Speakers

LORI LYONS-WILLIAMS is a Chief Executive Officer and Board Director with more than 20 years of experience building companies, franchises, and teams in both large and emerging organizations. In addition to driving corporate, financial, operational, and commercial strategy, she has led large capital raises and guided teams through business development deals and R&D pipeline advancement for biotech assets across therapeutic areas, from oncology, immunology, and neuroscience to dermatology and urology. Since 2022, Lori has served as Chief Executive Officer of Abdera, a precision oncology company operating in one of the most promising fields in nuclear medicine: antibody-based targeted radiotherapies. In April 2023, she and the team successfully completed an upsized and over-subscribed $110 million Series-B financing and are now scaling the executive and R&D teams to build an industry leading, fully integrated company shaping the future of radiotherapeutic drug development. Prior to Abdera, Lori served as President and Chief Operating Officer of Neumora, a clinical-stage biotech with a proprietary platform to pioneer precision medicines in brain disease, which closed a $500 million Series-A financing in 2021. Previously, Lori was Chief Commercial Officer at Dermira (NASDAQ:DERM) until a successful $1.1 billion exit to Eli Lilly in 2020. Earlier in her career, Lori was Vice President, Sales and Marketing at Allergan, as the head of their Urology business unit, where she led teams through multiple successful global commercial launches. Lori currently serves as Independent Director on the boards of RAPT Therapeutics (NASDAQ: RAPT) and Contineum Therapeutics (NASDQ: CTNM, a Series-C company. Previously, she served on the board of Five Prime Therapeutics (NASDAQ: FPRX) until its acquisition by Amgen for $1.9 billion in 2021. Lori holds an MBA from Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota and a BA from Virginia Tech. She is an active member of Young President’s Organization (YPO) NorCal, Biotech CEO Sisterhood, and Women in Bio’s Boardroom Ready program