Bio

Marc Tessier-Lavigne is a Canadian-American neuroscientist, born December 18, 1959 in Trenton, Ontario, Canada. He is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Xaira Therapeutics, the AI-driven drug-discovery company launched in April 2024 with more than $1 billion in committed capital, the largest initial financing in ARCH Venture Partners history. He previously served as the eleventh president of Stanford University from 2016 to 2023, the tenth president of Rockefeller University from 2011 to 2016, and chief scientific officer at Genentech from 2003 to 2011. As of May 2026, he leads Xaira Therapeutics in South San Francisco, California, with a reported approximately $2.7 billion valuation per mid-2025 PitchBook reporting.

At a glance

• Education: Bachelor of Science in physics, McGill University (1980); Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and physiology, New College, Oxford (1982), as a Rhodes Scholar; PhD in physiology, University College London (1987), advised by David Attwell.
• Current role: Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of Xaira Therapeutics, April 2024 to present.
• Key contributions: foundational research on the molecular guidance of axonal growth in the developing nervous system; identification of netrin and slit families of axon-guidance molecules; chief scientific officer at Genentech, 2003 to 2011, supervising the discovery and development pipeline; tenth president of Rockefeller University (2011 to 2016); eleventh president of Stanford University (2016 to 2023); founding chief executive of Xaira Therapeutics (April 2024).
• Recognition: Member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Royal Society of London; Wakeman Award; Reeve-Irvine Research Medal; Canada Gairdner International Award (2008).
• LinkedIn: marc-tessier-lavigne
• Wikipedia: Marc Tessier-Lavigne

Origins

Tessier-Lavigne was born December 18, 1959 in Trenton, Ontario, Canada, and grew up in a bilingual francophone-anglophone household. He completed a Bachelor of Science in physics at McGill University in 1980, then proceeded to New College, Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship, completing a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and physiology in 1982. He shifted to neuroscience for doctoral study, completing a PhD in physiology at University College London in 1987, advised by David Attwell.

He held postdoctoral fellowships at University College London and at Columbia University with Thomas Jessell before joining the faculty of the University of California, San Francisco in 1991.

Career

Tessier-Lavigne's professional career organizes around four sequential phases: academic neurodevelopmental research at UCSF and Stanford; senior pharmaceutical research leadership at Genentech; university administration at Rockefeller and Stanford; and the founding-and-operating role at Xaira Therapeutics.

He held a faculty appointment at UCSF from 1991 to 2001, with a primary research focus on the molecular mechanisms of brain wiring during embryonic development. The principal published artifacts from the UCSF period include the identification of the netrin and slit families of axon-guidance molecules, foundational discoveries that established mechanisms by which growing axons navigate the embryonic nervous system. He moved to Stanford University in 2001 as professor of biological sciences and Susan B. Ford Professor in the Humanities and Sciences.

He left Stanford in 2003 for Genentech, where he served as Senior Vice President of Research Drug Discovery and subsequently as Chief Scientific Officer through 2011. The Genentech period covered a structurally consequential expansion of the company's discovery and development pipeline. He continued an associated faculty position at UCSF during the Genentech tenure.

He returned to academia in 2011 as the tenth president of Rockefeller University, serving until 2016. The Rockefeller presidency emphasized expansion of the biomedical research footprint and senior faculty recruitment.

He moved to Stanford as the eleventh president in 2016. His Stanford presidency covered the opening of the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and the broader expansion of the university's research-and-faculty programs. In 2022, Stanford's Board of Trustees opened an investigation into allegations regarding the integrity of images in five neurobiology papers on which Tessier-Lavigne had been a coauthor. The July 2023 investigative report concluded that the underlying allegations of fraud and misconduct against Tessier-Lavigne personally were "mistaken," and that there was "no evidence that Tessier-Lavigne himself manipulated data... nor that he knew about manipulation at the time." The report also identified "apparent manipulation of research data by others" in at least four of the five papers, and criticized the standard of scientific rigor employed in one of them. Tessier-Lavigne announced his resignation as Stanford president effective August 31, 2023, and stated that he would retract or correct the five papers, citing his decision to step down "for the good of the University."

He joined Xaira Therapeutics at its April 2024 launch as Chief Executive Officer, Chairman, and co-founder, alongside David Baker (Director of the University of Washington Institute for Protein Design and 2024 Nobel laureate in Chemistry), Hetu Kamisetty (formerly of Meta and the University of Washington Institute for Protein Design), and Vik Bajaj (Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Foresite Labs). Xaira launched with more than $1 billion in committed capital co-led by ARCH Venture Partners and Foresite Labs, the largest initial financing in ARCH history. The company combines AI-driven generative protein design (built on Baker's research at the University of Washington Institute for Protein Design) with multi-modal biology data infrastructure for understanding disease mechanisms.

Affiliations

• University of California, San Francisco: Faculty member, 1991 to 2001 (with subsequent associated appointment).
• Stanford University: Professor of biological sciences and Susan B. Ford Professor, 2001 to 2003.
• Genentech: Senior Vice President of Research Drug Discovery, 2003 to 2009; Chief Scientific Officer, 2009 to 2011.
• Rockefeller University: Tenth President, 2011 to 2016.
• Stanford University: Eleventh President, 2016 to 2023.
• Xaira Therapeutics: Chief Executive Officer, Chairman, and Co-founder, April 2024 to present.

Notable contributions

Tessier-Lavigne's published record runs from foundational neurodevelopmental research at UCSF and Stanford through the senior pharmaceutical-research leadership role at Genentech and the university presidencies, with the founding role at Xaira Therapeutics as the most recent operating output.

• Identification of netrin and slit families of axon-guidance molecules (UCSF, 1990s). Foundational discoveries on the molecular mechanisms of brain wiring during embryonic development.
• Genentech Chief Scientific Officer (2003 to 2011). Supervised the discovery and development pipeline during a period of structurally consequential expansion of the company's research-and-pipeline output.
• Rockefeller University presidency (2011 to 2016). Tenth president; biomedical-research-and-faculty expansion.
• Stanford University presidency (2016 to 2023). Eleventh president; opening of the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability.
• Xaira Therapeutics (April 2024). Co-founded the AI-driven drug-discovery company; more than $1 billion initial committed capital; reported approximately $2.7 billion valuation per mid-2025 PitchBook reporting.
• Recognition. Member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Royal Society of London; Wakeman Award; Reeve-Irvine Research Medal; Canada Gairdner International Award (2008).

Investments and boards

• Xaira Therapeutics (AI biotech): Chief Executive Officer, Chairman, and Co-founder, April 2024 to present. Privately held; more than $1 billion initial committed capital; approximately $2.7 billion valuation per mid-2025 PitchBook reporting.

He has held additional non-executive directorships and scientific advisory positions across the biopharmaceutical and academic-research ecosystems over his career.

Network

Tessier-Lavigne's longest-running professional relationships span the UCSF and Columbia neuroscience research community (including his postdoctoral advisor Thomas Jessell), the Genentech research-and-development senior leadership cohort, and the senior university-administration networks built across the Rockefeller and Stanford presidencies. The Xaira Therapeutics co-founder relationship with David Baker and Hetu Kamisetty connects him to the University of Washington Institute for Protein Design ecosystem; the Vik Bajaj relationship connects to the Foresite Capital and Foresite Labs investor cohort. ARCH Venture Partners co-founder Robert Nelsen anchored the launch capital alongside Foresite. The investor cohort, including F-Prime, NEA, Sequoia Capital, Lux Capital, and Lightspeed Venture Partners, overlaps with the senior-tier biotech-and-AI-and-deeptech investor base.

Position in the field

As of May 2026, Tessier-Lavigne occupies a structurally distinctive position among AI-driven drug-discovery chief executives. The combination of senior-pharmaceutical research leadership at Genentech, two prior university presidencies, and the founding role at Xaira Therapeutics produces a profile not directly mirrored by other chief executives in the AI-for-biology cohort. The closest peer comparator on senior-pharma-credentials grounds is Demis Hassabis at Google DeepMind and Isomorphic Labs, who likewise leads an AI-driven drug-discovery venture; Tessier-Lavigne differs in the prior pharmaceutical-research leadership tenure at Genentech and the university-administration tenure that Hassabis does not share.

The 2023 Stanford resignation has remained part of the public profile, and industry coverage of the Xaira launch and subsequent activity has consistently noted the prior university role. The factual record of the investigative finding (no personal misconduct, but identified manipulation by others and criticism of the rigor of one paper) has been characterized in subsequent biotech coverage as not impeding Xaira's capital formation or senior-team recruitment.

The 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded to Xaira co-founder David Baker for protein design has been characterized in adjacent coverage as validating the strategic premise that motivated Xaira's founding.

Outlook

Open questions over the next 6 to 18 months:

• Therapeutic-pipeline disclosures. Pace of pipeline disclosures and the first clinical milestones from the in-house pipeline.
• AI-and-biology platform research output. How the protein-design platform progresses post-Baker-Nobel-Prize.
• Competitive dynamics. Direct competition with Isomorphic Labs, EvolutionaryScale, and the broader AI-for-biology peer cohort.
• Series A or adjacent fundraising. Beyond the launch capital and the trajectory of the post-launch valuation mark-up.
• Senior research and drug-development recruitment. Continued team expansion across the AI-and-biology platform and the therapeutic-pipeline programs.

Sources

• Marc Tessier-Lavigne. Wikipedia biographical entry covering education, UCSF and Stanford research, Genentech, Rockefeller and Stanford presidencies, the 2023 resignation, and Xaira Therapeutics.
• Marc Tessier-Lavigne Bio at Xaira Therapeutics. Company bio covering current role and prior career.
• Stanford president to step down despite probe exonerating him of research misconduct. Science magazine coverage of the July 2023 resignation announcement.
• Bloomberg: Ex-Stanford President Tessier-Lavigne's Drug Startup Xaira Pulls In $1 Billion. Coverage of the April 2024 Xaira launch.
• TimmermanReport: Reinventing Drug Discovery with AI: Marc Tessier-Lavigne on The Long Run. Long-form interview on the Xaira research thesis.
• Stanford Daily: Tessier-Lavigne leads new AI biopharma startup. Coverage of the Xaira CEO transition.