Our Board of Directors

Robert B. Chess is the Chairman of Nektar’s Board of Directors and has served as a Director since May 1992. Mr. Chess currently is the Chairman and Co-Founder of Biota Technology, a private company developing applications of DNA-sequencing for the energy industry, and is Lead Director at Twist Biosciences, which manufactures synthetic DNA using a silicon-based synthesis platform. From March 2006 until January 2007, Mr. Chess served as our Acting President and Chief Executive Officer, and from April 1999 to January 2007, served as Executive Chairman. He also served as our Co-Chief Executive Officer from August 1998 to April 2000, as President from December 1991 to August 1998, and as Chief Executive Officer from May 1992 to August 1998. Mr. Chess was previously CEO and Chairman of OPX Biotechnologies, a renewable chemicals company, which was sold to Cargill, and the Co-Founder and President of Penederm, Inc., a publicly-traded pharmaceutical dermatology company that was acquired by Mylan Laboratories. He has held management positions at Intel Corporation and Metaphor Computer Systems (now part of IBM), and was a member of President George H.W. Bush's White House staff as a White House Fellow and Associate Director of the White House Office of Economic and Domestic Policy.

From 1997 to 2009, Mr. Chess served on the Board of Directors of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) where he was Chairman of BIO's Emerging Companies Section and Co-Chairman of BIO's Intellectual Property Committee. Mr. Chess was the initial Chairman of Bio Ventures for Global Health and continues to serve on its board. He also serves on the Board of Trustees of the California Institute of Technology, where he chairs the Technology Transfer Committee and has taught entrepreneurship as a visiting professor. He is currently a member of the faculty of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he teaches courses in the MBA program on entrepreneurship and on the healthcare industry. Mr. Chess received his B.S. degree in Engineering with honors from the California Institute of Technology and his MBA from Harvard Business School.

Jeff Ajer has served as a Nektar Director since September 2017. Mr. Ajer is currently Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer at BioMarin, a global biotechnology company that develops and commercializes innovative therapies for people with serious and life-threatening rare disorders. Mr. Ajer has more than 25 years of experience driving commercialization for rare diseases and specialty medicines, including leading commercial planning for late-stage pipeline programs, product marketing, reimbursement, and sales operations. Since joining BioMarin in 2005 as one of the first sales and marketing employees, he has held roles of increasing responsibility including Vice President, Commercial Operations, The Americas; Senior Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer; and Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer. Mr. Ajer has been integral in establishing BioMarin’s commercial infrastructure and global footprint and has played a leadership role in the launches and growth strategies for BioMarin’s commercial brands including Brineura™, Vimizim®, Kuvan® and Naglazyme®. Prior to his time at BioMarin, Mr. Ajer served as Vice President, Global Transplant Operations at Genzyme Corporation and held positions in sales, marketing, and operations at SangStat Medical Corporation and ICN Pharmaceuticals. He received his B.S. degree in chemistry and MBA from the University of California, Irvine.

Dr. Brainard was appointed CEO of AlloVir in May of 2021. Since joining AlloVir as CEO, she has led a number of successful initiatives ranging from scaling of manufacturing processes and capabilities to establishing the company's business development strategy. Dr. Brainard also serves as a director on the Board of Directors of AlloVir and is a member of the TriNetX Strategic Advisory Board. Previously, Dr. Brainard was Senior Vice President and Head of the Virology therapeutic area at Gilead Sciences, Inc., where she served for over ten years in an enterprise-wide leadership role building out the company's virology franchise.

Dr. Myriam J. Curet has served as a Nektar Director since December 2019. Dr. Curet has three decades of experience working in the healthcare sector and academia, and currently serves as Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer for Intuitive Surgical, Inc., a global technology leader in minimally invasive care and the pioneer of robotic-assisted surgery.

Dr. Curet joined Intuitive Surgical in 2005 and has held several leadership positions of increasing responsibility. Previously, she served as Chief Medical Advisor and Senior Vice President, Chief Medical Officer. Since 2000, she has also held a faculty position at Stanford University School of Medicine, serving as a Clinical Professor of Surgery with a part-time clinical appointment at the Veteran's Administration Medical Center in Palo Alto, California. Prior to joining Stanford, she served as Associate Professor of Surgery at the University of New Mexico. Earlier, she held various positions at the Indian Health Service, an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Dr. Curet began her career in medicine at the Gallup Indian Medical Center in New Mexico, where she was Medical Deputy Director. Dr. Curet holds a B.A. degree from Bryn Mawr College and an M.D. from Harvard Medical School. She completed a residency in general surgery at the University of Chicago and a fellowship in surgical endoscopy at the University of New Mexico.

R. Scott Greer has served as a Nektar director since February 2010. Since June 2003, Mr. Greer has served as Managing Director of Numenor Ventures, LLC, a venture capital firm. In 1996, Mr. Greer co-founded Abgenix, Inc., a company that specialized in the discovery, development, and manufacture of human therapeutic antibodies, and from June 1996 through May 2002, he served as its Chief Executive Officer. He also served as a Director of Abgenix from 1996 and Chairman of the Board of Directors from 2000 until the acquisition of Abgenix by Amgen, Inc., in April 2006. Prior to Abgenix's formation, Mr. Greer held senior management positions at Cell Genesys, Inc., initially as Chief Financial Officer and Vice President of Corporate Development and later as Senior Vice President of Corporate Development, and various positions at Genetics Institute, Inc.

Mr. Greer served as a member of the Board of Directors of Sirna Therapeutics, Inc., from 2003, and as its Chairman of the Board of Directors from 2005 through the closing of the acquisition of Sirna by Merck & Co., Inc., in December 2006. From 2001 to 2005, Mr. Greer served as a member of the Board of Directors of Illumina, Inc., and from 2001 to 2004, he served as member of the Board of Directors of CV Therapeutics, Inc. He currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of StemCells, Inc., and as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Ablexis LLC. Mr. Greer received his B.A. in Economics from Whitman College and his MBA degree from Harvard Business School.

Howard Robin joined Nektar Therapeutics in January 2007. He has more than 25 years of successful biopharmaceutical experience managing clinical development and commercial operations. Most recently, Mr. Robin served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Sirna Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotechnology company pioneering RNAi-based therapies for serious diseases and conditions, including age-related macular degeneration (AMD), hepatitis C, asthma, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and Huntington's disease. During his tenure at Sirna, Mr. Robin successfully re-launched the company and created significant shareholder value that led to its acquisition by Merck for $1.1 billion.

Prior to Sirna, Mr. Robin spent 20 years at Berlex Laboratories, the U.S. pharmaceutical subsidiary of the German pharmaceutical firm Schering AG. From 1991 to 2001, he served as Corporate Vice President and General Manager of their U.S. Therapeutics division and was responsible for the development of drugs including Betaseron® (Interferon beta-1b) for multiple sclerosis and Fludara® (fludarabine phosphate) for chronic lymphocytic leukemia, generating annual global sales in excess of $800 million. He also served as a member of the Executive Committee. Prior to that, he was Vice President of Finance and Business Development and CFO of Berlex. Earlier in his career, Mr. Robin was a Senior Associate with Arthur Andersen and Co.

Mr. Robin serves as a director of the Biotechnology Industry Organization, the world's largest biotechnology industry trade organization. He holds a B.S. in Accounting and Finance from Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey and serves as a member of its Board of Trustees.

Roy A. Whitfield has served as our director since August 2000. Mr. Whitfield is the former Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Incyte Corporation, a drug discovery and development company he co-founded in 1991. From January 1993 to November 2001, Mr. Whitfield served as its Chief Executive Officer and from November 2001 until June 2003 as Chairman. He also served as a Director of Incyte from 1991 to January 2014. From 1984 to 1989, Mr. Whitfield held senior operating and business development positions with Technicon Instruments Corporation and its predecessor company, Cooper Biomedical, Inc. Prior to his work at Technicon, Mr. Whitfield spent seven years with the Boston Consulting Group's international consulting practice. He currently serves as a director of Station X, Inc.. Mr. Whitfield previously served as the Executive Chairman of the board of directors of Bioseek and as member of the board of directors of Illumina, Inc. Mr. Whitfield received a B.S. in mathematics from Oxford University and an M.B.A. from Stanford University.