About Us

Keith served as the Chief Executive Officer of UNITY Biotechnology from 2016 until March 2020. Previously, Keith served as the Chief Executive Officer of Kythera Biopharmaceuticals from its founding in 2005 to its acquisition by Allergan in 2015. Before Kythera, Keith spent 13 years at Amgen, ultimately as Senior Vice President and General Manager at Amgen Europe, where he ran all commercial operations in 28 countries. Prior to that position, Keith ran Amgen’s manufacturing operations, established Amgen’s presence in rheumatology, served as Head of Information Management, and had leadership roles in sales and marketing, engineering, operations, and finance.

Keith has been an Independent Director of Anacor Pharmaceuticals, Affymax, and ARYx Therapeutics. Keith holds a Master of Business Administration from The Anderson School of Management, University of California, Los Angeles, a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from University of California, Berkeley, a Bachelor of Arts in History from University of Maryland, College Park, and a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from University of California, Los Angeles.

Anirvan joined UNITY as CEO in March 2020. Prior to joining UNITY, he served as senior vice president and head of research and early development at Biogen. During his tenure at Biogen, Anirvan led a team of 350 scientists and clinicians responsible for preclinical, and clinical Phase 1 and Phase 2 studies in all of Biogen’s disease areas and led a marked expansion of its early clinical portfolio. Between 2017 and 2020, ten assets advanced from Research to Development and several reported positive proof of concept studies and are now in pivotal registration-enabling clinical trials. Anirvan was also involved in expanding the portfolio through key partnerships, including acquisition of early stage assets in Alzheimer’s Disease, Schizophrenia, and Ophthalmology, and several multi-asset platform collaborations.

Prior to joining Biogen, Anirvan served as vice president and global head of neuroscience discovery and biomarkers at Roche. Previously he also held academic appointments at The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the University of California, San Diego. Anirvan received his BS in physics from California Institute of Technology and his Ph.D. in neuroscience from Stanford University. He completed his postdoctoral work at Harvard Medical School. The impact of his scientific contributions is reflected in over 100 scientific publications in top-tier journals, including Science and Nature. He has been a recipient of numerous awards, and as a recognized scientific leader he has chaired leading scientific congresses including Gordon Research Conferences and Cold Spring Harbor Meetings.

Paul Berns served as president and chief executive officer at Anacor Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company, from 2014 until its acquisition by Pfizer Inc. in 2016. Previously, Mr. Berns served as president and chief executive officer of Allos Therapeutics, Inc., a biotechnology company, from 2006 to 2012 and was president and chief executive officer of Bone Care International, Inc., a specialty pharmaceutical company, from 2002 to 2005.

Prior to that, Mr. Berns was vice president and general manager of the immunology, oncology and pain therapeutics business unit of Abbott Laboratories. He also served as vice president, marketing of BASF Pharmaceuticals/Knoll. Earlier in his career, Mr. Berns held various positions, including senior management roles, at Bristol-Myers Squibb Company. Mr. Berns received his B.S. in Economics from the University of Wisconsin.

Ned co-founded UNITY in 2011, largely because he thought it was “simply the coolest biology he had ever seen.” Before UNITY, Ned co-founded four other biotechnology companies that together raised over $1.5 billion in financing and today employ over 400 scientists, engineers, and business people. Ned builds companies because he sees company creation as a means to create technologies that change the world. Ned is a co-founder of Syrrx (acquired by Takeda), Achaogen (AKAO), Kythera Biopharmaceuticals (KYTH, acquired by Allergan), and Sapphire Energy. Ned holds pending and issued patents in fields such as nanovolume crystallography, antibiotic resistance, aesthetic medicine, and cellular senescence. He has served on the board of directors of Kythera Biopharmaceuticals, Sapphire Energy, and the Buck Institute for Research on Aging and is a member of the board of trustees of the University of California Foundation. Ned was named one of the Top 100 innovators in the world under 35 by the MIT Technology Review. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in Molecular and Cellular Biology and an A.B. in Biology from Harvard University.

Dr. O’Neill has more than 25 years of experience in drug development, and medical and regulatory affairs. Formerly the chief medical officer and executive vice president of research and development at Sarepta Therapeutics, Dr. O’Neill spent 15 years at Biogen, holding leadership roles in development programs for Alzheimer’s disease, movement disorders, neurology, multiple sclerosis, pain, neuromuscular disease, gene and cell therapy, and rare diseases, and overseeing multiple global marketing approvals.

Dr. Margo Roberts most recently served as chief scientific officer (CSO) at Lyell Immunopharma, Inc., where she led the clinical development of novel CAR- and TCR- based T cell therapies for solid tumors. Formerly, she served as CSO at Kite Pharma, Inc. (acquired by Gilead Sciences, Inc. in October 2017) starting in 2013, where she built a talented research organization that played an instrumental role in the successful development of the CAR-T therapy Yescarta®, and the clinical advancement of additional CAR/TCR-engineered T-cell therapies. Subsequent to her role as CSO, Dr. Roberts served as senior vice president of Discovery Research at Kite in order to focus on the development of next generation therapeutic approaches, including heading up Kite’s universal allogeneic T-cell programs.

Dr. Roberts has almost three decades of biomedical research experience in both biotechnology and academia, and has been recognized as a top R&D leader by Endpoints News’ Top 20 Women Leaders in Biopharma 2020. Prior to her tenure at Kite, Dr. Roberts was principal scientist and director of Immune and Cell Therapy at Cell Genesys, Inc. where she led the development and application of CAR technology to T-cells and stem cells, culminating in the very first CAR T-cell clinical trial in 1994. Dr. Roberts was also an associate professor at the University of Virginia, has authored more than thirty scientific publications, and is the inventor on thirteen issued U.S. patents and three published U.S. patent applications. Dr. Roberts received both her Bachelor of Science degree with honors and her Ph.D. degree from the University of Leeds in England.

Mr. Samar joined Windgap Medical, Inc. in 2022 as its Chief Financial Officer. Previously, he served as Chief Financial Officer at Assembly Biosciences, as well as in senior leadership positions including Senior Vice President of Finance and Business Operations. Before that, Mr. Samar was Vice President of Finance and Site Head for the South San Francisco facility at Acorda Therapeutics (formerly Biotie Therapies). In earlier positions, he served as Director, Financial Planning and Analysis at Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Senior Finance Director, Global Planning and Analysis at Agennix (formerly GPC Biotech), and roles of increasing responsibility within finance at Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development. Mr. Samar earned his MBA from Villanova University and his BSBA in finance from Bryant University. He also serves as Treasurer on the Board of OUTbio, Inc., a non-profit organization for LGBTQ+ professionals in the biotech and related industries.

Camille joined Venrock in 2014 and focuses on healthcare with an emphasis on biotech and consumer health. Prior to Venrock, Camille was a Managing Director at Versant Ventures for a decade where she led investments in Achaogen (AKAO), Kythera (KYTH), Novacardia (acquired by Merck), and ParAllele (acquired by Affymetrix), among others. She was also a board observer at several companies including Genomic Health (GHDX), Fluidigm (FLDM), and Syrrx (acquired by Takeda). Before Versant, she was responsible for business development at Tularik, Inc. (acquired by Amgen) where she in-licensed two of the company’s clinical-stage products and led Tularik’s Technology Acquisition Group. Before Tularik, Camille worked in corporate development at Genzyme and Millennium Predictive Medicine and was a management consultant to healthcare and biotech companies at LEK Consulting. Camille earned her Bachelor’s degree in Biology from Duke University and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where she graduated as a Baker Scholar. In 2002, The Aspen Institute named Camille a Henry Crown Fellow.