Alex Barkas was a Managing Director and Co-Founder of all the Prospect Venture Partners Funds beginning in 1997. Previously, Alex was a Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) from 1991 to 1997 where he focused on health care product company investments in the drug, device, and diagnostic sectors.. Additionally, during his tenure at. KPCB, Alex served as the founding CEO of two pioneering biotechnology companies, Geron (NASDAQ:GERN) and Connective Therapeutics, which became Connetics, a NASDAQ listed specialty pharmaceutical company.. For both KPCB and Prospect Ventures, Alex worked with the scientific founders to develop the companies' initial business plans, in-license key enabling technology and products, recruit world class scientific talent and advisory board members, secure significant milestone-driven venture financing, and recruit experienced senior executive management teams.. Prior to KPCB, Alex was a founder and CEO of BioBridge Associates, a health care industry consulting firm from 1989 to 1991. From 1987 to 1989, he served as the Director of Technology Development at Advanced Biosearch Associates, a regulatory affairs advisory firm where he focused on medical product commercialization and medical device regulatory strategy.. While at Prospect Venture Partners, Alex also served as Chairman of the Board of Geron (NASDAQ: GERN) and served on the Board of Directors of Amicus (NASDAQ: FOLD), Archemix, Connetics (now Stiefel Laboratories, Inc.), Complete Genomics, Inc., NeoMend, Novacept (now NASDAQ: HOLX), SurgRx (now NYSE: JNJ), Tercica, (now Paris: IPN), Topica Pharmaceuticals, Transave, Verus Pharmaceuticals, Zelos Therapeutics and several other privately held companies.
