Vision and
focus

The thrust of our mission is to transform patient care through small molecule therapeutics with potential for impact on a global scale.

Despite advances in genomics, structural biology, and other scientific disciplines, 90 percent of the proteins in the body that are known to cause disease remain beyond the reach of available medicines. The massive scale of this undrugged target universe translates to a tremendous unmet need among patients with cancers and immunological diseases. The focus of our science is to demystify the undrugged and discover novel ways to modulate protein targets that have eluded conventional approaches. 

Vividion Team

Executive Team

Aleksandra Rizo

President and Chief Executive Officer

Aleksandra Rizo, M.D., Ph.D., joined Vividion in 2022 as President and Head of Research and Development. In 2023 Dr. Rizo was promoted to President and Chief Executive Officer and joined the Board of Directors of Vividion.

Previously, Dr. Rizo served as Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of Geron Corporation where she provided leadership and direction for all clinical and translational efforts. Included in her reporting responsibilities were clinical development, clinic

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Jenna Goldberg

Chief Medical Officer

Jenna Goldberg, M.D., joined Vividion in 2022 as Chief Medical Officer. In this capacity she is responsible for oversight, strategy, and execution of Vividion’s clinical programs. She oversees the clinical development, clinical operations, clinical biomarkers, and biometrics departments.

Prior to Dr. Goldberg’s move to Vividion, she was Vice President, Early Clinical Development at Janssen Research and Development. In this role, she had increasing responsibilities and supervise

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Matt Patricelli

Chief Scientific Officer

Matt Patricelli, Ph.D., joined Vividion in 2016 as a Founding Scientist and member of the company’s Senior Management Team, and has taken on increasing responsibility since that time. He was promoted to Chief Scientific Officer in 2023 and currently leads all aspects of discovery and preclinical research at Vividion. In this role he oversees the Early Discovery and Enabling Technologies Chemistry, Biology, and Pre-Clinical Development departments. Previously at Vividion, Dr. Patricelli was

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Jean Bemis

SVP, R&D Operations, Alliances and Business Development

Jean Bemis joined Vividion in 2017. As Senior Vice President, R&D Operations, Alliances, and Business Development, Ms. Bemis provides strategic oversight of the discovery portfolio and oversees multiple functions including program management, CMC, intellectual property and legal compliance, and site operations. Additionally, she is responsible for establishing and leading strategic alliances and partnerships for the company.

Ms. Bemis brings over 30 years of experience in drug deve

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Gerry Hernandez

SVP, Finance

Gerry Hernandez serves as the Senior Vice President, Head of Finance since 2023, leading Vividion’s operations related to finance, strategic budgeting, long term planning, financial reporting, procurement, and information technology. Mr. Hernandez joined Vividion in 2018 serving as Controller and then Vice President of Finance. Joining Vividion as its early finance leader, Mr. Hernandez has led cross-functional teams and collaborated with senior management to define, launch, and drive criti

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Laurie Sherman

SVP, Project Management, Project Leadership and Business Operations

Laurie Sherman joined Vividion in 2023 as Senior Vice President, Project Management, Project Leadership, and Business Operations. In this role Ms. Sherman provides strategic oversight of Vividion’s development portfolio and oversees project management and project leadership functions. She also supports operations and coordination of Vividion’s Executive Leadership Team.

Ms. Sherman is a clinical research leader who brings over 25 years of development experience to Vividion. She joi

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Alexis McWilliams

VP, Human Resources

Alexis McWilliams has served as Vividion’s Vice President, Human Resources, since 2023, providing leadership and guidance to the organization’s HR operations. She joined Vividion in 2017 as Manager, Human Resources and Business Integration. Currently, she collaborates with Vividion’s Executive Leadership Team to define the long-term mission and goals, and identifies ways to support this mission through strategic talent management, including talent acquisition, training and development i

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Leadership Team

Phil Worboys

SVP, Pre-Clinical Development

Phil Worboys, Ph.D., joined Vividion in 2023 to lead the Toxicology, DMPK, and Clinical Pharmacology teams. In this role, he works closely with both Program and Clinical teams to optimize and build Vividion’s capabilities to select and advance pre-clinical candidate molecules into the clinic and through early trials.

Prior to joining Vividion, he was Head of Translational Sciences at Sapient Bio, leading a group discovering and developing small molecule biomarkers. He served as Senio

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Dave Bourdet

VP, Clinical Pharmacology

Dave Bourdet, Ph.D., leads all aspects of Clinical Pharmacology at Vividion. He started his industry career at Chiron Corporation in 2005 as a Scientist and then moved to Roche Palo Alto in 2006, where he worked as a Principal Research Scientist until 2009. In 2009, he joined Theravance Biopharma U.S., Inc. progressing into leading DMPK / clinical and translational pharmacology.

Dr. Bourdet has a Ph.D. in pharmaceutical science with an emphasis in pharmacokinetics from the University o

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Brian Cook

VP, Early Discovery Chemistry

Brian Cook, Ph.D., joined Vividion in 2017 and is currently Vice President, Early Discovery Chemistry. In this role, he oversees library build, early chemistry optimization, and lead finding efforts across the portfolio. In addition, he is responsible for analytical chemistry, automation and imaging, and compound management. Prior to this role, Dr. Cook took on increasing responsibility in the Chemistry department, including serving as the Chemistry Lead for one of the first programs at Vivid

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Wendy Hu

VP, Toxicology

Wendy Hu, Ph.D., joined Vividion in 2023 as Vice President, Head of Toxicology where she manages the toxicology function and drives toxicology strategies to deliver across the portfolio, from target safety assessment for early enablement projects to safety characterization of lead molecules during drug discovery and development. Prior to joining Vividion, she was the Senior Director and Global Lead of Cell and Mechanistic Toxicology at Pfizer.

She has over 20 years of pharmaceutical an

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Maurice Marsini

VP, CMC

Maurice Marsini, Ph.D., joined Vividion in 2023 as Vice President, Head of CMC. Maurice is responsible for the chemistry, manufacturing, and controls (CMC) strategy for new molecular entities as they transition from discovery into clinical development and the hands of patients in need.

Prior to joining Vividion, Dr. Marsini spent several years at Gossamer Bio as Senior Director, Head of Process Chemistry within the CMC department. Before joining Gossamer Bio, he was at Receptos/Celgene

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Dave Morris

VP, Legal Affairs

David Morris, J.D., joined Vividion in 2024 as Vice President of Legal Affairs, where he oversees high-level legal strategy and general legal matters. With over a decade of experience in the biotech and pharmaceutical sectors, he has developed a robust legal acumen spanning healthcare law, corporate governance, litigation, and contract negotiation.

Most recently, in senior roles at Seagen, Pfizer and Gilead, Mr. Morris guided teams on intricate legal issues related to commercialization

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Rick Pagliery

VP, Intellectual Property

Rick Pagliery, J.D., joined Vividion in 2022 as Vice President, Intellectual Property, and is responsible for managing all aspects of the company’s intellectual property strategy and execution.

Mr. Pagliery brings more than 25 years of experience as an Intellectual Property Attorney to Vividion, including more than 10 years serving as outside counsel with major law firms and more than 15 years as the Head of Intellectual Property at biopharmaceutical companies. He served eight years

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Gabe Simon

VP, Early Discovery and Enabling Technologies

Gabe Simon, Ph.D., joined Vividion in 2017 to lead the Proteomics Platform group. His role involves a dual focus on building and scaling a cutting-edge chemical proteomics screening group, as well as the creation and oversight of a unique and enabling proteo-informatic database called the Data Portal. The proteomics platform group supports nearly all stages of Vividion’s drug discovery efforts and works closely with the early discovery group to identify and prioritize opportunities for deve

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Dave Weinstein

VP, Chemistry

Dave Weinstein, Ph.D., joined Vividion in 2017 and has since taken on roles of increasing responsibility. His scientific contributions have resulted from collaborations in compound library design and expansion, establishing a targeted protein degradation platform, and optimizing screening hits to candidates for drug development. As Vice President, Chemistry, Dr. Weinstein is responsible for ensuring that the departments of medicinal and computational chemistry contribute to advancing high qua

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Board Members

Jeff Hatfield

Chairman

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Stefan Oelrich

Director

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Benjamin F. Cravatt

Director

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Thomas O. Daniel

Director

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Richard Heyman

Director

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Olivier Mauroy-Bressier

Director

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Frank Poschen

Director

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Christian Rommel

Director

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Christine Roth

Director

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Scientific Founders

Benjamin F. Cravatt

Scientific Founder

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Phil S. Baran

Scientific Founder

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Jin-Quan Yu

Scientific Founder

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A legacy of discovery

Vividion Therapeutics is a wholly-owned, independently operated subsidiary of Bayer AG.


Vividion’s roots are in the foundational decades-long research conducted at Scripps Research by a team of scientists led by Professor Ben Cravatt, who together with Professors Phil Baran and Jin-Quan Yu discovered that covalent fragments could be used in a target-agnostic manner to irreversibly bind to shallow protein pockets, thus expanding the universe of potentially druggable targets (disease-causing proteins). Vividion was established to pioneer a covalent-first chemoproteomics approach to identify small molecules that bind currently undrugged targets. Our comprehensive approach spans the full arc of drug development, from screening via our drug discovery platform through therapeutic development in the clinic. The creativity and curiosity that sparked our founding still drive Vividion today and are at the core of everything we do.  

Vividion Therapeutics is a wholly-owned, independently operated subsidiary of Bayer AG.