MENLO PARK, Calif., May 04, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- GRAIL, Inc., a life sciences company whose mission is to detect cancer early when it can be cured, today announced the appointment of José Baselga, M.D., Ph.D., Brook Byers and Kaye Foster to its Board of Directors. The three new board members will join GRAIL’s existing board of directors: Bill Rastetter, Jeff Huber, Richard Klausner and Robert Nelsen.
“I am very pleased to welcome José, Brook and Kaye, three extremely seasoned and accomplished executives, to our Board at this pivotal time for GRAIL,” said Jeff Huber, GRAIL’s Chief Executive Officer. “With these leaders, we are increasing the breadth of strategic leadership, industry experience and operational excellence within our Board. As we work to expand our operations and build integrated programs in science, technology and clinical development, their expertise and counsel will be invaluable. We are looking forward to working with them in our pursuit to transform the way cancer is diagnosed and treated.”
José Baselga is the Physician-in-Chief and Chief Medical Officer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) and Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College. Prior to MSK, Dr. Baselga was the Chief of the Division of Hematology/Oncology, Associate Director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He also was the Chairman of Medical Oncology and Founding Director of the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology in Barcelona, Spain. Dr. Baselga is a past President of the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) and of the European Society for Medical Oncology, and a past member of the Board of Directors for the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and AACR. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, the American Society of Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, and a Fellow of the AACR Academy. He is a past member of the Editorial Boards of Cancer Cell, Journal of Clinical Oncology, and Clinical Cancer Research and is the founding editor-in-chief for the AACR flagship journal Cancer Discovery.
In addition to joining GRAIL’s Board of Directors, Dr. Baselga is also the Chairman of GRAIL’s Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Baselga earned his M.D. from Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona and completed residencies in internal medicine at Vall d'Hebron University Hospital and SUNY - Health Sciences Center at Brooklyn.
Brook Byers is a senior partner and founding member of the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB). Mr. Byers formed the first life sciences practice group in the venture capital profession and led KPCB to become a premier venture capital firm in the medical, healthcare, and biotechnology sectors. Brook has been a pioneer in the fields of precision medicine, molecular diagnostics and genomics, serving as a Steering Committee member for the Coalition of 21st Century Medicine, and through investment and board leadership in companies such as Foundation Medicine, Genomic Health and Veracyte. Brook currently serves on the Board of Directors of Cell Design Labs, Enjoy, Newsela, and Zephyr Health. He also serves on the Board of Overseers of the University of California San Francisco medical campus and hospitals, the Stanford Medicine Advisory Council and the Board of Directors of the New Schools Foundation.
Mr. Byers holds a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology and an MBA from Stanford University. He is also the recipient of an honorary Ph.D. from Georgia Institute of Technology.
Kaye Foster has over 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry leading large, global human resources organizations. She currently advises CEOs and leadership teams focusing on business transformations, talent management strategy and Human Resources strategy development and implementation. Most recently, she was Senior Vice President, Global Human Resources for Onyx Pharmaceuticals where she led all aspects of human resources for U.S. and global operations. Ms. Foster joined Onyx from Johnson & Johnson where she served as an Executive Committee member and Chief Human Resources Officer, leading a worldwide team of over 3,000 human resources professionals. She also held several Human Resources executive positions with Pfizer Inc., supporting its pharmaceutical businesses in Japan, Asia, Africa, Middle East and Latin America, and she led the integration of both the Warner-Lambert and Pharmacia mergers for these regions. She is a Senior Advisor with The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and sits on the Board of Directors of Agios Pharmaceuticals as well as the Board of Trustees of Spelman College, Stanford Healthcare, ValleyCare Health System and Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco.
Kaye holds a bachelor’s degree from Baruch College and an MBA from Columbia Business School.
About GRAIL
GRAIL is a life sciences company whose mission is to detect cancer early when it can be cured. GRAIL is using the power of high-intensity sequencing, population-scale clinical trials, and state of the art Computer Science and Data Science to enhance the scientific understanding of cancer biology and develop blood tests for early-stage cancer detection. The company’s funding was led by ARCH Venture Partners and includes Amazon, Bezos Expeditions, Bill Gates, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Celgene, GV, Illumina, Johnson & Johnson Innovation, Merck, McKesson Ventures, Sutter Hill Ventures, Tencent, Varian Medical Systems, and other financial partners. For more information, please visit www.grail.com.