Location San Francisco, California, United States Regions San Francisco Bay Area, West Coast, Western US Gender Female
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Lori Rafield served as a director of Vaxgen, Inc. from May 2008 until its merger with Diadexus in July 2010, has served as a director of the Company and as chairman of the board since July 2010, as interim chief executive officer since January 2015 and as chief executive officer since April 2015.
Dr. Rafield has 25 years of experience leading,
advising, and investing in companies in the life sciences industry. For the last 10 years, Dr. Rafield has served as a consultant to both the biotechnology and device industries working with entrepreneurs to create and finance companies with both institutional investor and strategic partners. She has been involved in creating business plans for new opportunities, restructuring existing companies as well as corporate partnering efforts. From 1998 to 2005, Dr. Rafield was managing director at Apax Partners (formerly Patricof & Co. Ventures), where she was head of healthcare responsible for developing a diversified investment strategy for a $250 million healthcare portfolio within a $1 billion fund. While at Apax, she was predominately focused on the creation of therapeutic product companies from pharmaceutical assets and resources, which lead to investments in Zymogenetics (Novo Nordisk), Affymax (GSK) and Aerovance (Bayer). From 1995 to 1997, Dr. Rafield was an investment principal at Robertson Stephens Early Stage Venture Fund. From 1991 to 1995, she was an affiliate at Institutional Venture Partners. Dr. Rafield held scientific research and management positions at Somatix Therapy Corp. from 1989 to 1991 and at Integrated Genetics, Inc. from 1986 to 1989, where she directed molecular biology efforts in the development and expression of recombinant proteins.
She received a Ph.D. in 1981 in microbiology at University of Virginia Medical School, and was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School.
