Elaine V. Jones, Ph.D. is an accomplished biopharmaceutical executive with more than 20 years of life science investing experience. She has served on over 35 life science company boards and has both biopharma research and business development expertise. Dr. Jones currently serves on the boards of the publicly traded companies CytomX (NASDAQ: CTMX), HBM Healthcare Investments AG (SIX: HBMN), and NextCure (NASDAQ: NXTC), and is the Chair of Gritstone bio (NASDAQ: GRTS). In addition, Dr. Jones is Chair of Mironid, a privately held UK company (Edinburgh, Scotland) focused on new treatments for degenerative kidney disease, and serves as a Director of Myeloid Therapeutics (Cambridge, MA), a private company developing products to reprogram myeloid cells for cancer therapy. She also serves on the advisory board of the Novartis Venture Fund and as a member of the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) Product Development Review Council.
Until April 2019, Dr. Jones was Vice President, Venture Capital, at Pfizer Ventures (PVI). Prior to Pfizer, Dr. Jones was a General Partner with the venture fund, EuclidSR Partners. Dr. Jones began her investing career in 1999 at S.R. One, GlaxoSmithKline’s corporate fund. Previously, she served as Director, Scientific Licensing for SmithKline Beecham and was a research scientist in SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceutical R&D.
Dr. Jones is a graduate of Juniata College, received her Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Pittsburgh, and conducted post-doctoral research at the National Institutes of Health.
Your investor directors want to help you, but effectively managing investor-led boards comes with common challenges.
In an investor-dominated environment, financial interests can take precedence over scientific rigour, management has limited control over the company’s strategic direction, and simply building a board with diverse views and skill sets to tackle future challenges can prove difficult.
Dr Elaine V. Jones has experience on both sides of the boardroom as an investor director with over 35 life science companies and as an independent NED and Chair on 14 boards since her retirement in 2019.