Greg Verdine

Gregory Verdine is a leader in the discovery, development and commercialization of new drug modalities. A passionate and accomplished inventor of novel approaches and drug classes to engage targets widely believed intractable, Greg coined the phrase “drugging the undruggable” to describe his life mission. LifeMine is the brainchild of Greg, who as a venture partner of WuXi Healthcare Ventures, led the founding team that brought the company from concept to reality.
Greg is highly regarded for having moved seamlessly between roles as an academic scientist, biotech entrepreneur, investor and company executive. As Erving Professor at Harvard University and Harvard Medical School, he made seminal contributions to understanding mechanisms of DNA repair and epigenetic DNA methylation, and he invented a new drug modality called stapled peptides. As an entrepreneur, Greg has founded multiple public biotech companies including FogPharma, Variagenics, Enanta, Eleven Bio, Tokai, Wave Life Sciences, Aileron, and a private company, Gloucester Pharmaceuticals, which was acquired by Celgene. These companies have succeeded in achieving FDA approval for three marketed drugs.
In addition to LifeMine, Greg is a venture partner at a16z. He is also the co-founder and vice chairman of FogPharma. Greg has served on the board of directors of Enanta Pharmaceuticals, Wave Life Sciences and Warp Drive Bio. Having led the formation and financing of Wave Life Sciences, Warp Drive Bio and FogPharma, Greg took a role in managing these companies as their president, chief executive officer and chief scientific officer.
Greg earned his Ph.D. in chemistry from Columbia University, a B.S. in chemistry from St. Joseph’s University and served as an NIH postdoctoral fellow in molecular biology at MIT and Harvard Medical School.