AI Meets Biotech: Xaira Strengthens Leadership with Jeff Jonker
Xaira Therapeutics, an integrated biotechnology company leveraging artificial intelligence to transform drug discovery and development, announced the appointment of Jeff Jonker as President and Chief Operating Officer. Jonker, a biotech veteran and former CEO of Belharra and Ambys Medicines, will report directly to CEO Marc Tessier-Lavigne.
In his new role, Jonker will help scale Xaira’s AI-enabled discovery platform, overseeing operational functions, aligning them with the company’s scientific vision, and driving the integration of machine learning with therapeutic development to accelerate life-changing drug discovery.
Leadership Built on Experience
“Jeff is an accomplished biotech executive with extensive experience as an operator, director, and senior advisor,” said Marc Tessier-Lavigne, CEO of Xaira. “At Belharra Therapeutics, he didn’t just lead the company as CEO—he built it from the ground up as its first employee. 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 over two decades of biotech leadership experience. Most recently, he served as President and CEO of Belharra Therapeutics, where he established the company’s vision, team, and strategy. Prior to that, he was CEO of Ambys Medicines and President of NGM Biopharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: NGM), where he expanded the therapeutic pipeline and forged a significant partnership with Merck. His earlier career included leadership roles at Genentech and legal advisory work at Wilson Sonsini. He holds a J.D. from Columbia Law School and an M.Litt. from the University of St. Andrews.
Vision for the Future
“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,” said Jeff Jonker. “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.”
Commitment to Open Science
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. This resource is designed to power next-generation foundation models in biology and reflects Xaira’s commitment to open science and advancing AI-driven drug discovery.
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