David Kirn, MD
Chief Executive Officer, Co-Founder
David Kirn, MD, is our co-founder and has served as our Chief Executive Officer since our inception in 2013. Dr. Kirn is also Adjunct Professor of Bioengineering and Molecular & Cellular Biology at UC Berkeley.
Over his 30 year career, Dr. Kirn has co-founded and been CEO of four viral vector-based genetic medicines companies, three of which to date were either acquired or went public. Dr. Kirn also held senior clinical research and development positions at Onyx Pharmaceuticals (VP) and Celgene (SVP), and was a senior advisor to Novartis, Bayer, Pfizer, Biogen and others in the genetic medicines field.
Dr. Kirn received a BA in Physiology (Departmental Citation; Phi Beta Kappa) from UC Berkeley in 1985, an MD (Alpha Omega Alpha) from UC San Francisco Medical School in 1989 and completed internal medicine residency training at Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women’s Hospital (including a term as Chief Medical Resident at affiliated VA hospital). He has also completed hematology-oncology and clinical research fellowships at UC San Francisco and completed a certificate of business excellence from the Haas Business School at UC Berkeley. In 2013, he was awarded the Johnson & Johnson Entrepreneur Innovator award from the J&J Innovation Center.