Luke Evnin, Ph.D.
Dr. Luke Evnin is Managing Director of MPM, which he co-founded in 1997 with Ansbert Gadicke, M.D. Together, they opened the San Francisco office in 1999. Dr. Evnin’s passion for discovering and advancing groundbreaking drug discovery companies inspires his work and is the driving force behind building companies. The companies that Dr. Evnin has built up include: BioMarin Pharmaceutical, CoStim Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Novartis), Epizyme, Idenix Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Merck), Pacira Pharmaceuticals, Pharmasset (acquired by Gilead), Potenza Therapeutics (acquired by Astellas Pharma) and Radius Health. Today, MPM believes that these companies are among the biggest successes in biotech history—companies that ultimately resulted in helping thousands of patients live longer and with vastly improved lives.
Dr. Evnin was the lead investor and has served on the boards of several of MPM’s most successful investments including CoStim, Idun Pharmaceuticals, and Pacira. He has co-founded five MPM portfolio companies: Amphivena Therapeutics, Blade Therapeutics, Harpoon Therapeutics, Maverick Therapeutics, and most currently, Werewolf Therapeutics. He’s had a role as inventor at several of these companies as well as MPM portfolio company Oncorus where he also serves on the Board of Directors.
Dr. Evnin, along with Dr. Gadicke were recipients of the 2017 Global Oncology Visionary Award—in recognition of MPM’s novel work to finance and build companies which may have a significant impact on cancer care and cures globally. Dr. Evnin is also devoted to working with the Scleroderma Research Foundation, serving as its Chairman since 2002. He devotes time to the External Advisory Board at the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Quantitative Genomics External Advisory Board at Princeton and at QB3 at the University of California, San Francisco.
Prior to co-founding MPM, he honed his skills as a venture capitalist at Accel Partners where he focused on emerging healthcare companies. Dr. Evnin advanced his technical training and launched his interest in curing disease in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of California, San Francisco where he received his Ph.D. His passion for drug discovery began at Princeton University where he received his A.B. in Molecular Biology.