Marc Tessier-Lavigne

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407 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Mar 2026 last heard 12 Mar

Marc Tessier-Lavigne’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Vanguards of Healthcare by Bloomberg Intelligence · Xaira’s War on Trial-and-Error Drug Development · 12 Mar 2026 podcast

But as we discovered fundamental mechanisms for a number of reasons, some personal, my father had a stroke.

I became interested in applying those discoveries to try to rewire the nervous system after injury.

And that led me into more of a translational route.

And one thing led to another.

I realized that after co-founding a startup company back in 2000 with a colleague in the field, that I would have a bigger impact if I moved to the private sector myself.

and was recruited to Genentech.

That was really the start of my work in drug discovery.

I joined Genentech overseeing about two-thirds of the research enterprise, eventually running the entire research and drug discovery enterprise.

And I was very fortunate to learn from the best of the best in the industry there.

This was in the 2000s.

Eight FDA-approved drugs came from projects that I helped oversee.

And I would have continued there, except I was recruited back to wonderful positions in leadership in academia at Rockefeller University and then Stanford University, even while I kept a hand in biotech, being on the boards of some companies, co-founding another company focused on neurodegeneration, an area of obvious passion for me from my scientific days.

And all of this led me to this point where, when I was still at Stanford, I was approached by the three founders of Xero.

The company is really focused on applying AI to drug discovery.

This is the moment when the advances in AI and biological insights have come together to really, we believe, make it possible to revolutionize how it is that we discover and develop medicines.

And I just became very excited about this opportunity to bring my experience in biological sciences and drug discovery together with leaders in AI to embark on this journey, to pioneer the use of AI, to fundamentally transform how we discover and develop new medicines.

So that is what motivated me to join these three founders.

The three founders, I should say, are Nobel laureate David Baker, Bob Nelson from Arch Ventures, and Vic Bajaj of Fortsite Capital.

They come together to conceive of a company that would apply AI to drug discovery end-to-end and approached me about being the founding director.

So I just feel very privileged at this moment in time when the advances in AI are transforming every domain to be able to bring that together with my background in biology and drug discovery to try to make a difference for patients who are suffering from poorly treated diseases.

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