Neil has spent 25 years in drug development and executive leadership in small- and mid-size biotechs, global pharmaceutical companies and global health institutions.  Neil was most recently CEO of Metacrine, a venture-backed startup with programs in NASH and diabetes. Prior to Metacrine, Neil was Senior Vice President and Therapeutic Area Leader for Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases at Takeda Pharmaceuticals, responsible for R&D in those areas. Neil was previously Chief of Staff for the Global Health Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation where he was involved with strategy development and interactions with senior officials from multilateral organizations and governmental agencies involved in global health. Neil was Vice President of Program Management at the Seattle-based public biotech Zymogenetics, where he oversaw all program development teams, and began his biotech career at Immunex, an oncology and immunology company acquired by Amgen.