President and Chief Executive Officer
KAI Pharmaceuticals

Steve has nearly twenty years of pharmaceutical, biotechnology and start-up experience in the life science industry. He began his career at Eli Lilly and Company where he held positions in new product planning, sales, and market research. He subsequently joined California Biotechnology (now Scios/J&J) where as director of marketing and business development he led efforts resulting in partnerships with several U.S., European and Japanese companies in the areas of cardiovascular therapeutics, wound healing and drug delivery. In 1990 he joined Landec Corporation, then a venture-backed specialty materials company, as vice president of business development and general manager of the specialty membranes division. At Landec, Steve negotiated diverse alliances with Hitachi Chemical, BF Goodrich, American Cyanamid, Ciba Geigy, Smith & Nephew among others, leading to an IPO in 1995. Steve then returned to biotechnology as vice president of business development at Isis Pharmaceuticals, the leader in antisense drug development. In his two years at Isis, Steve was instrumental in establishing new business units in functional genomics and small molecule discovery and negotiating partnerships with Merck, Zeneca, Abbott and Rhone-Poulenc. In 1999 Steve joined Sunesis Pharmaceuticals as senior vice president and member of the board of directors, and later, chief business officer. At Sunesis he played a key role in raising over $80 million of venture and partner financing and securing alliances with Merck, J&J, and Biogen as well as in establishing the corporate, financial and management infrastructure that were crucial to Sunesis' rapid growth. Most recently, Steve was senior vice president of commercial operations as Exelixis, a publicly traded drug discovery company where he was responsible for managing and expanding the company's business and corporate development activities, in-licensing, acquisitions (including the $20 million acquisition of X-Ceptor Therapeutics) and strategic marketing. Steve has a biology degree from Brown University and a Masters in Management from the Kellogg School of Northwestern University.