Zachary Hornby is currently the Chief Executive Officer, President and a Director at Optera Therapeutics Corp. Prior to joining Optera, Zach was most recently Chief Operating Officer at Ignyta, where he oversaw development of the company’s portfolio of four clinical stage therapeutics and was the team leader for the company’s lead program, entrectinib, which was the first drug in pharmaceutical history to garner the coveted BTD (FDA), PRIME (EMA) and Sakigake (PMDA) designations. In that role, he also led the business development process that led to Ignyta’s acquisition by Roche for $1.7 billion; after the Roche acquisition, Zach served as the Ignyta site-head where he was responsible for overseeing the integration into Roche. Before assuming the COO role, Zach was Ignyta’s CFO, helping the company go public and raise $120M in capital. Prior to joining Ignyta, Zach served in roles of increasing responsibility across business development, marketing, new product planning, finance and regulatory affairs at Fate Therapeutics, Halozyme Therapeutics, Neurocrine Biosciences and TKT (now the Human Genetic Therapies division within Takeda/Shire) and was a life sciences consultant at L.E.K. Consulting. Zach holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in biology, with a concentration in neuroscience, from Stanford University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.