Senior Management
Mark A. Goldsmith, M.D., Ph.D.
President, Chief Executive Officer and Board Chairman
Mark grew up around academic medical centers and knew early on that he would devote his professional life to medical science on behalf of patients. After studying biology and science in human affairs at Princeton University, he pursued a dual career in clinical medicine and scientific research through the Medical Scientist Training Program at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF). After postgraduate training at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School and UCSF, Mark joined the faculty of the UCSF School of Medicine, led a dynamic research laboratory within the Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology focused on the pathogenesis of and discovery of new treatments for life-threatening viral diseases, and taught and practiced medicine at the San Francisco General Hospital/UCSF. He co-authored 85 scientific publications and is co-inventor on multiple issued patents and applications. He also served as assistant director of the Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology and was consultant and collaborator to a variety of small and large biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies.
Mark has also been active in business since childhood, negotiating his first significant technology deal while a graduate student. After a productive career in academia, he was recruited to the private sector, where he served in senior management roles in private and public biotechnology companies, including Genencor International and Constellation Pharmaceuticals, where he drove the development of an industry-leading strategic alliance with Genentech, a member of the Roche Group. Prior to Revolution Medicines, he served as chief executive officer of four companies spanning early discovery through full development. He also served as senior executive-in-residence at Prospect Venture Partners. In 2012, Mark joined Third Rock Ventures full-time to lead its West Coast operations and design, launch and build new biotech companies. As partner, he led the collaboration with David Pompliano, Marty Burke and others that gave rise to Revolution Medicines. From 2015-2018 Mark served as a part-time venture partner at Third Rock Ventures.
Mark holds an A.B. from Princeton University and an M.D. and Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology from UCSF. He was elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians.
In addition to his role at Revolution Medicines, he serves as chairman of the board for Constellation Pharmaceuticals and is a board director for Nura Bio, a start-up in the field of neurodegeneration.
Steve Kelsey, M.D.
President, Research and Development
Realizing he wasn’t good enough to make a career out of playing rugby or soccer, Steve went to medical school. Training as an academic hematologic oncologist in London and working as a clinician scientist at Barts and The London before joining the pharmaceutical industry in 2000, Steve was always motivated to have science drive the discovery of novel therapies. In London, he ran a clinical practice treating patients with leukemias and lymphomas in a research-focused environment, ran a research laboratory doing both basic and translational research and taught hematology to medical students. After two years of leading the clinical development of Sutent® for Pharmacia/SUGEN, he joined Genentech where he became vice president of hematology/oncology, playing a significant role in the development of key products such as Perjeta®, Kadcyla® and Erivedge® as well as other molecules in the company’s oncology portfolio. He then led the development of imetelstat, a first-in-class telomerase inhibitor, at Geron where he served as head of research and development and chief medical officer. Following his time at Geron, Steve served as president of Onkaido Therapeutics, a Moderna Venture focusing on discovery and development of mRNA therapeutics for cancer. During his 17 years in the biotechnology industry, Steve has worked with small molecules, antibodies, antibody-drug conjugates, DNA oligonucleotides and mRNA platforms and has driven multiple industry and industry-academia collaborations as part of the mission to provide better drugs for patients with cancer. He has a passion for building and leading high-functioning teams doing groundbreaking cancer research.
Steve graduated with bachelor of medicine and bachelor of surgery degrees (MB ChB) and a doctorate of medicine (M.D.) from the University of Birmingham, U.K. He is a fellow of both the Royal College of Physicians (FRCP) of London and the Royal College of Pathologists (FRCPath), U.K. He has over 100 peer-reviewed publications spanning cell biology, drug discovery, drug development and patient care, and is a named inventor on several patents. He now watches more soccer than he plays.
Margaret (Peg) Horn, J.D.
Chief Operating Officer
Peg initially studied pharmacy, but shortly into that five-year educational program decided to advance her education by attending either medical or law school. A lawyer-professor at her pharmacy school tailored an independent legal study course for her, sealing her fate. She completed pharmacy school and then studied law at Villanova Law School. While still in law school, she worked part-time in DuPont’s legal department and subsequently joined the company counseling its pharmaceutical division.
Led by an entrepreneurial spirit and a desire to see more of the country, she moved to San Francisco. Once there, she embarked on a 30-year adventure in biotechnology, working at both large/public companies (Genencor International and Kosan Biosciences) and small, privately held companies (Cogentus and ProLynx). Through years of biotech experience including international strategic transactions, worldwide litigation and multiple public and private financings, Peg’s role evolved from counsel to business and operational leadership positions.
Peg holds a B.S. in pharmacy and a J.D., as well as an executive M.B.A. She is a member of the Pennsylvania and California bars and is a registered patent attorney with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. She is a registered pharmacist in Pennsylvania.
Luan M. Wilfong
Chief Human Resources Officer
Luan enjoys working with people and building great teams. She knows it takes excellent leadership, ongoing collaboration and an engaging environment to build a successful organization and culture. Early in her career, with an economics degree fresh in hand, she was offered a position in a private banking training program with a financial services company. Instead, with the desire to learn about growing strong teams within an organization, she requested the operations/human resources program. From the financial services industry, she transitioned into technology, and eventually into biotechnology, joining Gilead Sciences where she oversaw talent acquisition by directly recruiting for the scientific and clinical functions, led the compensation and employee benefits programs, and managed the human resources due diligence and task integration group for an early acquisition target.
Since her work at Gilead Sciences, Luan has run her own full-service human resources consulting firm, working with numerous organizations across biotechnology, public health, non-profit and high technology fields. This work included growing their staff, coaching their leaders on the importance of leadership and communication, and implementing key human resources functions and processes for their unique business cultures. Luan has also held executive human resources roles, most recently with Audience, Inc., where she was vice president of human resources, leading the function from the pre-IPO stage through an IPO.
Luan received her professional coaching certification through New Ventures West and holds an economics degree from Santa Clara University and a master’s degree in business administration from Golden Gate University. Luan continues to read and study the art of building exceptional teams and cultures.
Jack Anders
Chief Financial Officer
Jack has always had a keen interest in numbers and analytics, but also wanted to be part of teams that focus on improving patients’ lives. Those interests led him into to focusing on the business aspects of biotech organizations.
Jack brings approximately 20 years of finance and accounting experience to Revolution Medicines. Before joining Revolution, Jack was Vice President of Finance at Depomed, Inc., where he spent the last 12 years in various roles with increasing responsibilities including financial planning and analysis, commercial finance, accounting operations and external reporting. At Depomed, Jack helped build and lead the finance and accounting organizations as the company transformed from a drug development company to a commercial pharmaceutical company which raised over $1 billion in financing, completed four asset acquisitions and grew to revenues of over $400 million. Prior to Depomed, Jack had various managerial roles in finance and accounting at Elan Pharmaceuticals, Yahoo! and Novellus Systems. He started his career in the life sciences practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers and is a former CPA.
Jack received his bachelor’s degree from UCLA in Economics with an emphasis in Accounting.
Daniel Simon
Chief Business Officer
Daniel is passionate about helping get great science to patients. Having fallen in love with molecular biology at an early age, he learned he’d most enjoy being on the business side of life sciences, and has spent the last 20 years in industry working across pharmaceuticals, biotech and diagnostics.
Previously, Daniel was responsible for leading Guardant Health’s biopharma business development. Over 7+ years he built a team supporting more than 100 companies and 400 clinical trials using Guardant’s liquid biopsy platform to help accelerate drug development. Daniel started his career at McKinsey & Company in London, working in the Pharmaceutical and Medical Products group, leading client work in business strategy, innovation, BD and operations. Daniel has also served in business development, strategy, and market planning roles at MyoKardia, Onyx Pharmaceuticals, and Genentech.
Daniel holds an M.A. Hons. in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge and an M.B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.
Xiaolin Wang, Sc.D.
Executive Vice President, Clinical Development
Growing up next to a women and children’s hospital where her mother practiced, Xiaolin always wanted to be part of the healthcare industry. Leading a clinical development organization working on novel therapeutics is a perfect fit for her aspiration to help patients. With over 20 years of experience in all phases of clinical development across a wide range of therapeutic areas, including solid tumors, lymphoid and myeloid malignancies and others, she will be responsible for clinical science, clinical operations, biometrics, and pharmacovigilance.
Previously, Xiaolin was VP of Biometrics at Acerta Pharma, where she managed biostatistics, statistical programming, and data management, and was a member of the Senior Management Committee. She was a key contributor to the overall development strategy and approval of Calquence® (BTKi) for relapsed/refractory mantel cell lymphoma. Prior to Acerta, she was VP of Biometrics and Development Operations at Geron, where she managed biometrics, clinical operations, medical writing, and DMPK. Before Geron, she spent 11 years at Genentech, where she made significant contributions to Avastin®, Tarceva®, Herceptin®, and Xolair®. At Genentech, she held a number of leadership positions, including development team lead for Xolair and filing team lead for multiple BLA/sBLA’s.
Xiaolin started her industry career at Millennium Pharmaceuticals after receiving her Doctor of Science degree in Biostatistics from Harvard University. She also holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Probability and Statistics from Peking University in China and a Master of Science degree in Statistics from University of Washington, Seattle.
Jeff Cislini, J.D.
General Counsel
Jeff focused on corporate law early in his career because he was looking for an opportunity to bring legal expertise to complex business challenges. The ability to meet these challenges as part of a team that directly impacts the lives of patients drew Jeff to biotech.
He has approximately 20 years of experience and brings a pragmatic approach to practicing law, striving to interpret and discuss complex legal concepts in a coherent manner that results in actionable business advice.
Jeff comes to RevMed from Atara Biotherapeutics, where he most recently served as a Vice President and had responsibility for a broad range of legal matters, including corporate, contracts and employment. Prior to Atara, Jeff worked for a number of years as outside counsel focused on general corporate representation and transactional advice at the law firms of O’Melveny & Myers and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.
Jeff holds a JD from Harvard Law School and a BAS from Stanford University with dual majors in Land Resources Planning and Economics. He is a member of the California bar.
Adrian Gill, Ph.D.
Senior Vice President, Medicinal Chemistry
Adrian aspires to not only be a great medicinal chemistry leader, but a leader of great medicinal chemists. Adrian has over 23 years of drug discovery and development experience in senior roles across a diverse range of disease areas in both large pharma and biotech environments, having worked previously for Roche, Astex Therapeutics and AstraZeneca, where he was the head of medicinal chemistry for the CVMD iMed in Molndal, Sweden.
During his career to date, Adrian has been heavily involved in the identification of multiple clinical candidates across a variety of disease areas including RMC-4630, Revolution Medicines first development candidate selectively targeting SHP2 and more recently RMC-5552 which selectively targets mTORC1. Adrian was also a core member of the cell cycle kinase alliance between Astex and Novartis that ultimately led to the discovery of a dual kinase inhibitor approved by the FDA in combination treatment of HR+/HER2- advanced breast cancer. In addition, Adrian has authored over 20 publications in peer-reviewed journals, is a named inventor on over 40 issued and pending small molecule patent applications and has given multiple invited presentations at national and international conferences. Adrian received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Sussex, U.K., where he focused on synthetic methodology towards the total synthesis of rapamycin, and has a bachelor’s degree in applied chemistry from the University of Salford, U.K. Adrian is a member of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the American Chemical Society and an invited member of the AACR Chemistry in Cancer Research (CICR) Steering Committee.
Jan Smith, Ph.D.
Senior Vice President, Biology
Jan is an experienced molecular pharmacologist with a focus on, and a passion for, small molecule drug discovery and development. She has had the privilege of working on a range of target classes within several therapeutic areas including oncology, CNS/pain, gastrointestinal disorders and severe respiratory disease. Jan has over 20 years of experience in drug discovery R and D in the biopharmaceutical industry during which time she has been involved in the identification of multiple clinical candidates across a variety of disease areas. This includes Revolution Medicines' first development candidate RMC-4630, a selective, allosteric inhibitor of SHP2 and more recently RMC-5552, a selective inhibitor of mTORC1. Previously Jan was at Theravance Biopharma where she lead the advancement of several novel drug candidates (including ampreloxetine, a selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor; izencitinib/TD-1473, a gut-selective pan-Janus kinase inhibitor and velusetrag, a selective 5-HT4 receptor agonist) through discovery into early clinical Phase I/II development. Prior to that she was at Roche Bioscience (Palo Alto) where she contributed to new target identification and early lead discovery within the Analgesia Dept.
Jan has a passion for building and leading teams that can navigate tough problems, fostering both rigorous science and robust collaboration with colleagues and partners.
Jan graduated from University of Bath, U.K., earned a Ph.D. from University of Cambridge, U.K. and conducted postdoctoral research at the University of California, Irvine and at the Sandoz Institute for Medical Research, London, U.K. Jan is co-author on over 35 peer-reviewed publications and a named inventor on several issued patents and applications.