Xaira is an integrated biotechnology company built to deliver on the promise of artificial intelligence to help transform drug discovery and development
Jeff Jonker, a biotech industry veteran and former CEO of Belharra and Ambys Medicines, joins Xaira to help scale its AI-enabled drug discovery platform
Xaira Therapeutics today announced the appointment of Jeff Jonker as President and Chief Operating Officer, reporting to CEO Marc Tessier-Lavigne. In this role, Jonker will work closely with Tessier-Lavigne to shape company strategy and drive the next phase of growth as Xaira builds the next generation of AI-driven drug discovery. He will be responsible for overseeing all operational functions and aligning them with Xaira’s scientific vision, scaling the organization, and helping integrate cutting-edge machine learning with therapeutic development to accelerate the discovery of life-changing medicines.
“Jeff is an accomplished biotech executive with extensive experience as an operator, director, senior advisor, and more. At Belharra Therapeutics, he didn’t just lead the company as CEO, he built it from the ground up as its first employee, shaping its vision, assembling its team, and guiding the organization through critical milestones,” said Marc Tessier-Lavigne, CEO of Xaira Therapeutics. “That kind of entrepreneurial leadership and operational excellence is exactly what Xaira needs as we scale our AI-powered discovery engine and push the boundaries of therapeutic innovation.”
Jonker brings more than two decades of leadership experience across the biotech industry, spanning public and private companies at every stage of growth. He most recently served as President and CEO of Belharra Therapeutics, where he was the company’s first employee and helped establish its vision and team. Prior to that, he was CEO of Ambys Medicines and President of NGM Biopharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: NGM), where he played a key role in expanding the company’s therapeutic pipeline and forming a significant strategic partnership with Merck. Earlier in his career, Jonker held leadership roles at Genentech and began his professional journey at Wilson Sonsini, advising life sciences and technology clients. He holds a J.D. from Columbia Law School and an M.Litt. from the University of St. Andrews.
“What drew me to Xaira is the scale of its ambition. This company is not just aiming to make better medicines, but to fundamentally reimagine how we discover them. By uniting the best of machine learning, biological insight, and therapeutic development, Xaira has the potential to uncover treatments that were previously unimaginable and bring them to patients faster than ever before. I’m honored to join a team that is pushing the boundaries of science to change the trajectory of human health,” said Jeff Jonker.
Earlier this month, Xaira published a preprint introducing X‑Atlas/Orion, the largest publicly available genome-wide Perturb‑seq dataset, profiling over 8 million single cells. Designed to power next-generation foundation models in biology, the dataset reflects Xaira’s commitment to open science and advancing AI-driven drug discovery.
About Xaira Therapeutics
Xaira Therapeutics is an integrated biotechnology company driving advances in artificial intelligence to learn the language of life and transform how we treat disease. The company seeks to rethink the drug discovery and development process from end-to-end by bringing together leading talent across three core areas: machine learning research to better understand biology, expansive data generation to power new models, and robust therapeutic product development to treat disease. Xaira is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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“What drew me to Xaira is the scale of its ambition. This company is not just aiming to make better medicines, but to fundamentally reimagine how we discover them.” - Jeff Jonker
