Maria Fardis, Ph.D., is CEO at Lassen Therapeutics and a Venture Partner at Frazier Life Sciences and is the Chair of Board of Directors at Obsidian Therapeutics. She is a member of the Board of Directors at CRISPR Therapeutics as well as Quanta Therapeutics. She has over 20 years of scientific and management experience in public and private companies. Dr. Fardis previously served as President and Chief Executive Officer at Iovance Biotherapeutics, a publicly traded Biotechnology company.

As CEO at Iovance, she led the transformation from an early stage development company to a company with late-stage cell therapy programs for the treatment of solid tumors. Prior to Iovance, Dr. Fardis served as the Chief Operating Officer of Acerta Pharma B.V., where she worked on the development of Calquence until the company’s acquisition by AstraZeneca. Prior to that, she worked at Pharmacyclics, Inc. She was a key contributor in the creation of a broad clinical program leading to global approvals for Imbruvica in multiple hematologic malignancies.

She served as Chief of Oncology Operations and Alliances at Pharmacyclics. Before Pharmacyclics, Dr. Fardis held increasing senior positions in medicinal chemistry and the project and portfolio management at Gilead Sciences, Inc., during which time she was involved with different therapeutic areas including antivirals, oncology, and cardiovascular therapeutics and worked on the development and life cycle management of Letairis.

Maria received her PhD in Organic Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, and her B.S. summa cum laude in Chemistry from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She also holds an MBA, received with the highest honors, from Golden Gate University.