Board of Directors

Tachi Yamada, M.D. is a Venture Partner at Frazier and Chairman of the Board of Directors at Passage Bio. Prior to joining Frazier he was Chief Medical and Scientific Officer at Takeda Pharmaceuticals and has served as Chairman of Research and Development at GlaxoSmithKline.

Stephen Squinto, Ph.D. is a Venture Partner at OrbiMed Advisors who brings over 25 years of biotechnology industry experience to Passage Bio. Dr. Squinto was a co-founder of Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc. and recently served as its Executive Vice President and Chief Global Operations Officer. While at Alexion, Dr. Squinto was involved in the discovery, development and commercialization of Soliris, one of the world’s most successful orphan drug products for patients across several rare life-threatening diseases.

Carl L. Gordon, Ph.D., CFA is a founding Partner and Co-Head of Global Private Equity at OrbiMed. He was a senior biotechnology analyst at Mehta and Isaly from 1995 to 1997. He was a Fellow at The Rockefeller University from 1993 to 1995. For the last five years (2014 to 2018) Forbes® Magazine named Dr. Gordon one of the top 100 venture capitalists in the world when it placed him on the “Forbes Midas List”. Carl received a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1993) and a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Harvard College (1987).

Patrick Heron is a Managing General Partner of Frazier’s Life Sciences team. He joined the firm in 1999 and opened Frazier’s Menlo Park office in 2003. Prior to joining Frazier, Patrick helped develop McKinsey & Company’s West Coast biotechnology consulting practice. Patrick received his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. He also holds a B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate and Morehead Scholar.

Tom Woiwode, Ph.D. has been working at Versant since 2002, and has served in both operational and investment roles during that time. Since being promoted to Managing Director in 2014, Tom has assumed the lead role in multiple investments including Passage Bio. Prior to joining Versant, Tom was a medicinal chemist at XenoPort, a start-up biotech company that completed an IPO in 2005 and was acquired by Arbor Pharma in 2016. Tom earned his Ph.D. in chemistry from Stanford University.

Saqib Islam is Chief Executive Officer of SpringWorks Therapeutics and was a founding member of the company. Prior to joining SpringWorks, Mr. Islam was Chief Business Officer at Moderna Therapeutics and before that Executive Vice President, Chief Strategy and Portfolio Officer at Alexion Pharmaceuticals. He has extensive background in the healthcare banking sector, having held managing director positions in the investment banking divisions of Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse Securities. He received his bachelor’s degree from McGill University, graduating as a Faculty and University Scholar, and a J.D. from Columbia Law School, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar.

Liam Ratcliffe joined Access Industries in April 2019 as head of biotechnology. He was previously Managing Director at New Leaf Venture Partners, where he focused on investing in therapeutic and therapeutic platform companies for 10 years. Prior to joining New Leaf, Liam was Senior Vice President and Development Head for Neuroscience, as well as Worldwide Head of Clinical Research and Development at Pfizer, where he spent a total of 12 years. Liam received his medical degree and Ph.D. in Immunology from the University of Cape Town and his M.B.A. from the University of Michigan. He completed his internal medicine training and fellowship in Immunology at Groote Schuur Hospital and associated teaching hospitals in Cape Town, South Africa.