Primary Job Title Founder & CEO Primary Organization LiVeritas Biosciences
Location San Francisco Bay Area, California, United States Regions West Coast, Western US Gender Female Also Known As Lieza Danan-Leon
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Lieza Danan PhD, is a San Francisco Bay Area-based serial biotech entrepreneur who has had Zero to One (Intervenn) and Unicorn (Stemcentrx) biotech startup experience. As Co-Founder & CEO/COO/CSO at Intervenn, she raised $9.4M for Seed to Series A. Subsequently, Genoa Ventures recruited Dr. Danan to reposition its portfolio company,
Intabio, for a Series B raise of $18M. Additionally, Dr. Danan has in-house operations expertise as Head of Mass Spectrometry at Stemcentrx.
From a technical standpoint, she has 20+ years in the field of mass spectrometry. From the biopharma industry perspective, she applied her mass spec expertise for 10 years working for 6 biopharma, biotech and startup companies with different business models:
(1) Outsourcing of cGMP analytical tests at Eurofins Lancaster Labs Inc (ELLI) catering to the needs of over 20 biopharma clients; (2) In-sourcing solutions initiation and expansion of Eurofins LLI scientific talent on-site at client Genentech South San Francisco (4 departments in early- and late-stage drug development); (3) Early stage drug development at Sutro Biopharma (IPO, 2018); (4) End-to-end drug development at Stemcentrx ($5.6Bn Acquisition, 2016, Abbvie); (5) Co-founded glycoproteomics-focused biomarker discovery for Rx target discovery at CDx companion diagnostics at Intervenn Biosciences (Series C, $201M); (6) Strategic advisor and technical consultant to device/instrumentation focused Intabio (Series B, $18M; Acquisition, Jan 2021, Sciex).
She received her Bachelors in Science degree in Chemistry at the Ateneo De Manila University in the Philippines, and her Doctorate in Philosophy in Biological Chemistry at the University of California Davis. Prior to attending graduate school at UC Davis, Dr. Danan created and managed her first high-throughput analytical operations laboratory with a team of three analysts at the National Chemistry Instrumentation Center, Philippines, following US EPA regulatory guidelines for trace analysis of environmental pollutants. The round-the-clock operations supported the needs of a local environmental toxicology project in collaboration with and funded by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (Boston, MA).
