (Tradename HORIZANT) and for commercial manufacturing campaigns. In addition, he was responsible for the development and manufacture of seven additional APIs in XenoPort’s portfolio, four of which entered clinical trials. Dr. Raillard was a core Chemistry Manufacturing and Controls (CMC) team member in due diligence discussions that led to licensing agreements with GSK and Astellas for Gabapentin enacarbil, Indivior for Arbaclofen Placarbil, and Dr. Reddy’s for XP23829, a monomethyl fumarate prodrug. Dr. Raillard has contributed to CMC filings and interactions with global regulatory authorities across the spectrum of drug discovery, development, and commercialization including pre-Investigational New Drug Applications, New Drug Applications, and post-approval commitments. Prior to joining Kodiak, Dr. Raillard held technical positions at Affmax Research Institute where, among other duties, he invented and reduced to practice methods enabling fast scale-up using solid-phase chemistry on custom high-load polymer resins. Dr. Raillard received his Ph.D. from the ETH Zürich in Switzerland followed by a post-doc at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA.
Pablo Velazquez-Martin, M.D.
Vice President, Clinical Research and Translational Medicine
Dr. Velazquez-Martin serves as our Vice President of Clinical Research and Translational Medicine and is an ophthalmologist and retinal specialist. Previously, Dr Velazquez-Martin was head of ophthalmology global medical affairs for Bayer in Europe, Canada, and Latin America with a focus on Bayer’s ex-U.S. Eylea franchise. His emphasis was on scientific differentiation of Eylea with phase 3 and phase 4 clinical studies design, interpretation and communication. Dr. Velazquez-Martin contributed to the dramatic growth of Eylea revenue and market share on a local, regional, and global basis. In his role at Kodiak, Dr. Velazquez-Martin is responsible for generating scientific and clinical data to help differentiate and profile our therapeutic candidates and ABC Platform versus the approved agents Eylea and Lucentis as well as versus other retinal medicines in development. Dr. Velazquez-Martin earned his M.D. from the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Upon completion of a residency in ophthalmology and obtaining an ophthalmology surgeon certification, he completed a two-year fellowship in retina surgery, followed by an ocular oncology fellowship at the University of Toronto. During his tenure at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto, he led the ophthalmic evaluation of patients in phase 1 and phase 2 clinical trials of novel cancer agents.
Board of Directors
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Victor Perlroth, M.D.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer -
Robert A. Profusek, J.D.
Partner and Global Chair M&A, Jones Day -
Felix J. Baker, Ph.D.
Managing Director, Baker Brothers Investments -
Bassil I. Dahiyat, Ph.D.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Xencor Inc. -
Richard S. Levy, M.D.
Formerly Chief Drug Development Officer and Chief Medical Officer, Incyte Corporation -
Taiyin Yang, Ph.D.
Executive Vice President, Pharmaceutical Development & Manufacturing, Gilead Sciences Inc. -
Charles Bancroft
Formerly Chief Financial Officer, Bristol Myers Squibb
Victor Perlroth, M.D.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Victor Perlroth co-founded Kodiak Sciences in 2009 and is the company’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Together with a talented core team, Dr. Perlroth has built Kodiak on a foundation of scientific excellence with a simple mission—to design and develop important new medicines for highly prevalent diseases. Under Dr. Perlroth’s leadership, Kodiak is building a pipeline of potentially life transforming ophthalmology drug candidates with the goal to build a dominant retinal franchise for the benefit of patients globally. Previously, Dr. Perlroth served as Venture Partner and then Entrepreneur in Residence at MPM Capital, a dedicated healthcare venture capital investment firm. In 2003, Dr. Perlroth co-founded Avidia Inc., a biopharmaceuticals drug discovery and development company where he served as General Manager and Vice President of Corporate Development. In this role, at various times he had broad management responsibility across both corporate and research and development activities. Dr. Perlroth was one of two principals involved in the acquisition of the company by Amgen for $450 million. Earlier, Dr. Perlroth worked at Guzik Technical Enterprises, the industry-leading provider of test equipment to the hard disk drive industry, where he was Chief Operating Officer. Dr. Perlroth earned his M.D. and M.B.A. degrees from Stanford University and an A.B. in Molecular Biology summa cum laude from Princeton University.
Robert A. Profusek, J.D.
Partner and Global Chair M&A, Jones Day
Robert A. Profusek has served as one of our directors since June 2018, as our lead independent director since August 2018, as chair of our nominating and corporate governance committee and a member of our compensation committee since September 2018. Mr. Profusek is a partner of the Jones Day law firm where he is the global chair of the firm’s mergers and acquisitions practice. His law practice focuses on mergers, acquisitions, takeovers, restructurings and corporate governance matters. Mr. Profusek is also the lead independent director of Valero Energy Corporation, a publicly traded international manufacturer and marketer of transportation fuels and other petrochemical products, and CTS Corporation, a publicly traded designer and manufacturer of sensors, actuators and electronic components. He served as a director of the managing general partner of Valero L.P. (now known as NuStar Energy L.P.) from 2001 to 2005. Mr. Profusek holds a B.A. from Cornell University and a J.D. from New York University.
Felix J. Baker, Ph.D.
Managing Director, Baker Brothers Investments
Felix J. Baker, Ph.D. has served as one of our directors since September 2015 and as chair of our compensation committee and a member of our nominating and corporate governance committee since September 2018. Dr. Baker is Co-Managing Member of Baker Bros. Advisors LP. Dr. Baker and his brother, Julian Baker, started their fund management careers in 1994 when they co-founded a biotechnology investing partnership with the Tisch Family. In 2000, they founded Baker Bros. Advisors LP. Dr. Baker currently also serves on the boards of directors of three public companies: Seattle Genetics, Inc., Genomic Health, Inc. and Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. From October 2000 to June 2015, Dr. Baker additionally served on the board of directors of Synageva BioPharma Corp. Dr. Baker holds a B.S. and a Ph.D. in Immunology from Stanford University, where he also completed two years of medical school.
Bassil I. Dahiyat, Ph.D.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Xencor Inc.
Richard S. Levy, M.D.
Formerly Chief Drug Development Officer and Chief Medical Officer, Incyte Corporation
Richard S. Levy, M.D. has served as a member of our board of directors since June 2018 and a member of our nominating and corporate governance committee since September 2018. Since December 2016, Dr. Levy has served as a senior advisor of Baker Bros. Advisors LP, a registered investment advisor focused on long-term investments in life sciences companies on behalf of major university endowments and foundations. From January 2009 to April 2016, Dr. Levy served as Executive VicePresident and Chief Drug Development Officer of Incyte Corporation, a pharmaceutical company, where he previously served as Senior Vice President of Drug Development from August 2003 to January 2009. Prior to joining Incyte, Dr. Levy served as Vice President, Biologic Therapies, at Celgene Corporation, a biopharmaceutical company, from 2002 to 2003. From 1997 to 2002, Dr. Levy served in various executive positions with DuPont Pharmaceuticals Company, first as Vice President, Regulatory Affairs and Pharmacovigilance, and thereafter as Vice President, Medical and Commercial Strategy. Dr. Levy served at Sandoz, a predecessor company of Novartis, from 1991 to 1997 in positions of increasing responsibility in clinical research and regulatory affairs. Prior to joining the pharmaceutical industry, Dr. Levy served as an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the UCLA School of Medicine. Dr. Levy currently serves on the board of directors of Madrigal Pharmaceuticals Inc. and of Aquinox Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Levy is board certified in Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology and received his A.B. in Biology from Brown University, his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and completed his training in Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and a fellowship in Gastroenterology and Hepatology at UCLA.
Taiyin Yang, Ph.D.
Executive Vice President, Pharmaceutical Development & Manufacturing, Gilead Sciences Inc.
Taiyin Yang, Ph.D. has served as a member of our board of directors and a member of our audit committee since December 2019. Dr. Yang joined Gilead in 1993 and was appointed to her current role as Executive Vice President, Pharmaceutical Development and Manufacturing in January 2015. She is responsible for the chemistry, manufacturing and control operations of small molecules and biologics encompassing process development, production, supply chain management, analytical operations, laboratory information and quality assurance for Gilead’s investigational and commercial products. Prior to joining Gilead, Dr. Yang was Director of Analytical Chemistry at Syntex. She received her bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from National Taiwan University and her Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Southern California.
Charles Bancroft
Formerly Chief Financial Officer, Bristol Myers Squibb
Charles Bancroft has served as a member of our board of directors and as chair of our audit committee and member of our nominating and governance committee since April 2020. Charles recently retired from a successful career at Bristol Myers Squibb where he held a number of leadership roles in commercial, strategy and finance. He was appointed Chief Financial Officer in 2010, Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President, Global Business Operations in 2016, and Executive Vice President and Head of Integration and Strategy & Business Development in 2019. Charles served as a member of the board of Colgate-Palmolive Company from 2017 to March 2020. He was appointed to GlaxoSmithKline’s board of directors as a Non-Executive Director and as a member of the Audit & Risk Committee in March 2020, effective May 2020. He received his bachelor’s degree in accounting from Drexel University and his M.B.A. in finance from Temple University.